#that i'm running with and will likely expand/alter

[palespawn]

i'm thinking thinking thinking of tying the gloomstalker/assassin build into astarion's characterisation here; since his rogue and charlatan background stems primarily from his years in enslavement to cazador - having to deceive marks, stalk the shadows, likely lockpicking and trespassing (although for non-residential places only, since, vampire). his skills as an archer/ranger now could also be influenced by his life pre-vampirism. thinking about his parentage but also his being an elf and having natural inclinations for magic and bow/swordsmanship. his father teaching him how to use a bow and arrow as a child to hunt for skins to create leather/furs (since i headcanon his father as having been a tailor), his mother connecting him with nature and magic, as a lover of art. the assassin aspect i think could naturally come about after being tadpoled and thrust into this whirlwind adventure, since they're constantly fighting and killing and fighting some more and he enjoys stabbing. whereas before, he wasn't really required to kill people, just entice them back to cazador. SO ANYWAY if i throw all of that into a mixing pot, i just like that even after 200 years of being forced to become someone else, there are still traces of his former self and his family within him, even though he, himself, doesn't remember them

[ros3ybabe]

🎀 Hobbies 🎀

I feel as tho I don't have much time to do things besides school, work, some chores, and survive right now, but I've been thinking about some hobbies I enjoy and would like to incorporate into my life when I decide to make the time without burning out!

Reading - I used to be big on reading just about any books I could get my hands on. Then I was really focused on reading self help, and now that I haven't been reading at all, I've been thinking about getting back into reading. Always looking for book recommendations, and I do have my eye on some books I'd like to purchase.

Gardening - if I had the time and space, I'd love to have a flower garden or a vegetable garden. It always makes me happy when the fruits of my efforts come to life, so tending to plants and gardening sounds super fun and relaxing.

Video Games - I used to play video games on and off, but I wouldn't mind owning a PS4 or a Switch and spending some time playing video games whenever I'd want time to wind down.

Cooking/Baking - I love learning things, and the sense of pride I've gotten in the past when receiving praise for things I've cooked or baked has really driven me to want to increase my skill. I've only baked something from scratch once in my life, but I'd really like to expand my skills in making desserts.

Exercise - I'm talking all forms of it! Dancing, martial arts/kickboxing type activities, yoga, pilates, running, swimming, spin/cycling, weight lifting (again), calisthenics, all of it! I don't currently look like the exercise type but I find various forms of movement to be so fun! If I had more time, I'd be trying new things all the time!

Volunteer work - This is something I used to do all the time, and it's a hobby that I enjoyed that kept me humble. Not only that, but I thoroughly enjoy showing kindness and compassion to others. Making a difference in anuwau brings me so much joy, and I love meeting new people and learning their stories. I also would love to volunteer with animals, because they deserve so much love and affection too!

Drawing/Art - I used to draw for fun but when I started college, I didn't have the time to devote to continuously increasing my art skills. I still own a sketch kit, coloring materials, and several sketchbooks so it really is a matter of having time.

Crochet - The thought of making things that I can gift to others seriously makes me so excited!! Crochet seems like such a fun, crafty, relaxing activity and the added fun of gifting those crafts to others would make it so fun!!

Scrapbooking - I don't know if I'd ever do this one, but I do Ike the idea of keeping my memories in a physical space, and not just in like pictures on my phone.

Learning - if school wasn't crazy busy, I'd spend all my time learning languages (ASL, Japanese, Spanish, Korean, Mandarin, Italian, etc), computer coding skills, how to make and do certain things, just anything I can do to keep my mind enriched.

Upcycling/Altering Clothes - I would love to upcycle or alter articles of clothes into more personalized pieces for myself. The thought of having a personalized, hand made closet full of clothes makes me really want to buy a sewing machine and learn how to use it to my advantage!

That's all I can think of for now that I'd like to someday incorporate into my life. Having hobbies is always so fun, but I've been so busy and tired that I don't mess with any of the hobbies I'd want to do. If anyone has any tips for time management, or resources for beginning new hobbies, please let me know!!

til next time lovelies 🩷

[wordpress-blaze-15182341]

Missiles and Meal Service: The Hidden Toll of Flying in War-zones

Common occupational hazards in aviation; the not so new flight deck stressors would encompass turbulence, delayed pushbacks, and that one passanger having an issue with someone reclining their seat (this is so very common, believe me). Let’s not forget another one who thinks the seatbelt sign doesn’t apply to them while on active runway (because they are just itching for a snack they left inside their carry-on luggage in the overhead bin. Opens bin, then bag falls off on them and everyone around. SMH)

Back to business. Pilots and cabin crew flying over the Middle East lately, especially in and out of Qatar, well, there’s a new, less subtle source of anxiety: missile attacks. Who doesn’t know the news by now?

Yes, flying into Doha these days might involve dodging airspace closures, U.S. airbase targets, and the occasional Iranian and Israeli news. Glamorous, right?

Very.

While passengers worry about delayed in-flight meals and Wi-Fi speeds being too slow or disconnecting , the crew up front and in the aisles are dealing with something much much heavier: the psychological toll of flying through a region where geopolitics are very unpredictable, stormy, and always just over the horizon.

What Happened in Qatar Exactly, you ask?

In resent years, we’ve witnessed sensitive airspaces and in response, airlines have shut down their airspaces. Flights being rerouted faster than a teenager dodging chores have become commonplace, and airline dispatchers around the world had one collective panic attack.

Now just imagine this. Inflight, flight crew are prepping beverage carts while air defence systems light up the radar. Boom-Chaka-Boom! Just another day in the skies.

Cabin Pressure: Flying with a Side of Adrenaline

Yes, crew (deck crew and cabin crew) are trained to handle demarcates, but war is not an average Emmergency! It’s one thing to worry about fuel efficiency. It’s another to fly over a region where missiles are a real-time hazard.

There is a huge difference between trusting an aircraft, the team, and trusting geopolitics.

Constant anticipatory anxiety.

Hypervigilance, even on layovers.

The unsettling knowledge that their aircraft might share airspace with defense drones, military jets, and… well, more missiles.

Hospitality Meets Hostility

Cabin crew, as you know, are the face of calm, smile and all. Even so, smiling while you serve fish, beef and a gluten free meal on a flight skimming a conflict zone? That’s dark art right there.

Results:

Crew becoming emotionally disconnected from their jobs.

Guilt when evacuating people while others are left behind. 2020 clears throat!

Luxury inflight service inside a pressure cooker floating mid air at 40,000 feet while those on ground are ducking. Definately dystopian!

More Fuel, More Detours, More Fatigue

Yep! Practical stress:

Flights being rerouted to avoid hot zones, adding hours to duty time.

Longer flight hours mean more fatigue, which affects both performance and emotional bandwidth.

There’s no glamour-AT ALL in a 15 hour turnaround because there is no clearance to land.

What Airlines Are Maybe doing

Critical Incident Stress Management teams.

Therapy appointments.

Pre and post dispatch briefings.

Even so, lots of crews feel out of the loop. Why you ask?Because, you get the news that you’re flying a risky zone when you’re already on it.

Hidden Costs: Forget Fuel and Insurance

Mental Health RiskWhat It Looks LikePTSD or traumaFlashbacks, fawning, sleep interruptions, avoidanceBurnoutEmotional numbness, lack of purposeAnxietyReccuring worry, overanalysing proceduresIsolationFeeling detached and lack of support on layovers or at home

These risks don’t show up on a flight log, but hey, they impact safety, morale, and retention. We talk about maintaining aircraft fatigue limits. What about crew fatigue limits?

Where Do We Go From Here?

How about a Flight Plan for Mental Health in Conflict Zones:

Transparent Security Briefings.

Weight & balance before takeoff is paramount, so is mental health balance.

Flight Debriefs After High-Stress Flights.

Better Global Oversight, meaning ICAO, IATA and other relevant bodies must update protocols for mental wellness involving high-risk routes.

Bottom line, pilots and cabin crew are indeed professionals for they train, adapt, and make sure to get the job done. But, they are people too and not robots. People who fly into the world’s most dangerous zones with nothing more than a safety manual and nerves of steel.

We owe them patience, understanding, protection and genuine support as they navigate war zones with grit and grace.

Fly safe. Check on your crew friends, and just maybe skip the missile jokes during boarding.

Source: Missiles and Meal Service: The Hidden Toll of Flying in War-zones

[intimidating-fettuccine]

Creep Minecraft World

I've mentioned before how they have a Minecraft world they all play on, and I wanted to actually just randomly talk about it :p

At least several times a month, they all get together to play on their Minecraft world together. Sometimes a few people might be missing or absent, but they try to have as many people playing at a time as they can. Things I've already established, BEN is the one who builds cool houses for everyone (I'm adding on that they're all set up like a villager village, so they're all connected by paths and near each other like a housing development), Jeff helps people the most with mining, and Toby and Sally are both working together to make a zoo for all of the animals they come across with nice surroundings so they can all be happy in there. Now, back to my expanding on it.

I think that they all probably split into groups on who does what, and some people will just tag in whenever they want to. BEN, Liu, Helen, and Brian are the designated builders of the world. They're really good at building and have an eye for making pretty designs, so generally, that's what they spend their time doing. Jeff, Natalie, Kate, and Tim are the designated miners in the world. They had built like a whole mining system and are constantly expanding it to collect more and more materials together. Both groups work together to help each other out, and the rest of the creeps are free to join a team if they'd like to so that they can help out more, but they usually just follow the instructions of the established team members. Toby and Sally as I said earlier are committed to building a zoo, and they name every single animal that they put in there. Sometimes others will help with building or getting animals in there (they have also been allowed to use creative mode to get animals or build something if they need to), and it's situated near the housing area so that everyone can just walk over and look at the progress when they want to. Generally, they all work really well together in their teams, but sometimes they do have disagreements.

Speaking of disagreements, one of the world rules is that keep inventory has to be on, mostly because there was a point when they kept going around killing each other and then they'd get mad because they'd lose their stuff, and fights would happen, so keep inventory has to be on so that now if they die or kill each other, nobody can be upset. (That started because Jeff and Tim would push each other into lava whenever they were in the mines and disagreed on something). They haven't even gotten very far into the Nether yet because they all keep dying or killing each other. Also, nobody is allowed to alter or destroy anything that someone else has made (even if they think it looks really bad and they want to change it to make it look better, cough cough, Helen, cough cough) so that everyone can have their own little area that they build in and they don't have to worry about the safety of the work. I think they also all have an "open chest" policy where they each have one chest with a sign above it that says open, so that if someone is missing or really needs certain supplies they can take from someone else's open chest that has extra stuff they don't really need in it. I'd like to think they also go on like planned attack expeditions, like if they find an area that has a warden they'll all team up to try to fight the warden together (they rarely succeed because everyone is just screaming and yelling and running and laughing), or they'll all fight the ender dragon together, or a wither. Also??? So many mods. BEN has added so many mods to the world and he and everyone else get so much enjoyment out of it. It can be chaotic sometimes, but the Minecraft world is one of the few things everyone can actually usually get along with about, so it's a good bonding experience for them.

[yan-randomfandom]

Yandere!Stanford Pines & Borrower!GN!Reader

[PLATONIC] Borrowers are really tiny humans who "borrow" items and food! requested,,, am so sorry if this isn't what u expected 😔

Ford's toothbrush is missing.

In fact, many of his things have gone missing for the past few days. Did Bill possess his body again and decide to prank him?

His eyes catch color behind the toilet. Ah, there's his toothbrush. It must have fallen off.

When he picked it up, it was much heavier than usual. Of course, anything else could've been a reasonable explanation and not some tiny human holding onto the toothbrush for their dear life.

Ford doesn't let you escape, immediately bringing you to his office. You spit out profanities on the way, banging your fists on his fingers.

"Fascinating," he mutters, moving your limbs around. "You're just a tiny human."

"They call us borrowers," you say as you keep avoiding his hands. You notice something. "You have six fingers. Did giants always have that? Never noticed."

He suddenly feels smaller than you. "Not usually."

Ford learned that you actually lived under his floorboards. He had to compromise with you so that you would stop stealing his stuff.

"Roommates?" you tilt your head. "As long as you don't kill me, I guess. And I said I was going to return it!"

He doesn't believe you. He hums, scratching his chin. "Your species must have been hit by the light of height-altering crystals. I'm guessing the way your people survive is by stealing from others."

"Borrowing."

He gave you all sorts of delicious food. Well, they're mostly store-bought, but it's better than anything you've gotten before.

Not to mention his stuff. He had way more than what you were expecting. All the more to decorate your house and expand your collections! He's generous; you'll give him that...

There's something you can't shake off though. Ford's a weirdo if anything.

Bill Cipher knows about you. But he doesn't really care because you're just like any other creature that Ford has gotten. He'll only intervene if you manage to distract Ford from the portal.

So it's a good thing you're doing the opposite. You're actually helping in your own little ways, such as bringing him pen and paper.

Sitting on Ford's shoulder, you keep yapping about rats eating your house. He doesn't mind the noise, albeit he's not really listening, but it's so much better than silence.

He has fallen asleep. You grab the blanket from a nearby table and drape it over his body the best you can. This man does more work than your entire lifespan; it's so concerning.

"You don't want to try becoming a full-sized human? Why not?" Ford asks sincerely, almost concerned. You becoming not tiny is what you were supposed to be.

"Me? Turning into your size?" you make a disturbed face, "no thanks. I feel like my life would be more complicated. You're taking care of me, and that's enough."

He smiles. "Interesting."

Once again, you find him asleep on the desk. You search for a good spot next to his arm and curl up to his warmth, closing your eyes and drifting to sleep.

...You wake up to relentless movement. Looking up, you meet Ford's crazed, hectic eyes.

"You," he exhales, his voice sounding different. "Not here to steal my eyes, are you?"

Without warning, he grabs your body. You tremble. "Bill didn't tell you to, right? You're the perfect size to scoop out someone's eye..."

"Ford—" A bright flashlight shines on your eyes.

He forces one eye open. A few seconds pass. "You're, ah, clear. I'm so sorry."

The human finally lets you go. "What the hell was that?! Are you okay??"

"There's something dangerous here," he winces as he goes around the room, locking all possible entrances. "We have to stop everything we've ever worked for! What I worked for!"

He walks over to you, a smile curling on his lips. "Don't worry. I'll protect you, little borrower. Won't let him lay a single finger on you."

Before you could even blink, you're pushed inside something. You quickly run to the front, holding the bars that kept you away from escaping. "Wait, let me go! You're being crazy!"

"I know this seems bad, but it's only temporary," he replies, locking your cage. "Not until I finish the protection around the house. I'll have to call Stan..."

yes he has cages.... he caged shmebulock 😭

gotta thank @shabbyshoebox for this treasure (tell me if u wanna be untagged!)

[malestransforming]

Sometimes I look into the mirror and hate how short and chubby I am. Is there something you can do to change that?

snap

Hey little buddy, I'm sorry you're so down on yourself. Let's see what I can do to help you out, shall I?

Your legs are getting thicker and more muscular. I'll thin out your stomach and harden it with some abs. Go ahead and flex them, run your fingers across your flat stomach. All that chub is gone. You like?

But look at your chest! It's expanding, growing and pushing out, right in front of your eyes. Massive man-tits. But don't worry, it's all muscle. That muscle will continue into your arms and shoulders. You've got a massive top shelf now.

Can I alter your face? Wait, why am I asking for permission. Let's add some facial hair: a tight and tidy moustache and a goatee? Short, curly hair on top. Dark hair, yeahhh that's it! Oh baby, we're gonna have to go all out now. Your skin is getting darker. A dark caramel-like brown.

And done! You're still short, but at least you're not short and chubby — you're short and muscular!

[moodymisty]

Hi!! Big fan of your works!! I am so giddy for the requests open and it took me a while to decide who I was the most thirsty for and, with no surprise too, Sanguinius and Leman are the two I just couldn't decide for so I'll let your wisdom make the choice (I just love them all giggling kicking twirling my hair).

I just like to imagine either Primarch coming back from a long campaing and very eager to see again their wifey only to be slapped in the face by the image of them being VERY pregnant, swollen all over the right places. Suddenly something very feral tackles their brain and while a baby is an amazing surprise, they are EAGER to try and show their appreciation by eating their spouse out like some sort of marathon competition.

My guy be STARVING <333

Author's note: This just felt Russ coded to me Relationships: Leman Russ/Fem!Reader Warnings: NSFW, Oral (female receiving) Pregnancy tokophobia warning, Slightly rough

Normally Russ is sometimes keen to take you along with him on his crusades; Let his lady enjoy the sights of the Hrafnkel and the planets they encounter. He knows his sons will keep you safe.

Women are like wolves; They don't enjoy being penned up their entire lives.

This time however the day of departure you suddenly feel poorly; A sudden bout of nausea and fatigue that left you struggling to keep up with him. It wasn't bad, you insisted, but the idea of boarding the ship in such a foul state wasn't entertained. Russ agreed, and left you with a myriad of gruff words and a warm embrace in the cocoon of pelts that adorned your shared bed.

The rest of that day you'd largely slept, serfs knocking every few hours to check on you- if you required anything of them.

You asked for food and a bath; The next few days proceeded relatively similarly. The Wolves didn't see much of their legion mother for a bit, and knew largely by recaps from serfs they pestered and the whining of a Fenrisian wolf whenever there was a locked door between it and you.

With Russ deep in the reaches of unknown space however, there was no way to tell him that a few weeks later, you were able to find an answer to your seemingly random state.

The older female serfs were quite eager to make you clothes as the news began to spread, and it was quite needed; Your belly grew at such a rate that new clothes were being run through at an insane rate, unless they were made with a rapidly expanding belly in mind. Within a few months it was beginning to wreck havoc on your back, and you were more so waddling than walking.

You still had three or so months left of your pregnancy roughly, but it's unsurprising that a child of Russ has turned out to be quite large. Perhaps a bit amusing that in the throws of things abit embarrassing to think about, you forgot the man was double your size, and naturally so; Unlike his sons boasting altered anatomy post birth.

You're now large enough that getting out of bed is even a struggle at times, trying to slowly scoot yourself off the primarch sized bed. The blankets tangle around you as you try to move as fast as you can; The Hrafnkel has finally moored and Russ has returned, you're eager to see him. As well as to show him his child, which he doesn't even know the existence of.

However it seems your excessive sleeping and slow maneuvering means that Russ was able to beat you to the punch, as the door to your most private bedchambers opens and you hear his booming voice as he looks around for you.

"Ah! I'm back! You're-"

You freeze in the halfway point of getting out of bed, and within moments, Russ' eyes focus on the massive swell of your overfilled belly.

"Leman! I..."

You purse your lips as he takes a step closer, eyes locked on your midsection.

"I found out a few weeks after you left."

His expression is unreadable, even as he approaches. A momentary flash of fear rushes through your blood before you're grabbed, and you're unable to hold back the instinctive yelp of prey.

Your belly makes it harder for him to push your legs back like he used to, but he manages it; You leaning on your forearms helps some.

"You taste better than you ever have,"

Your skin is probably hot and scraped by now, but the burn only feels good as his tongue laps at your core. His nose rubs against your clit, and each time your body clenches around nothing you let out the most pitiful whine.

Russ growls against you, his rough beard scratching your skin. He only bothers to cut it when it begins to get too long, keeping it at that stage of rough stubble just about to become a full beard. His braided hair brushes against your skin and almost tickles. He's a bit unkempt after his long crusade, but that's far from anything on your mind.

But even with it all you still feel so empty, and that distinct ache only intensifies as the knot in your stomach tightens to a peak. You finish not longer after, with his tongue against your clit and his nails digging into the soft flesh of your thighs. He continues to tease you through it, still lapping at your core even as you gasp for air and thrash. He only stops when you begin to writhe even more, and he pulls his face away enough that you can see it all.

You hadn't realized just how much you missed this; Missed him. How he was able to make you feel in comparison to yourself. He could pull any manner of whine and plea from you, with seemingly little effort. And he seemed to enjoy it all the more. The pride he gets from turning you into little more than a pile of pleas and promises is obnoxious, but his confidence and skill is concerning enthralling. Had someone explained his attitude to you, you would've ran far away, but something about him kept you hypnotized.

Your own juices mixed with his spit coat the bottom part of his face, over his lips and into his beard. It's slick across your own thighs as well, and glistens in the dim light with each loud and sloppy sound. He attacks you with the roughness and uncoordination of a ravenous beast but you couldn't care less; That was just how Russ was.

"Quite the surprise you've given me, hmm?"

He chuckles with a knowing smile that highlights his teeth. Your warm face struggles to hide any emotion. Your face and hair feel like a mess, your skin is layered in the slightest sheen of sweat. Your heart pounds against your chest and you know he can hear it, as you stare into his blown out pupils. You briefly feel like a cornered hare.

"I only found out once you were well out of the realm of any communication. If i could have I would've-"

Russ chuckles louder.

"I think I prefer coming back to the sight of you round and ready to pop, actually." His hands still maintain the grip on your thighs, and your heart is still racing.

"Maybe next time will be the same."

[pseudowho]

Random question, during any of your pregnancy’s were you ever insecure about you body, how you were acting, or any of your cravings?

Me and my fiancé were talking about plans for future kids and i’m to scared to ask anyone else. could you give me a small run through of things to expect?

Thank you so much!!

Hey! I'll answer this both as a woman who has done pregnancy and birth three times, and as an experienced midwife. I don't like the 'horror story' sharing that many women do around pregnancy; it muddies the waters, and is supremely anxiety-inducing for anyone who is pregnant while hearing it.

You need to know I could write, and have written, essays on this.

As a midwife: Pregnancy is this period of unique physiological change in your body and mind, that even when it is normal (i.e. normal symptoms, not a sign of an unwell pregnancy) can be profound and lifelong.

These normal symptoms, including but not limited to nausea and vomiting (commonly referred to as morning sickness, though present at any time of day), weight gain, swelling, congestion, mood changes, appetite changes, stretch marks, heartburn and hip/joint pain, can range from barely present/absent, to severe.

Even severe pregnancy symptoms aren't always considered abnormal unless they're making you unwell (i.e. unable to keep any food or water down).

These symptoms can be altered by many of your pre-existing conditions; your weight and general health, your lifestyle and eating habits, your exercise habits, simple dumb luck/genetics, family history, mental health and body image/dysmorphia, etc.

So in that respect, in a normal pregnancy, I have seen some women who are extremely insecure and struggling to cope with the changes to their body and mind, and some women who absolutely breeze through it like pregnancy hasn't even affected them. Nowhere on this spectrum does it ever surprise me.

So now I'll talk about the average first pregnancy. As I said...the experience varies wildly.

Early on in your pregnancy (up to about 12 weeks) often feels like you're in an utter no-man's land. You feel like healthcare professionals aren't wildly interested in you; they'll take your history and 'book' your pregnancy in from (now this is based on the UK) about 8 weeks pregnancy (please note, your 'weeks of pregnancy' aren't calculated from the moment you fall pregnant, it is calculated from the first day of your last period, so in a woman with a regular 28-30 day cycle, there usually feels like there's a 'disparity' of about 2 weeks in your dates-- there isn't, this is how we calculate it). You may have an early scan or two. Essentially, we wait to see if the pregnancy is continuing; lots of miscarriages happen in the first 8 weeks. About 1/3 of pregnancies will miscarry here, in fact.

Tiredness is real at this stage. You may feel like you want to sleep constantly. It's shit that at this stage you often feel the worst, but feel like you're also just being expected to 'get on with it'. Please ask for help. If your partner isn't an equal partner pre-pregnancy, best of luck to you. You may feel utterly useless sometimes days from exhaustion, and this is normal I'm afraid.

Mid pregnancy drags, but you're usually starting to feel a bit better. The top of your uterus doesn't even begin to rise out of your pelvic brim until about 16 weeks, and the lower part of the uterus only begins to expand and form (creating that 'pregnant' belly look) from about 28 weeks, so don't try to force a bump that simply isn't there. Lots of women are very keen to look pregnant. Just chill. It's okay if you dont. Take it easy.

You do not need to eat for two; your pregnancy uses your intake more effectively when you're pregnant. Do take pregnancy specific multivitamins though. They don't need to be expensive or fancy ones; normal store bought are generally just the same, without all the fancy packaging.

Later pregnancy (the third trimester, 28 weeks onwards), you will likely notice that tiredness creeping in again. This is where your baby is largely formed structurally, and is maturing and gaining size and weight. Please ignore any and all comments from people who look at you and announce that you will have a big/small baby. They're idiots and likely wrong. Laugh it off. Here is where you may start to notice things like heartburn, hip pain, mood changes coming back again. You're heavy, and it's harder to move, and your organs are moving out of the way to facilitate a baby. Cut yourself some slack if at all possible.

So...now to me and what I had.

As Haitch: (tw/cw: suicidal ideations) So it's now a running joke, that my body was so 'good' at pregnancy, so utterly flooded with hormones, that while I became this perfect machine for growing and birthing babies, pregnancy broke me.

I spent every waking minute of the first 16 weeks nauseous and exhausted, bone deep exhausted. I had all the usual symptoms hit hard and early. I suffered severe pelvic separation, agonising pain, and @mrhaitch had to help me up from an early stage.

Thankfully, he was exquisite pregnancy support. Full is based on him, after all.

I ended up on some pretty strong medication for my heartburn, as it was severe enough that my stomach acid was damaging my vocal chords.

Worst of all was my mental health. From 26-28 weeks, your progesterone levels boom. This is normal. But this is where we discovered that progesterone is a very bad hormone for me. I developed severe antenatal depression and anxiety, and antenatal psychosis. I was paranoid, delusional, fragile and had active suicidal ideations. I had plans on how I would end my life. This is all utterly unlike me.

With my first pregnancy, our son was born at 42 weeks after a fast, normal labour, but I don't know how I didn't end my own life towards the end of my pregnancy. With my second two, we were more on it, and my lovely colleagues induced my labours from 38 weeks, purely because my mental health was so bad.

I was watched like a hawk in pregnancy 3. We knew I would lose my mind...and sadly, I did. I was medicated but It did little to help. It was at that point (October/November 2024) that I began writing on Tumblr...and here I am.

So as I have said...lots of things you could expect.

To this day in my 13 year Midwifery career, I have seen fewer than 10 women whose mental health was affected as badly my pregnancy as mine was. So I wouldn't worry too much about that.

Phew. If you have any more specific questions, I would be happy to answer.

Love,

-- Haitch xxx

[the-nox-syndicate]

SysNotes devlog 1

Hiya! We're a web developer by trade and we wanted to build ourselves a web-app to manage our system and to get to know each other better. We thought it would be fun to make a sort of a devlog on this blog to show off the development! The working title of this project is SysNotes (but better ideas are welcome!)

What SysNotes is✅:

A place to store profiles of all of our parts

A tool to figure out who is in front

A way to explore our inner world

A private chat similar to PluralKit

A way to combine info about our system with info about our OCs etc as an all-encompassing "brain-world" management system

A personal and tailor-made tool made for our needs

What SysNotes is not❌:

A fronting tracker (we see no need for it in our system)

A social media where users can interact (but we're open to make it so if people are interested)

A public platform that can be used by others (we don't have much experience actually hosting web-apps, but will consider it if there is enough interest!)

An offline app

So if this sounds interesting to you, you can find the first devlog below the cut (it's a long one!):

(I have used word highlighting and emojis as it helps me read large chunks of text, I hope it's alright with y'all!)

Tech stack & setup (feel free to skip if you don't care!)

The project is set up using:

Database: MySQL 8.4.3

Language: PHP 8.3

Framework: Laravel 10 with Breeze (authentication and user accounts) and Livewire 3 (front end integration)

Styling: Tailwind v4

I tried to set up Laragon to easily run the backend, but I ran into issues so I'm just running "php artisan serve" for now and using Laragon to run the DB. Also I'm compiling styles in real time with "npm run dev". Speaking of the DB, I just migrated the default auth tables for now. I will be making app-related DB tables in the next devlog. The awesome thing about Laravel is its Breeze starter kit, which gives you fully functioning authentication and basic account management out of the box, as well as optional Livewire to integrate server-side processing into HTML in the sexiest way. This means that I could get all the boring stuff out of the way with one terminal command. Win!

Styling and layout (for the UI nerds - you can skip this too!)

I changed the default accent color from purple to orange (personal preference) and used an emoji as a placeholder for the logo. I actually kinda like the emoji AS a logo so I might keep it.

Laravel Breeze came with a basic dashboard page, which I expanded with a few containers for the different sections of the page. I made use of the components that come with Breeze to reuse code for buttons etc throughout the code, and made new components as the need arose. Man, I love clean code 😌

I liked the dotted default Laravel page background, so I added it to the dashboard to create the look of a bullet journal. I like the journal-type visuals for this project as it goes with the theme of a notebook/file. I found the code for it here.

I also added some placeholder menu items for the pages that I would like to have in the app - Profile, (Inner) World, Front Decider, and Chat.

i ran into an issue dynamically building Tailwind classes such as class="bg-{{$activeStatus['color']}}-400" - turns out dynamically-created classes aren't supported, even if they're constructed in the component rather than the blade file. You learn something new every day huh…

Also, coming from Tailwind v3, "ps-*" and "pe-*" were confusing to get used to since my muscle memory is "pl-*" and "pr-*" 😂

Feature 1: Profiles page - proof of concept

This is a page where each alter's profiles will be displayed. You can switch between the profiles by clicking on each person's name. The current profile is highlighted in the list using a pale orange colour.

The logic for the profiles functionality uses a Livewire component called Profiles, which loads profile data and passes it into the blade view to be displayed. It also handles logic such as switching between the profiles and formatting data. Currently, the data is hardcoded into the component using an associative array, but I will be converting it to use the database in the next devlog.

New profile (TBC)

You will be able to create new profiles on the same page (this is yet to be implemented). My vision is that the New Alter form will unfold under the button, and fold back up again once the form has been submitted.

Alter name, pronouns, status

The most interesting component here is the status, which is currently set to a hardcoded list of "active", "dormant", and "unknown". However, I envision this to be a customisable list where I can add new statuses to the list from a settings menu (yet to be implemented).

Alter image

I wanted the folder that contained alter images and other assets to be outside of my Laravel project, in the Pictures folder of my operating system. I wanted to do this so that I can back up the assets folder whenever I back up my Pictures folder lol (not for adding/deleting the files - this all happens through the app to maintain data integrity!). However, I learned that Laravel does not support that and it will not be able to see my files because they are external. I found a workaround by using symbolic links (symlinks) 🔗. Basically, they allow to have one folder of identical contents in more than one place. I ran "mklink /D [external path] [internal path]" to create the symlink between my Pictures folder and Laravel's internal assets folder, so that any files that I add to my Pictures folder automatically copy over to Laravel's folder. I changed a couple lines in filesystems.php to point to the symlinked folder:

And I was also getting a "404 file not found" error - I think the issue was because the port wasn't originally specified. I changed the base app URL to the localhost IP address in .env:

…And after all this messing around, it works!

(My Pictures folder)

(My Laravel storage)

(And here is Alice's photo displayed - dw I DO know Ibuki's actual name)

Alter description and history

The description and history fields support HTML, so I can format these fields however I like, and add custom features like tables and bullet point lists.

This is done by using blade's HTML preservation tags "{!! !!}" as opposed to the plain text tags "{{ }}".

(Here I define Alice's description contents)

(And here I insert them into the template)

Traits, likes, dislikes, front triggers

These are saved as separate lists and rendered as fun badges. These will be used in the Front Decider (anyone has a better name for it?? 🤔) tool to help me identify which alter "I" am as it's a big struggle for us. Front Decider will work similar to FlowCharty.

What next?

There's lots more things I want to do with SysNotes! But I will take it one step at a time - here is the plan for the next devlog:

Setting up database tables for the profile data

Adding the "New Profile" form so I can create alters from within the app

Adding ability to edit each field on the profile

I tried my best to explain my work process in a way that wold somewhat make sense to non-coders - if you have any feedback for the future format of these devlogs, let me know!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Disclaimers:

I have not used AI in the making of this app and I do NOT support the Vibe Coding mind virus that is currently on the loose. Programming is a form of art, and I will defend manual coding until the day I die.

Any alter data found in the screenshots is dummy data that does not represent our actual system.

I will not be making the code publicly available until it is a bit more fleshed out, this so far is just a trial for a concept I had bouncing around my head over the weekend.

We are SYSCOURSE NEUTRAL! Please don't start fights under this post

[delayeddrabbles]

imagine being loved by me - mob au (available by request)

a/n: it's missing my mob au hours so I'm reposting the chapters here for safe keeping and making it available for drabble requests rather than a series. mob au rafia and rarry feat. bi!rafe, arranged marriage, shotgun wedding, gang violence, drugs, cheating, emotional immaturity. cop!kie, cop!pope, gang!jj, gang!cleo, and obx sarah & john b just chilling living their life. cw long post. gradient: text color fader - sunset and divider: @bernardsbendystraws

chapter one: the butterfly effect

Not all mistakes are created equal. Some come charging in on a stormy night, bringing death and destruction, while others slip in silently on an otherwise unremarkable Thursday afternoon with unknown ramifications...

For Rafe Cameron that life altering moment came at the tender age of 19. That lynch pin of his life, that axel on which everything else turned, was the day he met Barry “Barracuda” Rosini (he still wasn’t fully convinced that that last name wasn’t a lie) in the shadows of a pretentious Wall Street party. Between his sophomore and junior year of college, he’d signed up for a summer internship with a property mogul, desperate to get out of Chapel Hill and eager to cut his teeth on something real, prove his metal.

He'd only been to New York once before when his mum had wanted to visit an old college friend. She’d gotten too sick to sight see and they’d had to cut the trip short and come home. So arriving at Penn had filled the floppy haired teen with an odd sinking dread.

Barry had been a breath of fresh air in comparison. He wasn’t shrinking or antsy or uncertain. He was bold and brash and loud. He’d let him drink, smoke weed and try drugs he’d never had before (in responsible limited doses of course. Apparently, overdoses were bad for business). Nothing had been barred. Everything had been permitted, and he’d coached him through all of it. He was a steady hand. A blank cheque. A door to another world and Chapel Hill had paled in comparison upon his return. An empty crevice had been left by Barry’s absence. He'd longed for New York ever since.

The second his dad had mentioned expanding Cameron Development into actually holding and running the properties they’d created instead of flipping him he’d volunteered to expand them into the hotel business. And where better to do that than amongst the skyscrapers of New York where they already owned a huge portfolio of apartment blocks and where Barry just happened to be.

What had started out as buying drugs, quickly turned into pushing them. What began as friendly poker games in Rafe’s loft quickly turned into meeting half of Barry’s crew and an open-door policy for whoever Barry wanted. By the time he met Sofia, Rafe was deep within the web. He stuck to Barry’s side like glue any spare moment he could, learning all he could.

He quickly figured out that he could fight matches and win money and that he could purposely throw matches and make even more money. Barry was always pleased when a hustle went off without a hitch and, when given the right motivation, Rafe loved the spotlight.

Rafe liked to think he was above clichés. Hitting on cocktail waitresses in rooms full of smoke and dirty money felt like the biggest cliché of all. Thankfully, Sofia wasn’t a waitress she was a bartender and her place of work was a cosy Irish pub not one of the backwater clubs he usually hung out in. Topper and Kelce had purposely come to town to get trashed on St Patricks Day and so he’d departed from his usual places and his usual routine and set foot in Maybank territory. Sofia had been…she’d been something else.

Next thing he knew weeks had flown by and he still, surprisingly, wasn’t sick of her.

For Sofia Marquez, that life-altering moment came much later in life and with far less fanfare. It had come after a few short weeks of them being tangled up together unable to stay away. Any spare moment they could find they knocked on each other’s doors. That crucial moment had originally felt so ordinary.

It had been the split-second indulgent decision, 4am on a Sunday morning, to let Rafe Cameron crawl into her bed in her tiny studio apartment on a quiet street in Brooklyn. Long after the CVS and the bodega had closed and the closest 7-Eleven was three blocks away. Looking back, it was obvious the risk she had run by even letting him set foot in her home but at the time she’d been too cosy and half-asleep and he’d been too drunk and eager for either of them to care.

That was until a few weeks later when her life changed virtually overnight at a measly 23 years old. She went from having a steady bartending job, on her way to making management, being single and renting a shitty studio to standing in a penthouse apartment right on the park with a positive pregnancy test and  a 22 year old fiancé she'd known for all of two seconds.

Well obviously more than two seconds.

She'd expected disappointment when she told him but the look on his face verged on disdain. As if this was her fault. As if she’d planned this to entrap him. As if it disrupted his plans and not hers!

He thankfully caught himself just in time before she bubbled over in anger and quickly raised his hands in defence with wide blue eyes and corrected himself. "I'm not...this isn't...” he struggled to find the right words, scratching his short hair as he thought, before mumbling a feeble excuse in defeat, “the best time."

Everything about his apartment felt cold and sparse and lonely. Like the opening shots of a bachelor pad in one of her mother’s cheesy rom coms. All concrete pillars and muted steel and dark wood. The softest thing in his bedroom was this plush grey rug beneath his bed that she’d retreated to in this desperate hour, needing something warm and comforting while everything else fell apart.

They both sat slumped on the floor side by side with their backs pressed to the cool metal frame and dark smooth comforter of the bed as an unhelpful reminder. The room was painted in the dusty blue light of the city glare, scattered with fragments of moonlight, their forlorn faces illuminated by a single bedside lamp and the distant glow of the light from the hallway. None of this had gone to plan.

"Yeah, well I'm not the one who whined about how condoms feel!" she'd scoffed, his look already offending her despite him quickly retracting it. “That’s on you” Her body coursed with venom and adrenaline and her eyes scanned his face for each little twitch and shift furiously collecting and cataloguing each red flag, each scrap of information. Analysing whether this child would be safe with him. This was a huge decision. It had taken her three weeks and four tests to pluck up the courage to even raise it with him.

Sofia turned away sulking as the harshness of her words caught up with her, she wrapped her arms tight around her tucked up knees, clinging to them for the support she knew she wouldn't get from him. "I'm sorry" she'd sighed, wiping away involuntary hot tears that trickled down her cheeks and smeared and shone beneath her eyes. "That isn't fair...” she whispered, We're both adults..." Barely. She pushed down the terror raging inside of her and instead of focused on shepherding him through this conversation.

"Do you wanna go somewhere? Talk about options?"

"I don't need options.”  She stated firmly. She wanted to do this. Even if it was too soon. Even if it was foolish. “I'm not considering anything else." As progressive as a Catholic as she was, an abortion just wasn’t within her remit of possibility. Others, sure, but not her. Not today. If this was where life was leading her then she was choosing to follow it.

"Fuck...." he dragged out the curse in a groan as if the reality of the situation had finally hit him. She had to remind herself to be calm and kind and patient. She'd been thinking about this for days. He'd only a had a few hours. He growled in frustration and let his face fall inside his folded arms that rested on his knees. He hid there for a moment and her stomach tangled into nervous knots as she watched and waited.

While she could do this alone, with her Mom and Abuela, that wasn't the ideal outcome. It would be much easier if they could do this together. But a few weeks was hardly a foundation to build a life or a partnership on. After a long silence, he sat up rubbing his eyes with his finger and thumb that then squeezed the bridge of his nose. He seemed reluctant. Disgruntled even. Like he was trying to wrap his tired brain around it. Trying to plot his escape.

Then he’d suddenly changed.

"Right!" She'd nearly jumped out of her skin when he'd sprung to his feet and muttered something to himself about being proactive and thinking like his father. "I'm gonna do this now before I punk out"

"Do what?" she craned and twisted her neck to watch him march around to the other side of the bed and into the walk-in closet. It was that determined stride that had gotten them into this mess in the first place.

Sofia smiled at her own private joke for a moment as he lifted up onto his tip toes and rummaged through the boxes on the top shelf. Her mind cleared of all urgency and distrust for a moment as she took him in. His dark blond buzz cut already growing out, his stubble too seemed darker in the dim blue light, little hints of tattoos peeked out from under his white dress-shirt collar and his rolled and crumpled white sleeves. His suit jacket was somewhere in the living room after they’d cut their dinner date short to come back to his to talk. Maybe he’d thought she’d wanted to define things, she thought, and he hadn’t wanted to do that in public. If this hadn’t cropped up now she would have happily left things undefined and casual for way longer. It was unfair really. To have dropped it on him like this.

She admired him as he moved - those long tanned veiny forearms littered with track marks and scars, the way his fingers moved deftly, the way the thick muscles in his back stretched, how his tongue ran over his bottom lip in concentration. Maybe keeping him her in life, beyond whatever this brief affair had been, wouldn’t be so bad.

He found what he was looking for and her wandering thoughts were rudely interrupted.

“Sit” he instructed quickly, and she complied. There was an intense focus still in his eyes as he walked back around the bed and sat beside her on the edge of it. The mattress sank under his weight sliding her towards him, so their thighs pressed tightly together. She was grateful for that contact. She needed that thread of connection to him in the midst of this calamity.

In his lap was a small non-descript brown shoe box. He took off the lid and started loading loose items into her open hands, searching for something: photos, postcards, ticket stubs, little baby feet set in plaster.

Her stomach clenched, and she gasped sharply through her nose, as she realised what was happening. “Rafe…”

“Ah!” he tutted with a raised finger in her face to chide her and demand silence. His eyes were more amused than malicious which only confirmed her suspicions.

“You don’t have t-” he cut her off before she could protest.

“Shh and let me think…” He continued to dig through the box shoving its contents from side to side, rustling and clinking as it moved. Sofia’s eyes fell on his face in the photo in her lap. A tiny little thing with a mess of ashy hair and bright blue eyes half closed as a genuine teeth half missing grin dominated his face. A blonde woman squishing his face tightly against her cheek without him squirming.

He stopped moving, catching a quick tentative glance at the photo in her lap in silence. He stayed there. Watching her out of the corner of his eye uncomfortably as she studied him. He was so different now. Weathered and cautious. Explosive and sensitive. No longer care-free.

He turned back to his hunt with an embarrassed duck of his head and finally found what he was looking for – a pale green velvet ring box buried beneath the endless paper. Even though she’d known it was coming, her heart still leapt to her throat.

She tugged on the hem of her black sweater dress and fidgeted with the cuffs of her sleeves. She fixed her bun and her bangs and toyed with her gold hoop earrings as he shifted to kneel in front of her with both shins flat on the floor and his legs tucked under him.

Shit, this was actually happening.

Sofia clenched the fabric of her sleeves in tight fists and bit deep into her bottom lip. Urgent eyes searched his for some kind of hesitation. Some kind of trick. Her heart pounding in her chest and her throat clamping shut. His head was still slightly bowed. His eyes searching the middle distance for the right words. He seemed to find them as he wet his lips to speak.

“Look...” he took a deep shaky breath “I like you...you don't care about any of the meaningless shit the rest of the people in my life care about... You're… cool."  She’d laughed at the simplicity and innocence of that adjective, quickly covering her smile with her sleeve. He made it sound like a high school crush. God, he barely knew her at all! She watched him with warm eyes as he ducked his head and rolled his tongue into his cheek and avoided her very direct gaze. "You're grounded and I...I need that. Life's about to get real crazy for me and I want you…with me. And if this is how that timeline’s gonna go to make that happen then fine.  Let's do it"

This whole situation was absolutely absurd. She laughed and wiped away stray involuntary tears before admitting through another bright smile "I don't even know what you do?!"

"Hotels"

"Ok...” she’d murmured with a quick nod, making a mental note of that “And Barry?"

"Yeah…” he’d winced at the question, reluctantly admitting “Barry's into some dodgy shit."

"You too?" she’d asked perhaps a little too quickly and casually for his liking. He paused. He studied her with deep probing eyes and a furrowed brow, probably calculating his odds of getting out of this conversation. His odds were very slim. If she was going to hitch her wagon to his she needed to know where it was headed.  

He finally conceded and nodded sheepishly. Avoiding her eye with a gruff mumbled "Is that going to be a problem?"

Sofia lifted her eyes to take in what she suspected would soon be her room too. The soft small grey chaise in the corner with forest green pillows overlooking the glittering skyline, the glimpse of white marble floors through the ajar ensuite door, the Slim Aarons beach photography collection dotted throughout the house, probably reminding him of home. "Do you do things here?" she murmured still deep in thought.

She caught his nod out of the corner of her eye and turned back to him. She worked her bottom lip between her teeth as her mind twisted and turned. This place needed to be a sanctuary. If she was going to feel comfortable enough to be pregnant and sore and awkward and to breast feed and pace in the middle of the night then it had to peaceful. It had to be safe. He’d already told her he’d been mugged at least twice and the thought of strangers waltzing in and out of their home was the last thing she needed. There would be no walls. She would have no control. There would be no protection for her or the baby. She couldn’t have that.

“Can you stop doing it here?”

He opened his mouth to protest but stopped. His jaw shifted from side to side and his mind worked over the problem. “I can ask. I can’t promise he’ll say yes”

Her white knuckles unwound reluctantly, and she reached out her finger and thumb to lift his chin and make him look at her. He swallowed thickly as her voice dipped to a low private whisper, a flicker of fear buried deep beneath the warm intimacy that shone in her brown eyes. "Am I safe with you?"

Her stomach tensed, bracing for his response but he answered without hesitation. "Always"

“You weren’t mugged, were you?”

He shook his head.

"Who actually jumped you?"

He huffed a frustrated scoff that made her flinch for a moment but his eyes wandered the room as if dipping into a memory. Conjuring up anger at someone absent. His jaw tensed and that fury seethed just beneath the surface of his skin. “Some assholes under Maybank in Brooklyn. That’s where he likes to hang out.” He avoided her eye, using his free hand to toy with hem of her dress as he relayed the information through gritted teeth. " They thought I was up to no good when I was literally just there to see you!"

"Right..." she noted, the wheels working overtime in her brain "What did you do to piss him off?"

He laughed, amazed and little exasperated. "You ask a lot of questions!”

"I like to know what I'm in for"

"Babe, this floor is really hard!" he whined and the pet-name and the sudden warm hand on her knee caught her off guard. Her stomach somersaulted and her cheeks flushed, and a smile threatened to cross her lips disrupting this serious moment.

So this was to be their life now. Tenderness and discovery and bickering. Sweet nothings and vacations and partnership. She’d pouted with mock sympathy at the poor baby earning a delicious laugh from him as she brushed her fingers through the short strains of his hair until both her arms came to rest around his neck

"You're sober right now?"

He’d nodded looking up her with amused warm blue eyes and a tiny knowing smile as she dragged this on and on. He’d opened the ring box as proof he was serious just to nudge her that little bit further and it had revealed a glittering diamond far beyond anything she’d ever imagined for herself.

"And you’re sure?"

“Yes”

A ‘yes’ crept up onto her tongue flattening it with the weight of that word. It held too much gravitas. Too much meaning. It would alter lives and move mountains if she so much as muttered it and she felt too unholy to say it. It got stuck on her tongue and she had to cut through the tension and terror with casual semantics. To make this feel like less than it was. Like a conversation that happened every day.  

"Then Ok"

chapter two: black sheep

Sofia was exhausted. Planning a wedding was hard enough without meeting a whole family, struggling with morning sickness, and still processing the onslaught of new information her fiancé was throwing at her.

It felt safer to not move in until after the wedding. Not for any purity’s sake but because she still needed that out. She still hadn’t quite wrapped her mind around him.

To curb his irritation and preserve his energy they’d come up with a system. She’d scribble down all her questions in a notebook in her handbag or on the bedside table and then each morning after he’d make breakfast, and she’d rattle off 5 of the most pressing ones while he could multi-task and process them more easily. She’d even caught herself seducing him now and then when a lingering what-if got particularly nagging. She wasn’t proud of it, but he didn’t seem to mind.

Were the hotels a front? No, they were legit.

Did his dad know? He knew Rafe was in with the wrong crowd, but he just chalked it up to his drug addiction.

How long had he known Barry? Almost four years.

How long had he worked for Barry? About two. On and off.

Why off? He’d chickened out at first.

As her morning sickness worsened and the hormones increased, they drifted a little. She’d rather be in her own room in her own bed and not have to fight the urge to smother him in his sleep for breathing too loudly. Because of that she hadn’t seen Barry since the engagement.

She wondered how he’d react to all this. Was she pulling Rafe’s focus? Would he be pissed?

The dark cave she seemed to find herself in only got deeper and darker with each knew thing she learned. Endless caverns. Winding tunnels. Piles upon piles of secrets. Was she being a complete idiot by staying tied to this man? She could see every red flag, every warning sign and yet as the weeks went by, she was showing no signs of stopping.

All those half-finished psych papers she’d taken at community college had been right. Oxytocin was a bitch. Each time she had doubts he kissed them better. Each time she got mad he was a little bit into it.

So, they pushed and pulled and jostled for power. Testing each other. Distrusting each other. It was a long exhausting process, and she knew it wasn’t even half done. They couldn’t go back and forth like this forever. Sofia knew she had to find a way to keep herself from freaking. Journalling and fucking and long hot baths could only do so much. She’d stumbled right into a different world and had her life upended. Of course she was going to struggle to adjust!

Shrinks were sworn to secrecy, right?

Rafe had shot down that idea immediately sending fury racing through her tired baby brain. Since when was he, her keeper?!

“I don’t care how legit he seems. Someone somewhere will still pressure him to report what you say!”

“You don’t know that?!”

Their first proper fight broke out in the middle of his living room and dragged on until the blue light of dusk began to tarnish their vision and no lights had been turned on. She clenched the white shag rug between her toes in an attempt to restrain her anger and hold her ground.

“It’s a crime, Sof! They’ll convince him it’s the right thing to do!”

“They have to keep everything confidential!”

“No” That firm sudden no stopped her dead in her tracks. Her stomach clenched tightly. He quickly shifted from someone irritating in her eyes to someone appalling. She gaped at him, brows raised, and arms folded, practically begging him to try that one more time. 

“No...?”

“No” he held his ground, his voice low and quiet like distant rumbles of thunder. “It’s my secret. Not yours”

Sofia stared at him amazed, her stomach sinking with cold dread. For a moment the only sound was the huffing hot breaths coming out of his flaring nose. Her fiery brown eyes swept over his pressed lips, tight jaw, and stormy blue eyes locked in on hers. Sofia refused to be the one to break first, stepping forward as she found her voice again.

“You made it my problem when you started sleeping with me. What? Am I just supposed to stay locked up here in a tower!”

“No! but you’re supposed to listen to me!”

“I am listening to you but I’m going to disagree with you! God!” she reached her wits end bubbling over in exasperation and frustration “Have you never done this before?!”

All air left the room as his eyes widened and she saw his brain halt mid-thought. His tight lips melted into a soft full wide pout that startled her.

Oh shit

Her anger sizzled and died.

He hadn’t

“I…”  she tentatively stepped towards him, struggling to find the right words. But he had talked such a big game? And done some many things so perfectly? How could he…Commitment. Maybe it was the intimacy and the commitment. Relationships meant divulging secrets and joining lives and opening yourself up for rejection. Perhaps he’d always stayed half invested. Half awake. Hidden. She let her voice drop to soft and private beg and she reached a gentle hand out to rest on his folded arms “I need something, baby…or else I’m gonna go crazy. This is all normal for you now. It’s not for me…”

He ducked his head and shifted his weight between his feet as her words ran through his mind again. Sofia watched him wearily. Eventually he nodded in agreement, but he still mumbled his words, his eyes never leaving his feet. “Sarah knows some things you can talk to her, and I’ll reach out to Phoebe, Bar’s old roommate. If you use the right apps, you should be able to be fully honest without anyone finding out.”

She nodded with a grateful doting smile as she hooked his hand out from within his crossed arms, pressed against his side, and clasped between both of her own and kissed his knuckles.

“Thank you”

 In less than six weeks, Sarah Cameron had planned the majority of the most last-minute extravagant wedding The Cathedral of St John the Baptist had ever seen. It was too short notice to rent anywhere in New York and shifting to Charleston kept costs and numbers low. No questions. No unwelcome guests from across the river. No unwanted gossip.

Rafe had never seen his sister so organised or her idiot boyfriend so subservient, at her beck and call like a dog. He followed her orders so dutifully it was almost revolting.

Sarah and Sofia had immediately hit it off over Facetime and she’d implemented Sofia’s every whim and wish right down to the napkins. If it wasn’t fashion or food related Rafe didn’t really give a shit. The reception would have an open bar, a decision that would burn a satisfying hole in his dad’s wallet, and that was the beginning and end of his requests.

He'd tried to warn Sofia that Sarah could be a bitch, and that Ward could be standoffish but then they’d welcome her with open arms?! Even Rose loved her, and Rose hated everyone. They’d given her a full hero’s welcome he’d never received, complete with a ticker tape parade in the form of a guided tour in the Twinkie.

The second they’d touched down in OBX Sarah and John B had whisked them away. He’d, admittedly, brought down the mood by sulking silently in the backseat trying to avoid touching anything in the dusty sticky weed-soaked death-trap. Weed wasn’t the problem it was the lack of respect. Sofia hadn’t noticed, too absorbed in revelling in every last word of Sarah’s and memorising every last detail that whizzed by the window from the frothing sea foam to a sun-dappled tree. As she would say.

She stared at Kildare with such enviable awe and wonder, enjoying every childhood story, every teenage mistake, every boring meaningless piece of town history. That love turned her into something majestic and radiant that he couldn’t quite comprehend.

He stopped listening to Sarah. He let go of his death grip on his seat belt and watched her, entranced. How did she have such a bottomless source of joy and enthusiasm? Didn’t she ever hit a wall? Wasn’t that exhausting? Her shiny brown curls tussled in the breeze, wide brown eyes warm and open glimmering in the sun, her beam bright and when her lips weren’t smiling, they were parted in a gasp that he wanted to catch on his tongue. The earth shifted deep within him. She was so far beyond his reach.

That first day in Kildare seemed to go off without a hitch. Even Sarah was being surprisingly amiable. For the first time in a long time, he didn’t hate being home. He smiled and slipped an arm around Sofia’s shoulders and slowly wandered across the drive and into Tannyhill without a care in the world. He’d almost settled into that unfamiliar relaxation when Ward appeared, ready and waiting to ruin a perfect day.

His dad took Sofia’s bags from her and started walking them along the ground floor and not up the staircase.

“Dad- “he quickly protested and stepped to follow but Sofia pressed a forbidding hand to his chest.

“You know the rules” Ward called over his shoulder not even stopping to look back.

“We’re well into our twenties!” Why his dad had chosen now to be attentive father he had no idea, but Rafe’s mood immediately dropped into bristling feral anger. “John B gets to- “

“John B and Sarah have their own house. Their own rules”

Rafe seethed, clenching his jaw as he slipped out of Sofia’s grip. Right, so he would never be a real adult until he stopped living in a Cameron Development property. Sure, it wasn’t like New York wasn’t a thousand times more expensive than OBX! 

His dad was straight back to treating him like a child no matter how far he climbed or how well he did. He’d gone to Chapel Hill like he’d wanted. Studied Commerce and Business like he’d wanted. He’d even moved straight into the family business without any kind of break or internship or anything. God, he should’ve fucking known.

“Come on” he grabbed Sofia’s hand and dragged her upstairs to his room slamming to door behind them. She flinched and he absent-mindedly apologised marching into the room, muttering and raving. “I told him…I fucking told him…”

“What do you mean?”

He sank onto the bed with a sigh. Ward had been the first-person Rafe had called in a panic when Sofia had given him the news. He’d been completely vulnerable. Completely honest and his dad had actually come through for once. He’d soothed him and encouraged him. He’d taken the reins. He’d almost sounded like his mom…

Those words were etched into his psyche. I’m proud of you. You did the right thing. Just come home, we can handle the rest.

Wasn’t that why they were here? So, his family could help not boss them around? Weren’t he and Sofia already way passed the point of needing separate rooms? What use would a few nights apart actually serve?

He was just being a stubborn asshole as always. This was so typical of him!

Rafe suddenly realised he hadn’t talked in a while.

“I thought he cared. I thought he understood what we were going through…”

“He does.” It was now her turn to kneel in front of him and soothe his racing mind “He’s just being old fashioned. My Papá would’ve done the same…”

“It just so stupid! Like what if you get sick?” her warm thumb brushed back and forth over his cheek. She smiled softly and shook her head gently with a knowing spark in her eyes.  “What if you need me?”

“You’re not mad because of me” She leaned up to press a soft soothing kiss to his lips. His shoulders slumped with a long, exhausted sigh. “Everything’s going to be fine”

After a brief silence, his mood righted itself. It was strange really how quickly he could go from zero to hundred and then come crashing back down. A smile slowly crept back on to his face as he noticed a stray curl hooked around the bow on the strap of her pale-yellow dress. He untangled it and nudged her hair off her shoulder. His eyes lingered there as he toyed with the strap between his finger and thumb. His knuckles grazing her smooth skin. He started quietly “You know what would really piss him off...”

“No!” she immediately caught on and let out a brilliant bright laugh “No...” she beamed and pressed a firm finger to his lips “Don’t even think about it” His eyes flicked to hers watching closely as, despite her words, she got distracted by tracing her thumb over his bottom lip “I need them to like me”

“They already like you”

Ward got his way. They slept in separate rooms and the wedding planning craziness kept them apart for the good part of two weeks. They barely had a moment alone again until they were in Charleston, the night before the rehearsal. The second to last night before everything changed.

It turned out those few nights apart could do a lot more damage than he thought. That sharp drop from being with her almost every other day to no at all was jarring. Like a child he’d spent the last two weeks pouting over what he couldn’t have.

He’d had to watch her swim in the pool in her red bikini or in the sea in a tight black wet suit that hugged every curve. He’d had to shop with her for rehearsal dinner dresses and pretend he didn’t want to rip them off her. He’d had to listen to her giggle with Sarah on the patio and whimper at a scary movie with John B while he worked at the dining table and those noises took on new meaning in his mind.

She’d sit briefly in his lap. Or put an arm around him at dinner. Or peck his cheek goodnight and it was never quite enough.

He’d had to watch strippers at his bachelor party and pretend he wasn’t close to cracking. He’d had to try to smile and joke and not wonder whether she was doing fake belly shots off some rando’s abs or getting hit on by Pogues while skinny dipping at the beach. Sarah had been winding him up all week with all her “ideas”. He prayed she was joking, and Sofia would shoot down anything too crazy. Then again Sofia was far from sweet and innocent, anyways. Who knows what she'd get up to? 

For two straight weeks, he’d had to gnaw his nails and clench crescents into his palms and blow right through his stash of coke because she was being oh so good. Fuck her!

She was being the perfect little daughter in law with her sweet smile and batted eyelashes and perfect halo. Not wanting to disappoint his dad. Not wanting to break the rules. Not wanting to get caught and it was absolutely infuriating and slightly intoxicating.

He actually kissed Topper square on the mouth when he’d told him he’d found a loophole. The absolute legend had convinced Rose that it would be nice for the couple to have an evening to themselves in a hotel. They could soak in the tub and order room service and reconnect. Totally innocent intentions. They’d be too tired for anything else, surely. It had been a crazy couple of weeks. She was doing them a kindness, really.

It would get her in Rafe’s long awaited good graces and Ward didn’t need to know. For all he knew they were tucked away in separate rooms writing their speeches for the reception.

And Rose actually brought that bullshit or at least she pretended to.

The second they were alone again he unravelled.

chapter three: domestic bliss

“Sof?” he called out into the spacious suite as the door swung closed behind him. His shoulders subconsciously softened in relief at the noise and busyness of the day disappeared, replaced by the subtle sound of distant rushing water.

“Through here!”

Rafe dumped his bags unceremoniously on the sofa and followed the sound of her voice through the bedroom and into the ensuite. He heard the click of the lock opening as she anticipated his approach.

Good. You could take the girl out of Brooklyn, but those safety habits still remained, and he thanked his lucky stars that she wasn’t some airhead that danced about in an unlocked unsafe hotel room where anyone could waltz or peep in.

“Hey…” the greeting is already half out of his mouth and a twist of a smirk slipping onto his face as he turns the handle. Rafe clamps down on the silly little flip in his stomach that feels childish and needy as he steps into the room. It’s only been two weeks! That shouldn’t feel so long. He shouldn’t feel so eager to see her again. She’s already his.

And yet he’s hit in the face with the warm glowing bathroom light and the soft billowing steam caressing his cheeks and it stops him in his tracks. Beneath the typical damp smell of humidity, he catches hints of floral smells and spices he can’t name before his eyes have even locked in on her.

She’s, unfortunately, already out of the shower dressed in a fluffy white rob and focused on wiping a clear circle in on the fogged mirror so she can apply her skin care. As she reaches for the first bottle she glimpses in the corner of her eye and turns, and he swears his stomach rises to his chest. Her skin is smooth and glistening from the soft light and their beach excursions. Her golden eyes brighten at the sight of him and a smile breaks out on her face as she breathes a soft “Hey…” Almost as if she feels just as giddy and foolish as he assumes he looks right now. “How was golf?”

The mundanity of her question shakes him from his stupor as she turns back to what he was doing. Rafe finally nears her from behind and that smell of jasmine and cloves grows stronger now intermingled with oils and citrus of the serums and creams being pressed gently in her skin. He wraps his arms around her middle and presses a kiss to the top of her damp hair. “Fine…” he shrugs half heartedly distracted by fixing her parting for her as his fingers itch for more.

Ward had dragged him on an afternoon of drinks and nine holes with the men of the extended family that both he and his father usually had very little to do with. It was apparently a long standing Lenihan family tradition. His mother’s old money stuffy types that had vanished the moment she’d died.

“Did your cousins come?”

“Yeah. Thankfully I wasn’t the youngest there”

“Good. That would’ve made it more fun…”

“It was boring….” He dragged out that last word with a heavy sigh. “I just wanted the day to be over”

“Tired?”

“No...” he tightened his grip on her and stoops to nuzzle against her neck “I wanted to be here”

Pressed tightly against her with his eyes closed he hears the lid on her moisturiser snap close and feels the warmth of her hands covering his own. She shifts her weight to rest back against him.  Her voice drops to a private whisper “What do you want to do first?”

They had all evening to do whatever they wanted but decision fatigue was beginning to zap her energy.

“This…” he pressed a firm certain kiss against the small slither of exposed collar bone peeking out from robe. His fingers unknot from their place against her stomach and travel down to her hips. Her own hands make no moves to stop him.

“What's gotten into you?” a breathy laugh slips out of her, and he opens his eyes just in time to see the amused smile on her face.

“You!” he groans and takes that smile as permission to let his kisses and hands wander “You’ve been a nightmare all weeks!”

“Not on purpose.”

“Liar….”

She giggles openly now, and he hears that smug mocking pout in her voice as his eyes fall closed again. “Has it been hard?”

“Very”

“It was just two weeks?”

“So?”

“Good to know I’m memorable then”

“Oh, you definitely are!”

She feels his hips press against her back and his fingers ghost over her upper thighs that only have the soft robe covering them. The warm tufts of fabric only amplify his touch shifting and teasing her skin rather than providing her any kind of protection from him. “Babe…. I just got clean”

“That's the perfect time.” Every inch of her was smooth and soft and scented and he wanted to soak in that sensation.

‘"You know what sucks?"

It takes him a moment to register her changing of the subject, but he doesn’t stop running his hands and lips over her frame. "What?"

"These first few months are supposed to be the fun bit."

"Of the pregnancy?"  

"Of the relationship. This is meant to be the clunky part. The early days where we get to be messy and play chicken with our feelings and have lots of hot sex."

He chuffs a soft laugh out his nose as his teeth tug on her ear lobe. "Isn't that what we're doing?"

"Yeah… but we're having to make these big life decisions. Day care and wedding dresses and house offers."

"You're thinking about daycare?"

"Well yeah. We need to be in the right suburb for the right schools."

"I'll sort it."

Sofia finally turns around in his arms, eyes open and a genuine sulking pout on her lips. Perhaps he hasn’t quite been successful in seducing her.  "It's so unfair. I just wanna be young!"

He debates her words with a pout and shrugs. ”Can't relate."

He pecks her adorable, scrunched nose and she swipes at him. "I know! You wanna grow up so fucking fast, baby. Slow down!"

"Hey…” he shrugs, feigning innocence, and tightens his holds on her hips against “we can be stupid later. We're just getting all the boring shit out of the way first!"

She gazes at him with warm brown eyes that glow with gratitude at how easy he can make this all feels.

He leans down to kiss her, but she retreats at the last moment. “I can’t”

“Noone’s watching…. for once…” he grumbles.  

While things had been stilted and awkward between them in a lot of ways, it was a relief to find that the physical side of things had never really wavered. At least they knew how to do that part. That was a start, right?

Once he’d gotten over the weirdness of sharing that space with a baby and she’d found ways to feel comfortable and safe, things had gone back to normal. Better than normal even.

In just over four months, they’d worked a lot of the kinks. Which was a new experience for him. Usually, things got worse as time went on. The sex became stale and boring and half assed and he’d let his flings drag on way longer than they should. She was different. This was different.

“No, I feel like shit” she finally admitted, and it explained her strange back and forth.

“Oh” his brows shot up before dropping into a baffled scrunched face. “How? You’re gorgeous!"

She laughed at how certain he was that any insecurities she might have must be ridiculous. She tugged his chin down to hers and pecked him quickly. “No, I mean everything either hurts or makes me feel sick.”

“Well, that’s an easy fix.” He leapt into action already leading her out of the bathroom and into the bedroom. “You lie down?”

“It’ll still be too much movement.”

“What if I’m really gentle?”

“I don’t think you know how!”  

“Ouch. I can be flexible!”

“You have like zero chill.”

“I can find some!”

“I don’t believe you. We’re not rushing anymore or sneaking around anymore, my friend.”

“Don’t call me your friend.”

“What should I’ll call you….? Pumpkin?”

“Hate that!”

“Good”

“You know…. I can do painfully slow when necessary?”

“Painful for who?”

He finally cracked first laughing at that quick retort. Letting her win that round.

“You know that I can go slow.” He stated firmly, his knuckles brushing over her bump “That’s how this little guy happened.”

“Hm no...” she pouted playfully “don’t remember it? I remember patching you up when you got your ass beat

“Different time.”

“Ah! Ok.”

“Are you trying to neg me...?”

“No... just stating facts...”

“I really don’t scare you, do I?”

“Nope”

“It’s cute that you’re trying...You’re gonna regret it though”

“Am I?”

“Mhm”

“Man…” she showed no signs of relenting “You must really like Brooklyn if you kept coming back after losing in a fight so miserably”

“I must “

“It’s a nice place. Pity about the gangs though”

“Yeah, they really bring down the vibe.”

“Someone should you really do something about that.”

“Mm it’s dangerous…”

Her flirting finally broke into a wide smile and girlish giggle, and she wrapped her arms around his neck. He picked her up and plopped her down on the bed, but his lips stopped short of hers.

“You can wait”

The wedding rehearsal went smoothly. Sarah had thought of every last detail. Rafe reminded Sofia that this was a rare occurrence, and he was impressed.

There was one dampener on the afternoon, however. Sofia couldn’t shake Barry’s harsh gaze the whole time. He sat in the back row of the church scowling and silent like some kind of jilted lover a blazer hurriedly thrown over his white wife-beater and cream cargo pants.

Once the formalities were finally over Rafe looked to Sofia for permission with soft apologetic big blue eyes and the moment, she nodded he was off, practically flying to Barry’s side.

Sofia could only catch fragments of their whispered bickering before Rafe ushered Barry out the door with a firm arm wrapped around his shoulders. What the fuck…her lil bitch now…. I’ll deal with…. leave it…. listen to me…take this outside.

The moment the hotel door closed behind them he changed. He dropped her hand, tossed his suit jacket nowhere in particular and he’d straight for the bar cart. Sofia’s stomach dropped as she watched his shoulders slump, and his jaw tensed. His demeanour completely transfigured from a man on the happiest day of his life….to a man on the worst.

“Rafe…”

“Don’t”

He shifted from a residual sloppy tipsiness from the wedding reception to a purposeful all-consuming intoxication frighteningly quickly slumped on the floor in the poorly light living room.

It felt safer to leave him to it.

“I’m going to bed”

“Why are you telling me?” he shrugged and continued finishing his bottle of scotch

Sofia scoffed at the audacity of that. As if she was asking too much of him. As if he hadn’t been all over her barely 24 hours earlier.

“I thought you might care” she bit back bitterly, losing her grip on her anger.

“You don’t have to pretend Sof. I know you don’t want this”

“When did I say that?”

“Who would?”

Sofia gaped at him amazed and crestfallen.

“You’re just scared of doing this alone…”

“Of course, I’m fucking scared but I’m choosing to do this with you…You know what? I don’t need these dramatics from you! I could be on Long Island right now!”

“Then why aren’t you!?”

“Go! Be with your mom and Abuelita and save the little shit from me!”

“Don’t call them that!”

“You know…life was a lot easier before I met you. I should’ve left you in that shit hole I found you in…You just wanted attention”

“You know that’s- “

“This whole thing is…bullshit. You tricked me. You trapped me. How do I know he’s even- “

“Fuck you! You can stay out there!” in a fit of rage and tears Sofia tried her best to close the large sliding doors but they were too heavy for her tired arms.

Rafe sighed heavily and staggered across the room to help her but rather than appreciating that gesture she immediately locked the doors.

“Oh, come on! At least let me get my shit!”

“No! I hate you for this! You’re being ridiculous and you can sleep out there until you’ve calmed the fuck down!”

Sofia cried herself to sleep in her brand-new white lingerie.

Rafe crept sheepishly towards the closed doors the next morning.

“Sof…are you awake?”

He heard the curtains rattle and rustle as she pulled them open, and sunlight spilled out from underneath the closed doors. Her shadow blocked some of the light and her weight squeaked the floorboards.

“I…” an apology never quite reaches his lips. “I said some stupid shit…but I’m serious…you should go. Just tell people it’s Adam’s and let this thing be over”

“Is that what you want?” a muffled quiet voice finally breaks the silence.

A beat.

“No…. but this whole thing has gotten so twisted…”

She opens the doors suddenly and with such force and speed that it startles him.

“Do you think I don’t care about you?”

“What?”

Sofia crosses the threshold from the sun-soaked bedroom to the shadowy living room.

“Do you think I’m just coasting through this or bleeding you dry?”

“What else would you be doing?”

“Staying with you...For real”

“Sof…”

“Rafe, I’ve seen your dilated eyes, and I’ve watched you sleep till noon. I’ve sat on the sidelines of your meetings and parties with Barry and I’ve heard every bad thing Sarah’s ever had to say about you.” She crosses the room in careful sure steps “You’re either doubting me or pushing me away. I don’t care. What matters is that I’m here.” She takes both his hands in hers. “I’m not going in blind, baby, I know who you are…You don’t have to hide from me.”

His head and voice fall. “You shouldn’t be here…This kid is going to be in for a world of chaos and…and danger and I can’t…”

“Then we’ll keep them safe. Separate spheres. Separate lives. When you’re out you’re out and when you’re home, you’re all mine. No business. No weapons.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. We’ll figure it out”

She kissed him softly and finally asked. “Do you want this?”

He nods gently.

“Well come on then…” she takes his hand and leads him back through the double doors.

“Just like that?”

“Well, you owe me an apology first.”

“I’m sorry. I know you’re here for the right reasons…”

“And…?”

“And I know the kid’s mine. Who’s else would be when it’s making your life hell already?”

“Thank you for saying that….”

“Now… do you still feel like shit?”

“No…exhausted maybe…. Why? What did you have in mind?”

“Proving how slow and steady I can go…”

“Hmmm…Sounds perfect…”

“What time is it?”

“Why?”

“We have brunch with everyone at eleven”

“Whose ideas was that?!”

“Sarah”

“Fucking Sarah….”

He beamed at that uncharacterstic slight, "Now we're talking!"

Rafe and Barry were like ships in the night. Worse than that, ghosts even. They slipped in and ouch of each other’s lives, carried out their business and then drifted away again. Barry iced him out for the good part of two months before they uttered any word worth hearing to each other again.

It was the middle of the night in Rafe’s penthouse. Sofia was safely squared away in their New Jersey home and he’d had to work late. Typically, an insomniac, Rafe never slept deeply so it was no surprise that he heard Barry come stumbling in with his spare key.

Rafe tensed, ears pricking as he lay still and waited to see which way this was going to go. Would Barry slip in beneath the covers like all was forgiven. Would he storm into the room with something big and brash to get off his chest. Or would he pass on the sofa as he always used to. Rafe’s heart sank as he realised it was the usual routine.

At least he was here.

At least he still knew Rafe’s door was always open.

The next morning Rafe woke bright and early and lay awake at war with himself. It was stupid really. What grown man was nervous to set foot in his own kitchen!

All those fears and frustrations immediately melted away at the sight of big tough Barry curled up beneath a blanket on his large leather sofa. He lay there, dead to the world, face first in what had clearly started as an exhausted drunk flop onto the cool cushions and evolved into a cozy morning nap in the sun filled living room. As Rafe’s looming frame cast a shadow over Barry’s face the sleeping figure grumbled and groaned turning over onto his side and tugging the blanket up higher around him. Rafe’s fingers twitched as a sliver of sun caught in his partner’s frizzy hair.

For the briefest of moments in his chaotic life, the earth felt silent and still. A gentle peace soothed the anxiety that typically clenched around his heart.

He’d come back.

That warmth in his chest pulled Rafe down onto the sofa and beneath the scratchy orange woollen blanket Barry always rescued from his donations box. Rafe would try to hide it away in the hallway cupboard or bury it deep at the bottom of the ottoman’s storage and yet it always found it’s way back out onto his sofa again. Harsh and gaudy and bright against his cool sleek carefully curated home.

He ignored the sensory nightmare of the hideous checkered fabric and wrapped his arm around him. It wasn’t long before his shuffling and rustling stirred Barry from his much-needed rest. The older man breathed a soft laugh but made no effort to escape Rafe’s tight grasp

 “Well, look who it is!”

“You are in my house”

“Yeah…I'll give you that”

“‘You’ll give me- ‘“Rafe parroted with a scoff “You're not the boss of me...”

“I'm not? Look at you. You’re seconds away from putting on an apron and making me pancakes”

“Fuck off…” he muttered and buried his face deeper into Barry’s neck, the gold chain cold against his cheek. Barry’s crumbled black dress shirt was tarnished by the smell of sweat and cheap alcohol and his skin was soaked in expensive cologne and cigarette smoke. Rafe has never understood Barry’s priorities. He cared more about what he put on his body than what he put in it. Rafe was the opposite. So long as he had his rings and his watch, he’d throw on anything but nothing cheap and nasty would ever cross his lips. His body was a temple. Well, a temple full of protein shakes and cocaine.

“Big night?”

“Yeah…”

“Any damage?”

The thought of Barry out on his own was oddly disconcerting. He should’ve been there. Even a harmless night out could go sideways quickly.

“Just my liver” Barry joked at first but then without Rafe even having to ask he added. “Vaughan and Corey were with me”

“Good”

Be careful

A heavily silence settled in on his shoulders and Barry let it rest there for a moment before he turned over to study his face. Barry roughly tugged him from his hiding place and lifted his chin to meet his gaze.

“What’s this?”

Rafe shrugs trying to fight the large pout forming. He attempted to wrestle himself out of Barry’s firm grip but failed.

“Come on…”

Rafe groaned in frustration, desperately trying to avoid admitting defeat but Barry stayed focused. Rafe’s stomach twisted and his fingers tremored slightly as he finally met Barry’s eye again.  “I miss you”

Barry kissed him as if that was the very thing he’d been waiting to hear all month. Relief watched over them to have that closeness again, even fleetingly.

Things escalated a little too quickly and Rafe had to untangle himself.

“I can't...I can't. I need to think.”

“So, think”

“Not like this. Get off...Get off!”

“Alright! Alright…I'll make the eggs you take your thinking time.”

Rafe sat on the edge of the sofa and ran a hand over his face. “Fuck....I need a cold shower"

Barry just huffed a small chuckle and focused on getting breakfast ready. While he knew he should leave the subject alone, let Rafe come to him, he couldn’t resist the urge to broach the subject first once Rafe was dressed and clean.

He set the plate down in front of him on the kitchen island.

“You could always just tell her”

“What?”

Barry shrugged unapologetically letting his words stand as used the dishes as a helpful distraction to the fraught conversation.  

“This isn't easy, B…”

Rafe was always full of excuses and cowardice. Where was the bold man he saw in the ring or out on the street? In the privacy of his own home his soft belly was exposed and while Barry should feel honoured to witness that vulnerability it was becoming grating

“Because you make it complicated. She could be totally fine with it.”

“She's super religious.”

“So? So's Patricia down the street from me and she loves you.”

Rafe’s eyes fall away for a moment with a soft smile as he concedes that point “She does.”

“Listen…” Barry finishes his dishes and rounds the kitchen counter to pull up his own barstool and give Rafe his full attention “I don't give a shit about no closet no exclusivity nothing. You do what you need to…What I do care about it is your word. So, if you’re gonna tell me now “Don’t worry Bar I’ll sort it” then you'd better. “

“Then I won’t say that”

“Good”

Barry goes to get up and let the conversation be over, but Rafe begins to vent.

“I don't know how these early months are going to go with her. I don't know if I... if we can trust her.”

“She already knows half your shit.”

“I know but- “

“But what? You don’t even wanna try? It’s just one conversation, pretty boy. It’s not impossible”

“Yeah, but it’s hard”

“Life’s hard”

“Bar, that isn't...This isn’t about being out. This isn’t about you or…. or hiding you… She's a good person.”

“And?”

“This’ll hurt her. It’s been months. The other girls...it didn't matter what you and I got up to. It does with her. She's my wife and-.”

“And I'm your boss.”

Barry states firmly and Rafe creeps out of his shell for a moment to push back on that. “Doesn't sound like it's my boss who's talking right now?

Barry’s lip quirks at that boldness and nods in acceptance. Touche.

“I can't cheat on her” Rafe finally states his intentions, and Barry hears him loud and clear springing off the stool. Good. That’s done. That’s sorted then. It wasn’t like they hadn’t been on and off before. This would just be an off season.

“Hate to break it to you, boy.” Barry switched tac now and slipped out of shirt on route to have his own shower in the guest bathroom and get on with this day. No point wasting any more time on this white boy “…but by some people's definitions...” he didn’t even slow down as he dropped his shirt on the sofa, we’d then been only moments before

“You just did”

“Stop! Stop…” Sofia groaned as he dragged her away yet again from the paint roller and made her put her mask back on him and sit back on her picnic set up, he’d made for her in the far corner of the room by the open door. She sulked like a toddler in time out.  

“Rafe! I wanna help!”

“You shouldn’t be breathing this shit in. We have people for this”

“I told you I wanted us to do this together and you agreed”

“Yeah, that was before I researched how much crap is in this. No wonder people get high off it”

“Don’t even think about it” she teased with a flicker in her eye that he matched

“It’s tempting…”

“I hate you. You have all the fun”

“Most girls- “

“Women”

“Women would be happy to have the princess treatment you’re getting. You get to sit there and sip your tea and eat your snacks and I do all the work”

“It is a nice view…” her eyes ran over him even though most of his frame was shrouded in an oversized black tee and grey sweatpants both covered in white undercoat paint “but I want the work. You’ve wrapped me in cotton wool”

“Can you blame me? I’ve literally seen you threaten Maybank with a Chelsea Dagger! No self-preservation at all!”

“That was a good day…”

“You’re insane”

“And you’re paranoid”

“We’re almost there…”

“And then you’ll be watching what I eat like a hawk cause I’m breast feeding”

He had no defence for that. A comfortable silence settled in between them with only the soft guitar playing through the speaker, the rushing of the wet paint on the wall, and the crunching of her oat crackers.

His gaze softened as he took a break and settled in beside her on the pink picnic rug in a sea of white drop sheets. Sofia furrowed her brows studying that look in his eyes warmly at first and then sceptically as he shifted and changed. His eyes wandered over her large baby bump, her cut grey overalls, her royal blue shirt with daisy prints and back to her shiny hir and radiant face again.

“Babe…”

He murmured a questioning response half heartedly still taking her in.

“Don’t do that”

“Do what?”

“Look at me with those big eyes”

“What big eyes?”

“Like I'm too good. Like you're not good enough.”

Rafe scoffs at that his cheeks flushing his jaw tensing as he busied himself with making a snack. “We’ve been over this… I don't need another pep talk.” He grumbled.

“This isn't about you. It's about me…. I’ve had too many boys put me up on these massive pedestals. There's only one way to go from there. I'm not a saint… and I get it. I'm cute and I'm sweet so I must be an angel but I'm a mess too. I have needs and wants and...and flaws. I'm not gonna be your never complaining housewife or your permanently open legs.”

“Jesus, Sof!”

“You’d be surprised what boyfriends start to expect when they get too comfortable.”

“Well, I’m not your boyfriend.

“You’re not immune. Men get like…Things start to get easy and complacent. You stay together too long, and men get comfortable and entitled... they start demanding rather than chasing. I'm not your prize or your…. pretty doll.”

“I know that”

“And I'm not a doormat”

“I’m well aware of that...” his frustration started to seep through “so what's the issue?”

Sofia paused at that question. He was right. He wasn’t her boyfriend. He was her husband. He wasn’t a boy. He was a young man.

How could she expect him to just know all the ins and outs of her history? To understand all her complexities when he'd only just learned her middle name? Of course, he only saw a simple version of her at this stage. That was all they had. It had barely even been a year since they met. Of course, he thought she was too good, and he had to put on airs to romance her. That was normal. Things were still growing. Everyone put on their best faces at the beginning.

“Nothing…you’re right”

“What happened?”

“With what?”

“The others”

“Nothing just...just remember that I'm human.”

“Got it.” He rolled his eyes at the whiplash of this conversation. “You’re ridiculous” he laughed and squished her cheeks before pulling her into a warm kiss.

epilogue: you'll be my family

Rafe charged into their apartment and spun around on her, still wired and looking for a fight. His knuckles white and taut in a clenched fists splattered with purple bruises. Cleo knew. Cleo knew about the baby. About Sofia and it was too fucking late to wrench their privacy back. They were vulnerable, exposed. She had to get out, now.

Tonight's little car jacking display was a firm and blatant warning. You come for what's hers she'll come for what's yours. She could not have made it more obvious and yet Sofia chose now, the most inopportune time, to be emotional and obstinate.

“I’m not having this fight with you again! I’m staying here. With you!”

“At least think about going to Kildare! Just until the baby comes!”

“No!”

“Sof! You need to be safe! You need help. You need family!

“You'll be my family!”

That stops him dead in his tracks. No one has ever…No one wants that from him. Not now. Not ever. Not even his dad. Not even Sarah. She has John B. She has her life. She doesn’t need him and yet Sofia is saying it now with such certainty.

“This isn't even-…” his stammers with glossy wide eyes unable to find the right words to express that he’s unworthy. That it’s dumb founding that she would hold something real and true within a marriage so false and hurried. This isn’t even real. This isn’t even love. How can she…? How can they…? The wheels are spinning in his head unable to connect with the tarmac.

“I'm not talking about being married.” She sets her black shiny heels he’d told her not to wear, now tainted with dried blood down on the coffee table and stepped towards him. She slips out of her coat and gold earrings as she speaks. Her long glittering black dress swaying with a rushing rustle like the wind as it brushes against polished concrete floor of his bachelor pad. Her eyes are big and brave and perfectly warm. “The second this little one existed you and I were done. That's it. We're not separate anymore. We’ll always be linked.  I'll always be tied to you.”  

She pauses but his brain still can’t find any kind of response. He simply watches on in awe as she lays it all out for him so simply. As if it isn’t the life changing monologue that it is. She shrugs and admits, “We might hate being married. We might be terrible at it and drive each other nuts. We don't know... Two years from now we could be divorced and swearing off relationships for good...”

He shoves back the tears that are forming and ducks his head with a shy laugh.

“But we'll still be parents. We'll still be family.”

She lifts a gentle hand to brush a tear from his cheek and lift his eyes back up to hers.“I want to be here with you.”

He cups the back of her hand and kisses her palm, nodding in acceptance and understanding.

“You'll always be my family...and I want you to be.”

The adrenaline of nearly losing both of them in one go tonight finally crashes down and mixes with the sincerity of her words that she doesn’t realize he’s waited a lifetime to hear. It’s an overpowering, deadly combination…and he breaks down in tears.

[jesncin]

hiiii it's the anon you replied to with the taonui hugging a shark doodle (which is absolutely adorable btw) (also I know there's no proof of my identity but I doubt anyone is claiming to be me anyway).

I was not at all kidding when I said your work motivated me to read comics, even the notoriously badly written ones, because I think it's important to actually know the original material a fandom is based around.

I'm not new to the dc fandom space but I haven't had too much of an opportunity in my free time to actually engage with the comics as source material, only really tv shows and movies. A lot of what I know comes from other peoples discussion of comics as well as further interpretations of the characters in fanworks. A lot of what I see in the DC fandom is this sentiment to "disregard canon", which i think is fair if you take that to mean how comics contradict each other all the time, and there's a certain canon to each person based on what runs you actually enjoy the writing and character interpretations. However, what I actually see most of the time in fandom is the characters being put into boxes based on what they get known for within the fandom, and thus they become one dimensional comedy figures more often then not. They get assigned a couple of traits and then those traits are explored sometimes, but sometimes those traits don't even come from the comics but fandom wide hallucinations.

Completely opposite to that, is the way in which you researched and wrote your taonui mun and nanaue comic. Although you alter a lot of the original backstory and presentations of the characters from the Superboy comics, it's done with understanding of the source material, before you reconstructed it into something new. You analysed all the parts of both characters, how as characters they could be taken in interesting directions, as well as understood why they were written the way they were in the first place (blegh racist misogynist white men) and combined that knowledge into something new with more respectful cultural portrayals than they originally had. That's what motivated me to read more comics. Not the knowledge that the source material can be shittly written, or that I was disillusioned by your portrayal of characters, but by understanding the effect and critical analysis it took you to grow these characters from the potential they had in their original appearances. Better source material understanding often leads to more interesting interpretations and ideas for characters, because you have to know the rules from canon in order to break them in new and interesting ways. And your work is an absolute masterclass at this concept.

Sorry for the essay in your inbox, I just really enjoyed your comic and will def be looking into more of your art bc it's absolutely gorgeous. Thanks for the luck for seeking out more comics, I definitely need it.

You're good, I take the many anons' self-claims word for it :3c

I get that! Even though I think it's totally fair game to call yourself a fan of these characters when you primarily interact with them through adaptation, it's understandable to want to seek out more of them through their source material. Part of what makes cape media endearing to me is having insight into the transformative process when something gets adapted a bunch.

While I was hyped for my copies of Superman Smashes the Klan to arrive, I listened to the original Clan of the Fiery Cross radio show arc so I could see what Gene Yang was revitalizing in his take. And it was SO rewarding to know the broader context! The things that stayed, the things that were flipped and expanded upon, it's a whole other layer of appreciation.

When people say things like "oh I see you took the quirky bit trait (from the Superman movies) that Lois Lane can't spell and actually expanded it into something that explores her character". It's the kind of awareness of source material + how I changed it that I love! I get a lot less of that when I tackle niche characters -and it's fine since I make my comics accessible regardless of whether people get the references- but when people seek out that source material to better understand my adaptation, that's just so kind! It's an intellectual curiosity that's very healthy and I praise it (regardless of the source material's quality)!

I very much get the fandom tendency to flanderize and mistake fanon for canon. I'm fascinated by how fandom culture creates this collective conscious of rules + correct interpretations that ironically re-create the hierarchy of authorial intent. Because so much of the time when I enter a character tag on here and see discussion on these characters as they exist in canon, I'm thinking "some of y'all need a refresher on the source material, because [x thing you got from fanon] wasn't canonically thing." Being surrounded by fanon constantly can make people lose sight of the material.

Anyway thank you! As I've said before, I revisit canon to to be informed in my retelling, not to be loyal to it. I learn the source material and the context from which it's made before I break it and appropriate it. It's the most fun kind of research homework I could ask for haha.

[katandroofics]

⟡₊ ⊹WELCOME TO OUR BLOG⟡₊ ⊹

Hi!!

about this blog/us:

our ao3

our twt

our carrd

our strawpage (for anons/drawings) (will only post these on twt)

we use the tag #dsmpr and #dsmp reimagined for our fics/art/info posts!

roo🐇:

im part of a duo where we are in the middle of writing an entire dsmp rewrite (called D.S.M.P. Reimagined, or DSMPR for short), from before the beginning and after the end. it will most likely be just me on this blog as kat is terminally offline. we post every friday!

Kat🐈‍⬛: I am the second half of this duo! We also have an Editor but he is more offline than I am—thankyou Quezz for your diligent work though you will never see this—I don't use any social media whatsoever so this blog will pretty much be run solely by Roo. I'll pitch in to answer any questions we get about our fan-fiction work, though, so expect some appearances from me. I'm a massive c!Wilbur fan and quite enjoy c!Dream's villainy. I could talk for hours about how much c!Technoblade isn't an Anarchist whatsoever and how deeply flawed his ideology is, but instead of doing that here I am writing that into D.S.M.P.R.! I hope everyone who reads our work enjoys it, or if you don't, please do criticize it as much as you see fit—everything is appreciated equally.

more about our dsmp rewrite:

dsmp reimagined is a series of fics focusing on re-writing the entire canon of the dream smp, starting and ending before and after the events of it (which are of our own design and completely non-canon, we will not be delving into smplive or any other smp with the same characters in any capacity). this is NOT an au, but a retelling with several elements of canon altered, outright removed, or expanded upon.

our main goal is to tell a more grounded and realistic version of the dsmp's story, while still keeping the charm and humour that made it so special. we want to do justice to the serious themes and ideas that the dsmp presented and attempted to convey, but ultimately failed to with the proper respect and tact necessary.

these fics WILL be violent, they will be uncomfortable, they will not pull its punches and it will, ultimately, attempt to rectify the mistakes of the dsmp, tap into the lost potential of many of its characters, and provide an alternative for fans who wish to engage with the media but do not want to, or cannot, watch all of the archived livestreams.

our fic(s):

334 Days (Completed)

Three Hundred and Thirty Four Days is a mildly canon divergent retelling of the exile arc. it follows tommy as he spirals and becomes isolated by dream, and explores his relationship with community, family and religion. it is basically a character study as tommy loses more and more hope, similar to the canon story, except this one takes place over a span of a year and delves deeper into his psyche.

main themes: isolation, family, religion, betrayal, grief

characters: tommy, dream, tubbo, quackity, phil, wilbur (past/memories), ghostbur, fundy, niki, ranboo

main relationships: tommy/dream, tommy/tubbo, tommy/wilbur, niki/wilbur

75k words

Welcome Home, Theseus (Updating)

Welcome Home, Theseus is a retelling of post-exile to The Disc Saga Finale, covering The Butcher Army, exile recovery, Doomsday and more! this is a multiple point-of-view fic which has tommy and tubbo as the leads, followed by technoblade, niki, quackity and more!

main themes: betrayal, reconciliation, recovery

characters: tommy, dream, tubbo, quackity, phil, wilbur (past/memories), ghostbur, fundy, niki, ranboo, jack

main relationships: tommy & tubbo, tommy & techno, tommy & dream, niki/wilbur, niki & fundy,

90k+ words

(MANY MORE TO COME!)

(all gifs sourced from sad-ist on youtube)

[henke-penke]

That post about reboot season 3 being very extremely unlikely to happen got me in a mood, so here are some notes on my season 2 rewrite.

It's technically set within my Altered Arrangements au but isn't part of the series rewrite so to say. I also have talked about it before but I don't remember what I brought up then so yeet !

The season is expanded to 20 episodes with the in-universe explanation being that season 1 was a bit of a test run to see how well a reboot would go and all that. With it being a success, season 2 has a bigger budget to work with.

As seen in Feeling Like A Failure, Nichelle doesn't do any training in between seasons. Because they both want to do better this time around, Nichelle and Damien form an alliance early on.

Lauren stays as the first boot, BUT comes back to hijack the horror challenge which is fittingly circus-themed. She gets to torment the merge players as a treat <3

Said merge players being Nichelle, MK, Damien, Axel, Wayne, Caleb, and Raj. (only 7 because I want the teams to go on for longer)

MK is, naturally, the season's main villain, still going with her season 1 strategy of flying under the radar but doing so more successfully. She'll still team up with Julia but won't be as open about it since people are mad as hell at Julia, as they should've been in canon lol

A big part of MK's strategy will be 'befriending' Nichelle. Not actually becoming friends but apologizing for what she said during the obstacle course last season. And Nichelle will accept because she will believe it to be a genuine attempt at doing better (which she is trying to do) and not some form of manipulation. Surely this won't come back to bite her in the ass.

Ripaxel and prialeb are still technically gonna be here but trust me, I'm gonna make 'em interesting.

Prialeb is unrequited, because aroace Caleb canon king, and it's going to be a mess and a half because you know Priya is hella rejection sensitive.

Ripaxel is requited, but they won't become a couple. Ripper starts the season with a small crush he isn't sure what to do with, and over the course of the season falls more in love as he, and by extension the audience, learns more about Axel. This also includes him befriending Millie as a "Girl, help me" kinda deal. (it starts off as you'd expect but end up with them becoming genuine friends. This is also where Ripper is introduced to poetry)

Keeping those short, but it's very epic in my head trust.

Axel will also befriend Nichelle, which is how her training begins, and MK who I believe she'll end up favoring but I can't really explain why so just trust me. Does she know MK is manipulative ? Not really, so that's gonna be fun. We also have Caleb befriending Millie, along with Damien and Nichelle who he ends up being dragged into a trio with (because chronically offline dad friend Caleb and avid memers Damien and Nichelle my beloved)

Caleb does also evolve into a proper dad friend after he, for a lack of a better term, calms down a little. Basically instead of trying to form an alliance with Priya, guy's working overtime to try and prove himself useful to avoid an early elimination. This includes stuff offering to carry everyone's bags when they first arrive, helping everyone to shore and being more like a medic during the rim reaper challenge, and effectively just reducing himself to a doormat.

What gets him to calm down is Priya telling him something like "You don't have to do all this, it's fine. I chose you to be on the team for a reason." and basically just quells his anxiety. This is important to their relationship and has a parallel scene in the episode where Priya confesses. (said episode goes so hard in my head btw)

Emma and Nichelle are going to have tension with Emma, due to the whole Chase situation and still being upset over her ruined friendship with Bowie, being very dismissive and at times even passive-aggressive towards Nichelle. This will be resolved featuring a lot of venting (Nichelle's self-esteem struggles being exacerbated because of this treatment, Emma not knowing deal with her emotions in a healthy way)

This season also features a team swap, wherein Emma joins Bowie's team (don't know which yet) and of course, the besties will reconcile <3

Damien friendship with Priya will properly continue and with him stepping up his game to do better this season, he ends up as co-captain of their team. Given he's smart and creative (and plays dnd) I can see him being a beast at strategy.

Will Damien scheme ? Not exactly. He's going to be a sorta parallel to MK, after all :3

We're doing the drag challenge, which will be held by only Chef who is in full drag the entire time. With him are legacy players Brick and Anne Maria, who will also be in drag (queen and king respectively). Episode is called Chef Hatchet's Drag Race because I think that's funny

Final four are Nichelle, MK, Damien, and Axel

[chaotic-creator]

The Expanded Pantheon of Discord!

So I'm a massive Doctor Who fan and I've been watching the new series. Gotta admit, it's been a weird run but I enjoyed it overall. During "The Legend of Ruby Sunday", we got the confirmation that The Toymaker's Pantheon is the same as The Pantheon of Discord that The Trickster belongs to.

We also got a list of other deities in The Pantheon and that got me thinking of other Whoniverse villains who could fit into The Pantheon along with a couple of OCs. So sit back and enjoy, my version of The Pantheon of Discord!

_____________________________________

The Toymaker: The God of Games- A canon member of The Pantheon from the main show. The master of games and Lord of Play, a crazy madman obsessed with his games and an opponent to The First, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Doctors

Hecuba: The Goddess of Fate- A canon member of The Pantheon from an audio story called The Queen of Time. She's the sister of The Toymaker and aunt to Maestro. She's capable of trapping The TARDIS and is the mistress of her own pocket dimension. I feel like Goddess of Fate works for her

Trickster: The God of Traps- A canon member of The Pantheon and the first one to officially be called part of The Pantheon of Discord back in the Sarah Jane Adventures episode The Wedding of Sarah Jane Part 2. He creates chaos by making deals with people close to death, changing timelines and the resulting chaos feeds him, this chaos is typically world ending in some way. Each of his deals is a trap, as to undo his actions the person who made the deal has to take their agreement back and die.

Maestro: The God of Music- A canon member of The Pantheon, parent of The Harbinger and the child of The Toymaker. Their goal is to keep their dominion over music and lock it away inside of them, depriving humanity of one of our most precious sources of comfort, empathy and expression. A brief (but memorable) enemy of The Fifteenth Doctor

Reprobate: The God of Spite- An as yet unseen deity, though I have my theories. I believe this is another name for Fendahl, a classic Doctor Who villain who fed on souls, as classic Who described Fendahl as the same species as The Mara, another member of The Pantheon. A being that is cruel enough to feed on your very life essence? Seems pretty spiteful to me

The Mara: The God of Beasts- A canon member of The Pantheon and an enemy to The Fifth Doctor. Representing a massive snake and called a psychevore originally, Mara is a shapeshifter, having "many forms and none" that feeds on raw emotion and requires a host to form in the real world

Lucifer: The God of Despair- This one isn't canonical but I love the idea of The Beast from The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit being a member of The Pantheon. Every pantheon needs their horned deity and The Beast fits perfectly. Not to mention he was voiced by Gabriel Woolf the voice of Sutekh. I made him The God of Despair here because in his episodes he was referred to as The Prince of Despair and Lucifer was also a name attributed to him. Not a canon member of The Pantheon

Abaddon: The God of Hunger- This is the child of The Beast, featuring in the Torchwood episode "End of Days". Described as The Great Devourer who eats at life itself, he was eventually defeated by trying to devour Captain Jack's immortality. As I made his dad a member of The Pantheon, I thought Abaddon would also work and his "Great Devourer" title makes him the perfect candidate for a god of hunger. Not a canon member of The Pantheon

Fenric: The God of Pestilence- A classic Who villain and enemy of The Seventh Doctor, described as "an evil force from the dawn of time". As he was able to infect the minds of an entire Viking clan and their descendants, altering their destiny, Pestilence seems like a good domain for him. Not a canon member of The Pantheon

Jester: The God of Fear- An enemy from The Sarah Jane Adventures, an insane shapeshifter who caused and fed on fear. Throughout time he has appeared as The Pied Piper and fed on the fear of The Plague of Rats and later on the fear genrated when he took away Hamelin's children. Later he took the identity of Odd Bob the Clown and kidnapped children, feeding on the fear that these kidnappings caused. Not a canon member of The Pantheon

Krampus: The God of Trickery- A canon member of The Pantheon, from the comic story Imaginary Enemies. He tried to remove Amy Pond, Rory Williams and Mels Zucker/River Song from time in the 1990's by tricking their classmate Veronica Stackmore into wishing them away. He gives his victims disguised gifts that grant him manipulative power over them.

Harbinger: The God of Chance- Yes I'm making Harbinger a God and also just one being. They're now a shapeshifter and the child of Maestro. They serve as a lesser deity and lie in wait, at moments in time, where there is a chance to break the barrier between the outer plane where The Pantheon lives and the mortal universe. Harbinger is now master of The Not Things and released them from the edge of the Universe when The Fourteenth Doctor and Donna crashed there, causing 14 to "invoke a superstition at the edge of the Universe". This one slight nudge to chance warped reality and let Harbinger's fellow gods loose.

Moloch: The God of Chaos- The brother of Fenric and a canonical God of Chaos, since I made Fenric a member of The Pantheon, it seemed fitting to make him part of it too, especially since it's a Pantheon of Discord and he's a god of Chaos. Seems very fitting that The Pantheon would have a deity whose domain is the name of their whole group. Not a canon member of The Pantheon

Incensor: The God of Disaster- A canon member of The Pantheon and mother of Doubt and Dread. Having read about Fenric and Moloch, I thought I could tie in Incensor by making her, another name of "Mi'en Kalarash", a legend from before Galifrey itself who is described as The Blue Fire and a being that inhabits "the wasteland between realities". That felt too perfect to not be the realm of The God of Disaster, so I made the two beings one.

Light: The God of Endings- Another classic Who villain and another being described as "an evil older than time itself" by The Seventh Doctor. He was obsessed with cataloguing everything in The Universe and became enraged whenever anything changed. He could teleport, move at "the speed of thought", had telekinesis and telepathy along with electrical abilities. As he detested change so much, bringing a permanent end to all change seems like it would fit him. Not a canon member of The Pantheon

Akhaten: The God of Plagues- The villain from The Rings of Akhaten, described by The Eleventh Doctor as "a parasitic deity" who fed on the hopes, dreams and souls of the people of Akhaten. As 11 called him a plague on the people singing to him and the people themselves called him "An Old God" I wanted to include him as a God of The Pantheon and I think a domain of Plagues suits him. Not a canon member of The Pantheon

Midnight: The God of Shadow- This is my take on what The Creature from the planet and episode Midnight was. An immortal being so old and powerful, so evil and dangerous that it could only be imprisoned on a planet where the sun ate away at any form of biological matter, to stop it gaining a host. It's jailers named the planet Midnight as a warning of The Deity it imprisoned but over time this meaning was lost. Now Midnight, roams his prison planet, driven insane and wanting nothing but escape. Not a canon member of The Pantheon

Kronos: The God of Time- A classic Who villain and enemy of The Third Doctor, from the story The Time Monster, Kronos was worshipped but feared as an evil god, a destroyer, child slayer and destructive force of evil. Captured in Greek mythology as The Titan of Time and Father of Zeus, Poseidon, Hades, Hestia, Hera and Demeter. With how often this being is symbolized as evil in both Doctor Who and media in general, Kronos Lord of Time fits in well here. Not a canon member of The Pantheon

Void: The God of Darkness- This deity is partly OC and partly based on some stuff from canon. This is the physical embodiment of The Void, the space between dimensions that contains "No light, nothing. Only darkness" according to The Tenth Doctor. Responsible for The Darkness of The Mind, where the worst ideas of sentient life come from, Void's power bleeds through dimensions and realities to infect every living thing with its power. Not a canon member of The Pantheon

Sutekh: The God of Death- A canon member and apparently the leader of The Pantheon, described as "the mother, father and other of all" and "the god of gods". Sutekh faced The Fourth Doctor in "The Pyramids of Mars" and later The Fifteenth Doctor in "Empire of Death". A creature obsessed with death and ending all life in The Universe as he sees life as a perversion, Sutekh stands on high as the Master of The Pantheon

Huitzilin: The God of Panic- Another of the same species as The Mara in the Classic Who novel, The Left Handed Hummingbird. Like how Mara feasted on emotion and Fendahl who fed on souls, Huitzilin feasted on fear and panic, as he's the same race as Mara and Fendahl in Classic Who, I thought making him a member of The Pantheon worked and a god of panic fits with the other gods. Not a canon member of The Pantheon

The Doctor: The God of Life- Surprise! I am basing this on a theory I have. The Doctor was found as a child by Tecteun on Galifrey before The Time Lords formed as a race. But why was he beneath the monolith as a child? What if he was a banished God? The God of Life and antithesis to Sutekh. This would explain his seemingly infinite regenerations.

A lost immortal god, banished as a youngling, would definitely make him "The Timeless Child". This would also explain his desire to save everyone and everything, he is literally driven to preserve his domain as much as he can. It could also explain how The Fifteenth Doctor brought the butterfly back to life in Space Babies

He was taken in by The Time Lords but when they invented time travel he became a danger, A God unbound from time itself, a non linear deity. When his fellow deities saw this, they formed a plan to wipe his mind and bind him into the mortal plane. The Trickster trapped The Doctor by making a deal with Tecteun.

The Trickster granted Tecteun the last bit of knowledge she needed to steal The Doctor's power over regeneration and life and work it into The Time Lord's DNA and descendants. However in return, Trickster trapped The Doctor to Galifrey, they became A Galifreyan biologically, Tecteun rewrote The Doctor's biology to trap him with Galifrey and her people. Not a canon member of The Pantheon

Precursor: The God of The Unknown and Secrets- The only one who's a complete OC deity. This deity hides in the background of their fellow gods actions, ensnaring victims with the knowledge they desperately want, forcing them into deals that Precursor binds them to. They then grant their victim the knowledge but immediately destroy it and feast on the disappointment and rage that their victim feels, leaving the victim a husk. Precursor can also rework reality like their fellow gods, trapping the truth in The Unknown Realm while making a new perceived truth, tricking everyone and keeping the true secret, the real knowledge unknown. Not a canon member of The Pantheon

I hope over the next few weeks, to be able to write and publish short stories for each and everyone of these deities! Hope you enjoyed this expanded Pantheon of Discord

[jasina85]

Alright, finished reading In Memoriam. Walking away from it with a very mixed opinion.

Ancilae creation rules are fine. Nothing there to blow my socks off, but it really drives the point of how slowly the V5 design team wants vampires to grow their disciplines vs the pace it actually happens at at the table (unless your ST cracks down hard on the amount of XP you get per session I guess). The new merits and flaws are also fine EXCEPT Custodian of History.

Custodian of History can go fuck itself and I'm never allowing it at my table. Why? Because as written, it's a 1-dot indulgence you're supposed to buy to be able to READ UP ON (you as in you - the player, not the character) on a particular topic from kindred history, have your character be able to form an opinion about said period, or generally tie them to the metaplot. So it's basically a tax you're supposed to pay for daring to want to connect your character to a topic/time period EVEN THOUGH loresheets cover this aspect just fine.

Idk who proof-read and approved this, but I was never so upset about a merit

Onto the spotlighting of events from kindred history and... well, if you wanted to run Victorian era game, for example, I think this book is not gonna help you a whole lot. It paints in very broad strokes so yeah... You're better off adapting stuff from the actual Victorian Age Vampire book. Also don't expect anything farther back than the 1700s. Having said that, two of the events it spotlights caught my attention.

The Trail of Mirrors! When Kementiri arranged her capture by the Camarilla only to fuck with them. Look, it's Kementiri shenanigans, what more do I need to say? It's hilarious when a terrifying methuselah makes it feel like a Scooby Doo episode.

The second are the Blood Hunts of Prague. The most outstanding issue I have here is the writers referring to "Old Clan Tzimisce" as though they were still a distinct bloodline (which in V5 they are pointedly not) and even then, they're using it wrong, because they're referring to Shaagra who has Vicissitude and therefore can't be of the Old Clan line. Anyway, my obligatory Tzimisce rant over.

Now, the good stuff! I personally loved the chapter about the psychology and humanity struggles of the ancilae. The book introduces a concept of Desolation - basically a vampire mid-life crisis where they're accustomed to being undead, but all their touchstones are already dying of old age. It talks about transferring convictions and how it can alter the relationship with touchstones or even warp it. I think it's a brilliant concept.

Expanded Memoriam rules - honestly, I have no opinion there, I've never used the regular ones, and while it's a cool concept on paper, I'm not sure how to properly implement it in play. Your milage may vary.

Loresheets! Look, they gave me a Dracula loresheet, it's very good, very thematic, I'm happy. The rest are fine? They introduce this organization called the Order of the Repentant, but there's barely any detail about them.

The section about considerate play in historical settings doesn't really say anything that's not been said in the normal considerate play section.

Overall, not bad, not amazing, In Memoriam is, in my opinion, just fine. It's an okay supplement.

[henrysglock]

Do you think that the reason for changing how long Henry has been flayed for in tfs on broadway could be to do with needing to recast child Henry for stranger things season five?

What with Covid and the strikes and everything else it was a long time before season five was able to even finalize the scripts, let alone start filming. If Raphael Luce was then too old to pull off playing the 12-13(?) year old Henry that was flayed then wouldn’t it be possible that rather than trying to find an extremely similar looking actor in the same age range it was decided to just recast a younger actor (being significantly younger is an easy excuse for any visual differences) and alter the age in the play to instead make Henry get flayed at a young age (age 8)? Plus it could lend itself to paralleling the flashback(s) with a younger Will in the upside down.

I’m also pretty sure Raphael Luce confirmed he wouldn’t be in season five. That along with how apparently something glossed over in the play is going to be expanded upon in season five (which is very likely, although not confirmed, to be Henry’s encounter with dimension x as a child) means it could be possible.

Idk, maybe none of this makes sense and it could definitely be a reach but I would be interested to know your thoughts on this.

Your reasoning makes sense, Anon, and I would agree with you if it weren't for all this:

Unseen outfits for Raphael

These unexplained BTS pics of the Creel house, parts of the house that were never used in ST4

This body double for the Creel murders that we've never seen used:

Evidence of Raphael having physically been at HNL, not just in a sound stage

Some unseen scene of Livi/Alice that required stunt glasses:

Raphael saying he was doing a lot of running and looking scared when he auditioned, which we never see from young Henry

Raphael having been filming in secret for a long time before ST4 was made

So while I'm sure Raphael didn't film during ST5 production, I'm hard pressed to say he won't be in ST5 at all. I'm pretty sure they won't recast, but if they do, they'll probably do something similar to what they did with El in the NINA arc. That is, of course, assuming that Raphael was actually playing Henry/there isn't a secret second boy who's doing all the running and looking scared, which is stuff that lines up with TFS Henry.

None of this is including the fact that on West End, Henry was 13 when he was flayed, and Kate said as much in an interview about it. We really don't know what age Henry was when things started to go wrong, but it was between ages 7 and 13.

[ii-neg-confessions-2]

Speaking as an old guy in the OSC (joined here a little while before BFDIA 5e released), I'm a little surprised that the audience acclaimed show in the community is...II? Like I get that it's the second biggest show (and biggest, for a while) in the running at its time, and I liked it for what it offered, and I totally get why it has fans, but I feel like it was always sort of milquetoast, underplanned, and diluted?

Like, BFDI built a show with an exaggerated premise and kept expanding on how wild it could get, but it had grounded characters where you could sit back and watch their arcs unfold in realistic ways as they succeed or mess up. ONE built a show around the bleak premise and kept the momentum going to make characters that were hard to root for but sympathetic nonetheless. ITFT, AIB, and TPOS (and my personal recommendation, POSSUM,) do great subversions of the genre by hinting at something bigger than the shows themselves, just hiding behind the plucky exterior that no one else acknowledges. Even shows with lower stakes like BOTO, AIB, C2BC, OLD, and OSO find their strengths by building from the comedic perspective or the character dynamics. They all feel confident in what they set themselves out to accomplish, even if they miss.

II now feels disingenuine in that same regard. They started out absurd and immature, as well as a little self-aware that they're absurd and immature, and it certainly feels like the most Total Drama-ish show out of all of them. Toilet humor, fat jokes, cheap laughs at stutters and alters, a few harmless antagonists until the grand finale? It's not deep, it's not even polished, but who needs it to be?

Then they tried to make things deeper, and the cracks began to show -- the foundation is unpaved, the structure falls apart the more you look at it. Characters that were treated as one-dimensional archetypes gain nuance that comes from nowhere with no buildup. Consider Balloon's arc of secretly wanting to get back in everyone's good graces and how the audience doesn't see it until Suitcase reaches out to him, even during the early parts of Season 2 -- compare it to how Pencil post-debut tries to warm up to her "alternate" FreeSmart members before she has her rant about how alone she is and how she needs the past to change. Consider Paintbrush and how their one-sided beef with Lightbulb went from "they're trying, I guess" in S2 to "the OG fam" in post-S3 with little to no interaction with her in between those periods -- compare it to Clock having a slow burn with Winner over combined standom and crippling loneliness before he's able to realize the errors of his ways and apologizes after episodes of idolization. Consider how Candle and Silver make the false claim that Balloon drove Nickel away from Baseball, and how this one misstatement of established canon lore is the one thing that kicks the Nickloon divorce into action -- remember that Suitcase is not brought up once in this conversation until the next episode, and she isn't even used to be seen as a person there.

Consider the ending reveal that, actually, MePhone4 was always God and that he made everyone and everything, and that the whole shebang's flaws can be chalked up to in-universe explanations. Consider that the "foreshadowing" that fans touted was just vague dialogue, semi-meta wordplay, speculation over Cabby's and Suitcase's mental disabilities, plot details that don't even stand out in relation to the absurd worldbuilding, and then adopted as "it's been here since the show began" when it clearly was just another plot they tacked on about 60% the whole story. Compare to a show like TPOS where the twist was always planned and the seemingly mundane scenarios don't overshadow the oddities (the vote counts, the grass, the fact that contestants disappear fully).

There's nothing wrong with a genre switch in a comedy series, but II seems to come from a shaky understanding of what builds conflicts or forms friendships or drives emotions. If something doesn't work, it tries to shift the narrative to make it fit or backpedals clean out (see Blueberry's villain arc lasting one episode, or Cabby getting a genuine talk about her memory aids after that fiasco with Bot). And since it fumbles the plot, its attempts to make emotional connections can seriously come off half-planned. II's shift and plot twists come off as disingenuine, almost manufactured, like if BFDI suddenly tried to pull a ONE in the span of half an episode. They get a lot of things right -- Marshmallow and Bow, Suitcase and Balloon, even Paper and OJ despite how little we see -- but it really isn't the emotional masterpiece that everyone claims it is.

(kinda agree on this one tbh. specially post iii & iii itself. things felt forced to feel serious and everything but just failed miserably. or even i dare to say pre iii tbh. lightbulbs & paintbrushes relationship felt forced just to give paintbrush an alt for marshmallow and even they just made lightbulb feel like the better version of marsh. not only i kinda think some other shows played it off better but also didnt force it in all in one little scene & instead made it slow-burn (take by exampleeeee plasma & knight helm they hated eachother episodes before but started to slowly become friends even after caramel cube got out (need to rewatch ppt2 btw, but iirc i liked this ver allat more) or the nickel & balloon situation. not only it felt unrealistic kinda but also just throws it in for arc purposes. it doesnt have a build up or anything but instead its because nickel wanted an ally or someone to rely on now that baseball was gone. some things actually go good as you say (marsh and bow, suitcase, taco kinda?? etc.) but the other part felt incredibly rushed (post iii taco, lightbrush, etc.) & could have been somehow better… at some points i kinda disagree? but its still coolio /gen) (ALSO before i go i still adore the show just. kinda dont like some parts guh)