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esamastation · 1 year

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Shizuroth, part eight.

"How is he?"

"What do you think?"

Lazard gives the SOLDIER First Class an unimpressed look and Genesis sniffs. "Never fear, Director - your Hero will be well fit for duty - after a break," Genesis says.

"Sephiroth never takes breaks," Lazard points out.

That earns him another sniff, one much closer to a scoff this time. "And people wonder why he's so unapproachable," Genesis says, rolling his eyes. "Why he keeps destroying training rooms in regular spars."

"I seem to recall you and Angeal having a hand in that too," Lazard says, amused and unimpressed. "You are all still forbidden from using the training rooms."

"Yes, yes, ours is a tragic tale of woe," Genesis says dismissively. "The point I'm trying to make is that whether Sephiroth takes breaks or not, he still needs them. He might be Elite even among us Firsts - but he's still human. No matter what the professor says."

Lazard folds his arms. "So this was to be expected, is that it?"

"Wasn't it? Have you not seen Sephiroth's schedule? And I don't just mean his mission roster. He's in and out of the labs so often they should install a revolving door, just for him," Genesis scoffs and looks away. "It's a wonder he didn't start losing it before."

Lazard narrows his eyes. "Has he lost it, then, Genesis? Has he been pushed to the brink?"

Genesis is quiet for a moment and then sighs. "No," he says. "Not yet. But something happened that shook him. Apparently his heart stopped, he was given too big a dose - but I don't think that's it. Not all of it."

"It sounds plenty shocking to me."

"SOLDIERs flatline all the time. That's what Phoenix Downs are for," Genesis waves a hand at that. "Sephiroth must've gone through it a thousand times. But maybe, in combination with the higher dose he got, and however long he was dead…"

Lazard hums. "Memory issues?"

"Most definitely," Genesis agrees, and gives him a sideways look. "He'll be able to cover it up - given time. But he must've forgotten more than he was letting on. I don't know how much - but it was a lot."

Lazard hums in grim understanding, and they're quiet for a moment in shared acceptance. Memory loss in a SOLDIER is common enough and usually isn't reason alone to pull them from the field - higher ups really didn't care. But it tends to have other detrimental effects…

Like an increased mortality rate.

SOLDIERs were sent out only on toughest of missions, taking on most dangerous assignments the company had to offer. Everything Turks or Infantry couldn't handle, the SOLDIER took care of. And going on a high-risk mission with any level of loss of mental faculties…

If Sephiroth was operating with something worse than your usual case of a few burned synapses…

"He needs to be evaluated," Lazard says finally. "Sephiroth has numerous missions coming up in Wutai - if his abilities are compromised -"

"You'll send someone else?" Genesis asks and scoffs. "That I would like to see! How will that look in the newspapers, when the poster boy is replaced? The horror, the controversy - the conspiracy!"

Lazard casts him a look. "Or maybe I will have to shuffle the roster to send someone with him," he says pointedly.

"To babysit Sephiroth?"

"Better than to risk everything due to lack of foresight," Lazard muses and leans back in his chair. "Angeal will be back tomorrow - I want you to debrief him on the situation - quietly - and then the two of you can assess Sephiroth's condition."

"Out of the company's view, I assume?" Genesis asks while whipping out his PHS to check the calendar.

"It wouldn't do for rumours to spread," Lazard agrees and looks away. "Thankfully the Third who saw him already promised to be discreet."

Genesis hums dubiously. "We'll see how long that will last," he mutters, scrolling through his schedule. In his experience, SOLDIERs gossip worse than the secretary staff.

"I'll take even a day's delay. With the true extent of his stay in Injections suppressed and with you handling the rest, hopefully the gossip won't find enough ground to spread," Lazard says.

Genesis hums and then frowns at a new message notification. "Ah," he says, reading the title.

"Hm?" Lazard asks

"Well. Speaking of gossip," Genesis says, his brows arching. "Someone is getting fired at Laybell's."

Lazard frowns and gives him a confused look. "Laybell's? You mean the clothing store?"

Genesis opens the mail that had just been sent out to Silver Elite and reads it through.

SEPHIROTH JUST ORDERED A WHOLE BUNCH OF SHIRTS FROM LAYBELL'S?!? by Beybelina

Hi, hello, hey, I'm a bit of a lurker, usually I don't have anything to say, but something INCREDIBLE just happened!

I work at the Laybell's in Sector Seven and I was just processing orders when it popped up! At first I couldn't believe my eyes! The name on the order, it couldn't be! It was SEPHIROTH! I thought it was fake, so I checked - and the mailing address is Shinra HQ!

Aaaah, my heart is pounding like mad! Sephiroth, making orders from our store! This is the happiest day of my life!

There's almost instantly a reply.

Re: SHIRTS FROM LAYBELL'S by Silver Tail

OH MY GODDESS! What did he order? What kind of shirts? What colour? Tell us everything!

And then an answer to that, just as quickly…

Re:re: SHIRTS FROM LAYBELL'S by Beybelina

I have the full list, though I probably shouldn't mail it because of customer confidentiality! But let's just say it looks like he's moving in from the Glorious Coat of Greatness and Goodness and we'll all be worse for it! He will look amazing of course, but it's still a tragedy!

Genesis brows arch slightly in incredulity. What customer confidentiality? "Apparently Sephiroth has been shopping for clothes."

Lazard looks up, and Genesis shows him the message. "Hm. I agree, someone is certainly getting fired," he says dubiously. "But is it really that unusual? Everyone uses mail to shop these days."

Genesis gives him a look. "You have no idea what the state of his wardrobe is, do you?"

"I make it a point not to pry into the personal affairs of SOLDIER members," Lazard admits.

"And we're oh so grateful - but I do, and it's something else," Genesis says flatly. He'd gotten his own leather coat because he'd gotten inspired by Sephiroth's style - only to soon realise where it actually came from.

He's never known anyone too damn haughty to get a new shirt, before Sephiroth. It would be amusing if it wasn't so irritating. Of course, there's also the fact that whenever they do as much as charge their hairstyle it's newsworthy. Sephiroth is especially sensitive to it, having been in the spotlight all his life. But mostly it was just the man being contrary on purpose, because someone said something, and sometimes Sephiroth just decides to dig his heels in about the weirdest things for no good reason. Like with the hair, oh, Goddess, the hair.

So the idea that Sephiroth is suddenly becoming fashion-conscious…? Highly unlikely.

Genesis scowls, snapping his phone shut.

Lazard is right - Sephiroth really needs to be assessed, thoroughly. Because either the man has utterly lost his mind… or he's up to something.

Cut to SY, sobbing screaming throwing up over a pile of torn shirts.

#Fanfiction #FFVII #Svsss #genesis rhapsodos #lazard deusericus

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hwangism143 · 2 months

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meant to be

synopsis in which you raise questions regarding your relationship with jeongin

pairing non-idol!jeongin x gn!reader

genre hurt, angst, it's just painful

warnings crying, mentions of eating, covertly toxic relationship, not proofread

word count 1.3k words

now playing happier - olivia rodrigo

a/n via angst is so back!

"i hope you're happy but don't be happier"

The most fascinating thing about heartbreak was how long it took for the effects of it to kick in.

There is a moment between the actual breakup and resulting heartbreak where the heart stutters to process the transition between 'what just happened' and 'this is my life now'. It was like striking a matchstick against the matchbox, where sparks would splutter and come to life just to die again.

For most people, it was a few hours after the initial spark. For you, the matchstick had been lit and doused for nearly four months, repeatedly until it couldn't even be qualified to be called a matchstick.

You weren't sure when exactly you and Jeongin went from love to cohabitation, when you went from spending nights in your living room talking about the most arbitrary topics to keeping doors shut and sleeping in different rooms.

It wasn't that the dissolving of love into sickly nothingness wasn't mutual. You both knew that the only reason why you still stayed together was because of dependency, not because of any feelings whatsoever. The love had died somewhere along the way like forgotten roadkill that cars swerved dangerously to avoid.

Except, you and Jeongin were the cars and the affection you once shared bled out onto the road.

And so, one day, you just packed your bags and left. It wasn't without warning, of course. You knew just as well as him that this could result in something toxic and unhealthy and needed to put a stop to it before evolved into something of that manner.

You sat him down the night before you left, explaining to him the situation the way you would to a child. He said nothing, his bottom lip caught between his teeth as he blinked back what must have been tears and nodded along to everything you were saying.

You painted a bad image of yourself while this happened. You were cold, detached. Your body was just a vessel there to deliver a message and your mind was somewhere where the grass was greener, not on the living room sofa you and Jeongin bought together.

It wouldn't be seen that way though. You knew that Jeongin would blame you of giving up on your relationship when in actuality, he was the one who had given up a long time ago. Jeongin had given up when locked doors and a lack of goodbyes had woven themselves into his daily routine.

Questions still plagued your mind though, one more prominent than the other. Why had all of this gone wrong? Why did an emotion that felt so strong in the beginning feel so empty now?

For the past four months, you kept no contact with Jeongin. And you were fine. Your mind still frolicked underneath a vast expanse of sky while your body went on with it's daily necessities.

That was until the day you had to leave though.

Your finger hesitated as it hovered over Jeongin's contact. You had never blocked it, deeming it pointless. And yet, here you were, wishing you had done so then so that you wouldn't be in turmoil now.

Today was marked on your shared calendar which hung on your once shared kitchen by a magnet stuck on the fridge. You wondered if Jeongin still looked at the dates that were specifically scheduled for you and if he thought of you when he did.

You resolved to text Jeongin but he had beat you too it.

[7:56 AM]

lover boy: you're contract is up today.

You: yep.

lover boy: I'll come to the train station.

He still looked the same, hair bouncing up and an curious eyes that drank in his surroundings. The train station was bustling, sounds making their way and carrying themselves to you, dragonflies buzzing about the smell of street food causing a rumbling in your stomach.

Jeongin's eyes found yours and he uneasily stumbled towards you. He didn't seem as shaken up as you were at the thought of meeting again. Unbeknown to you, he had already gone through his bout of hurt, complete with stereotypical Chinese takeout boxes littering the apartment which held a reminder of you in every nook and cranny and crying himself to sleep for two weeks straight.

That didn't happen to make this any less painful though.

"So this is good bye, I guess," Jeongin said softly. His lips were in a thin line and now it was his voice that was devoid of any emotion.

"I guess it is," you agreed, and suddenly, you weren't in sunny someplace else. You were here, in front of the man you had spent years loving and unloving only to bid him goodbye. Tears pricked the back of your eyes.

"I hope-" he cleared his throat, "I hope for the very best for you."

"I hope for the same," you whispered.

Jeongin dipped his head and turned to walk away. A tear that had been waiting a long time to slide down your cheeks finally did. A child was bawling, a cat was aggressively meowing and conversation flowed all around you. But all you could sense was your body shaking with desperate shudders and Jeongin's footsteps slowly receding as you strained to hear them one last time.

You were forced to ponder upon why your relationship failed again.

You couldn't do this anymore. You lunged out and reached for Jeongin's arm. He looked around at the sudden force with a dazed expression on his face. You didn't know what you wanted. A hug, to feel his arms around you one last time? A kiss, to taste his lips on yours after he became forbidden fruit and your hunger went away? Even a squeeze of your hand would suffice.

Instead, your index and thumb fingers circled around his wrist, the pads of them making contact where his pulse would have been. Another teardrop fell, and another, and another. Jeongin wanted to say something but the words couldn't even formulate in his mind, much less make it to his throat.

"Please don't forget me," you whispered, your voice thick with emotion.

Jeongin took one last, long look at you. His eyes traced your body once, as if simultaneously storing and erasing every single moment he had spent with you. "I won't," he promised, and left. Your mind was still here, here, in this godforsaken hell on Earth.

You cried the entire train journey.

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

You were back in this city again. It pained you an immeasurable amount, being alone, even if it was for just two weeks that would be full of work.

It was still cruel, however, roaming the streets with the ghost of the love you once tucked away in alleyways and shops you called your own.

The final blow however, came when you saw him. And he wasn't alone. Jeongin looked happy, and it seemed like he had someone to share that happiness with him. You selfishly hoped that he was happier when he was with you.

But it was a meaningless jealousy.

He looked at her the way he never did to you and she clung to him the way you never did to him. And that was when you knew.

Everybody has a different outlook on why their relationship ends. The only one acceptable to you was one that you knew would haunt you for the rest of forever, yet also seemed entirely plausible. All points led to it, strands of a spider web branching outwards just to meet in the middle.

You had been asking the wrong questions the entire time. It wasn't why the relationship had crumbled all around you. It was when it all came crashing down. And there was only one answer to that wretched question.

Maybe you both were never meant to be from the start.

please reblog and comment if you liked this fic! it means everything to me and I love reading your thoughts <3

: ̗̀➛ current permanent taglist:

@linoalwaysknows @moon0fthenight @hyulino @palindrome969

@squishybinnieee @lastgreatamericandynasty1 @stayinlimbo @farfromsugafanfic

@hongshuaknow @cookiesandcreammy @kayleefriedchicken @toomanybiasz

@seooj444 @soaplickerrr @nappynapnaps @lina-linny @yrqrnc

also, @minluvly you asked to be tagged in jeongin angst so 😭

#- via's fics <3 #stray kids #skz #jeongin fanfic #jeongin x you #jeongin #jeongin angst #jeongin imagines #i.n skz #i.n x reader #i.n stray kids

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osharenippon · 10 months

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Shoujo Manga's Golden Decade (Part 2)

Shoujo manga, comics for girls, played a pivotal role in shaping Japanese girls’ culture, and its dynamic evolution mirrors the prevailing trends and aspirations of the era. For many, this genre peaked in the 1970s. But why?

Part 1

The Year of 24 Group

Some of the best-selling work by the Year 24 Artists (l-to-r): Yasuko Aoike's "From Eroica with Love," Ryoko Yamagishi's "Arabesque," Mineko Yamada's "Minori no Shoujo," Toshie Kihara's "Yomie no Ishibume," Yumiko Oshima's "The Star of Cottonland," Yuuko Kishi's "Tamasaburo."

Back in the early '70s, there was the prevailing notion that manga was for young kids. Despite the variety in themes, big magazines like Margaret, Shoujo Club, Nakayoshi, and Ribon were theoretically aimed at elementary school-aged girls.

In practice, the reality was more nuanced. Due to being published in Weekly Margaret, "The Rose of Versailles" was for kids. And it did very well with them. Yet, its revolutionary romance also appealed to broader audiences, exemplifying the crossover potential of shoujo manga. It was the title that opened the door for what is known as "the golden age of shoujo," which was further cemented by several other groundbreaking hits.

These hits widened the shoujo manga field, and soon, other editorial houses also wanted to cash in. Shogakukan, which published the powerful Weekly Shonen Sunday, entered the shoujo market in the late '60s. Shueisha and Shogakukan also partnered to form a keiretsu and open the Hakusensha publisher which deals mostly with shoujo manga.

That is the context in which a batch of artists known as "The Magnificent 24 Group" rose. And they were another key reason as to why '70s shoujo made such a mark. These manga-kas introduced themes such as sci-fi and homosexuality to the segment, revolutionized its art, further explored historical and terror narratives, and generally broke barriers of what was possible in shoujo manga. Their work was intellectually challenging, philosophical, and, above all, fundamental for male manga critics and connoisseurs to finally take shoujo seriously.

The Year 24 Group refers to the fact most artists were born around 1949, which is known as the year 24 of the Showa era in the Japanese calendar. These women came of age during the time artists like Hideko Mizuno were debuting and doing revolutionary work in the shoujo field, and they were eager to follow their lead. The success of unorthodox hits like "The Rose of Versailles" and the emergence of new magazines enabled them to be bold.

The two artists who led the movement are Moto Hagio and Keiko Takemiya. Their shared house in Tokyo, known as the Oizumi Salon, became a gathering place for several young artists keen on breaking new grounds for shoujo manga-kas. These women became the Year 24 group. But there were other two people, besides the artists themselves, who were just as crucial for their collective rise.

Firstly, there was Junya Yamamoto. Yamamoto was a young male editor at Shogakukan who had risen through the ranks of the successful Shonen Sunday weekly manga magazine. Noticing they were lagging behind Shueisha and Kodansha in the manga segment for their lack of a robust shoujo presence, the editorial house appointed Yamamoto to launch Shoujo Comic (known as Sho-Comi) in 1968 and Bessatsu Shoujo Comic (known as Betsucomi) in 1970. However, he quickly ran into an issue: most successful shoujo artists already had exclusive contracts with the competing houses, and aspiring names were vying for positions at the already established titles.

In 1969, the "God of manga," Osamu Tezuka, introduced Yamamoto to Keiko Takemiya, then a university student living in Tokushima City. Takemiya had spent her school years dreaming of becoming a manga-ka and participated extensively in the readers' corner section of COM. COM was an avant-garde manga magazine Tezuka founded to nourish young talents and publish stories without the typical restraints of more commercial shoujo and shonen publications. In her first year of college, Takemiya won a Shueisha's Weekly Margaret newcomer competition and had a work published in the magazine. Still, she was persuaded by her parents to focus on her studies instead and to leave manga as a side hobby.

Yamamoto, in turn, was impressed with her talent and convinced her to chase her dreams. Quickly, she found work in all three publishers and started simultaneously publishing in Kodansha, Shueisha, and Shogakukan's shoujo titles.

Meanwhile, Moto Hagio also grew up enamored with the manga world. During her college years, she had a work selected by Shueisha's Bessatsu Margaret (Betsuma) through a competition, but she could not find a fixed slot in the magazine. Then, she got introduced to Kodansha's Nakayoshi editors, who were impressed by her talent. While she did start publishing short stories there, editors rejected most of her submitted work as they did not fit the magazine's mold. One day, an editor introduced her to Takemiya, who, overworked while working for several magazines, was in dire need of an assistant. The two hit off, and Takemiya, who until then had her permanent residence in far away Tokuma City but was planning a move to Tokyo, proposed they both live together. She also decided to introduce Hagio to risk-taker editor Yamamoto, who, impressed by her talent, encouraged her to pursue her path instead of trying to fit into the expected shoujo template.

Then there was Norie Masuyama, who first became acquainted with Moto Hagio before becoming Takemiya's manager. Hagio was from Fukuoka, while Masuyama was from Tokyo, but due to their similar interests, they became penpals. When Hagio first moved to Tokyo, Masuyama hosted her in her home in Oizumi. Eventually, Hagio introduced Masuyama to Takemiya, and the three of them became close. Because both were artists from outside of Tokyo, Masuyama was the one who first circled the idea they should live together (something Yamamoto presciently warned it could turn into a problem), and she was the one who alerted them of a house in her Oizumi neighborhood being up for rent.

Keiko Takemiya and Moto Hagio, estranged since the late '70s, revealed details of their feud in autobiographic books: Takemiya's "Shonen no na wa Gilbert" (2019) and Hagio's "Ichidou kiri no Oizumi no Hanashi" (2021). The dispute, stemming from Takemiya accusing Hagio of plagiarism, was fueled by Takemiya's jealousy during a challenging creative and personal period. While Takemiya appears self-aware and analytical in her account, Hagio's book indicates she hasn't forgiven Keiko, revealing unresolved feelings. The publications triggered intense online debates.

Masuyama came from a sophisticated family that was very involved in arts and, from a young age, got familiarized with the world of music, literature, and movies. Her refined taste impressed Hagio and Takemiya. At a time when Japanese girls dreamed of Europe, Masuyama actually had friends living there and was up-to-date on the latest European trends. She also had a lot of knowledge of European cinema and literature.

As their rented house was old and rusty, Hagio and Takemiya started spending a lot of time at Masuayama's house across the street. She introduced them to films, songs, books, and paintings. It was Masuyama's taste -- including her interest in movies and books depicting gay romance and her desire for girls' comics to have bolder and riskier themes -- that helped to instill a passion in both artists to go further than the safe cliches usually depicted in shoujo works.

In 1970, editor Yamamoto convinced Takemiya to sign an exclusive contract with Shogakukan. The following year, Hagio also started publishing for Sho-comi and Betsucomi. Their work would attract a loyal fanbase, and aspiring manga-ka would flood their mailboxes. So Takemiya made a decision: to select female artists around her and Hagio's age to mentor and train at their shared home. Thus, the Oizumi Salon was born.

Despite attracting attention, Takemiya and Hagio's works were not always popular. In fact, they'd often rank last in readers' popularity polls, which tend to be all-deciding in manga magazines. But they persevered, and Yamamoto trusted them.

Keiko Takemiya aimed to establish herself with a top-rated series through "Pharaoh no Haka" (left) in order to garner the necessary respect from editors to write the series she wanted, "Kaze to ki no uta" (right). Despite her resolute efforts, "Pharaoh no Haka" never secured the top spot in Sho-comi's readers' poll, peaking at #2. Nevertheless, the series succeeded in elevating her fame and earning her the respect she sought.

In 1972, Hagio had an idea for a serial focused on a male European vampire. However, as she wasn't a famous artist, Yamamoto only allowed her to publish one-shots. So she came up with a plan: to write three interconnected standalone stories. To circumvent another restraint - shoujo editors' avoidance of male leads - she put the first story focus on Marybelle, Edgar's sister. Once Yamamoto realized what Hagio was doing, he was amused and allowed her to continue. And so, "The Poe Clan" series began. In 1974, Shogakukan finally started publishing their shoujo titles in compiled paperback format. In another proof of trust, Yamamoto chose Hagio's "The Poe Clan" as the first title of the Flower Comics imprint.

To everybody's surprise, "The Poe's Clan," in paperback format, was a groundbreaking success, almost instantaneously selling out its initial printing. At the time, Hagio had just started a new serialization, "The Heart of Thomas," a tragic gay love story set in an all-boys German school. As usual for her, the story wasn't all that popular with Sho-Comi's readership, and its lackluster results in the reader's poll almost got the series discontinued. But the notable success of "The Poe's Clan" tankobon assured editors, who allowed Hagio to continue the series. "The Heart of Thomas" went on to become another best-seller and a seminal shoujo title. It also attracted critical acclaim and a loyal fanbase to Moto Hagio, which in turn helped put the Year 24 artists -- who were pretty good at self-promotion -- in the spotlight.

Hagio, Takemiya, and several other "Year 24" authors drifted between being popular and underground. They had a sizable, loyal fanbase that followed them and turned several of their works into best-sellers. On the other hand, by finding a way around the usual shoujo traditions, they weren't particularly popular with the average shoujo reader, ordinary young girls across the country.

Their peculiar position forced them to be clever, so they could fulfill their creative desires as well as their editors' expectations, who were there to make sure the stories published were satisfying to the core readership. Takemiya wrote "Pharaoh no Haka," an Egypt-set romantic adventure, to be well-accepted so that she could then dedicate herself to doing what she truly wanted in "Kaze to Ki no Uta," a gay love story set in a 19th Century French boarding school.

Initially overlooked in popular shoujo magazines, Moto Hagio gained success with "The Poe Clan" in compiled format, launching Shogakukan's Flower Comics imprint. Over time, she became a highly respected manga artist, the only manga-ka alongside legendary filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki to receive a Person of Cultural Merit recognition. In 2016, marking 40 years of the conclusion of her first hit, she released a new "The Poe Clan" chapter in Flower magazine, selling out the increased print run of 50,000 copies in a day. This success marked a significant shift for Hagio, who, despite not being a major magazine seller in earlier years, became a valuable asset to the struggling magazine publishing industry decades later. Following the one-shot, she released three more chapters and, in 2022, began a new sequel series.

Besides Takemiya and Hagio, several other notable shoujo artists who went on to become huge names used to frequent the Oizumi Salon and were part of the "Year 24 group." In the early '70s, most published their work on Shogakukan's titles, which had a "free policy" on storytelling compared to Margaret, Shoujo Friend, Nakayoshi, and Ribon. Then, as Shogakukan started being more strict to properly compete with the market leaders, several moved to newly launched Hakusensha titles Hana to Yume and LaLa. Influential names that were part of the movement included Yumiko Oshima, Yasuko Aoike, and Ryoko Yamagashi, among several others.

Despite their unorthodox preferences, they weren't necessarily trying to rebel against the system, they simply wanted to put out good quality work they believed in. Like other Japanese girls from that era, they were fascinated by Europe, and plenty of their stories took place on the continent. In 1972, Hagio, Takemiya, Yamagishi, and Masuyama made a 45-day trip to Europe, visiting the Soviet Republic, France, and several other countries, which had a profound impact on them. Still, their narratives were widely innovative. They often had male leads, introduced sci-fi, "boys' love," and other bolder genres to shoujo manga, and contributed to the evolution of shoujo illustration. Above all, this group of artists was the one who made clear to naysayers, once and for all, that shoujo manga is indeed an art form.

But while their influence in manga history is undisputed, other significant -- and much more commercial -- manga movements also shook the shoujo manga world during that decade.

A Need for Drama

When talking about '70s shoujo manga, it's common for minds to drift directly to iconic series from that time, like "Candy Candy" and "Rose of Versailles." But, unlike in present times, in that decade, the manga industry's focus wasn't on successful, long-running series but on the artists themselves.

As opposed to the struggling publishing marketing of today, major shoujo manga magazines all sold over 1 million copies during that decade. Manga in tankobon (standalone paperback) format was turning into a money-maker field, but being able to sell paperback was very much secondary compared to being a name capable of selling magazines. Keiko Takemiya and Moto Hagio, from the Amazing Year 24 Group, would go on to become household names and had best-selling series, but, at the time, they couldn't compete with the actual shoujo manga superstars who were the signboard artists of the Kodansha and Shueisha's shoujo titles, the ones who actually moved publications. These artists' work was the most significant indicator of what the mainstream readers wanted and aspired to back then.

In a December/1975 issue, weekly Josei Seven spotlights the new generation of superstar shoujo manga artists: (l-to-r) Moto Hagio, Machiko Satonaka, Ryoko Ikeda, Yukari Ichijo, Keiko Takemiya, and Ryoko Takahashi. While contemporary manga-kas are highly discreet about their lives and do not even tend to show their faces, in the '70s, they were treated like superstars, and, in the article, the manga-kas openly discuss their love life and details of their high incomes, including how much they had in the bank and how much they spent on rent and daily utilities.

For Kodansha, the top shoujo artist was definitely Machiko Satonaka, who won the Best New Artist competition in 1964, when she was still a freshman in high school. There have been several high-schoolers making their debut in the industry throughout the decades, but, as the first, Satonaka caused a media frenzy. Her ascent gave confidence to countless other young women -- from "Glass Mask"'s Suzue Michi to Keiko Takemiya (who also won a smaller prize in the same competition) -- to pursue their manga careers.

The attention surrounding Satonaka, who went on to become a public personality with TV hosting gigs and other appearances, is another interesting, nostalgic phenomenon. In the past, it was common for manga superstars to have a strong media presence. Nowadays, the norm is the complete opposite: for manga-kas to be highly private, no matter how famous their work is.

In any case, Satonaka quickly proved herself to be more than a sensational news story as she created extremely popular mangas for Kodansha shoujo titles like Shoujo Friend and Nakayoshi. Her style, widely accepted by readers, became symbolical of the story-telling the '70s girls craved: extremely dramatic with emotionally driven plots and lots of bombastic twists and developments.

In his book on subcultures and otaku culture, sociologist Shinji Miyadai notes that '70s shoujo manga can be divided into very few categories. There is the category the Year 24 artists dominated -- which he defines as the "Moto Hagio domain" -- of works with a lot of artistic value, up-to-par with literature. And then there's the far more commercially viable "Satonaka domain," which represented the mainstream taste.

In the "Satonaka category," the artist depicts a stormy life story as a proxy experience for the readers. Of course, there are universal elements of love, friendship, and insecurity that girls can directly relate to. Still, these stories provide adventures that readers could never experience in the real world.

These facets of the "Satonaka domain" are present in almost all the best-selling, mainstream shoujo series of the '70s, like the revolutionary historical romance of "The Rose of Versailles," the dramatic rags-to-riches story of the beautiful orphan in "Candy Candy," and the rise of an ordinary girl to the top of the sports elite in "Ace wo Nerae." In all of these titles, you'll also spot other defining characteristics of '70s shoujo: the death of beloved characters and well-liked female characters with voluminous blonde hairs and huge, sparkling eyes (a legacy of Macoto Takahashi, the illustrator who, throughout the '50s, created the art that directly influenced subsequent shoujo history).

Yukari Ichijo was the most prominent Ribon signboard artist throughout the '70s, creating popular mangas like "Suna no Shiro" (left) and "Designer (right). Young girls across the country adored her work despite the adult drama in it.

Since these stories are extraordinary and dream-like, many of them use Europe or the US as their setting, another reflection of a time when Japanese youth dreamed with the West.

While Satonaka was Kodansha's star, Shueisha also had its top shoujo artists. For Margaret, it was Ryoko Ikeda who kept creating memorable dramatic manga after the conclusion of "The Rose of Versailles." Other classic '70s dramatic works published in the weekly included Kyoko Ariyoshi's ballet drama "Swan." Meanwhile, over at Ribon, no one shone brighter than Yukari Ichijo. Ichijo's works, which young girls across Japan devoured, contained a lot of adult drama with adult characters. Her 1974 manga, "Love Game," had a bed scene. One of her most celebrated works of the decade, "Suna no Shiro" (Sand Castle), dealt with incest. While Ichijo is the one who stood the test of time, another artist who also enjoyed great popularity in Ribon following this formula was Kei Nogami.

These mangas served as an escape for girls, who left their ordinary school life behind for a few hours to embark on extraordinary adventures. In contrast, one of the main genres in contemporary shoujo is unassuming, everyday high school romance. How could the shoujo segment go through such a drastic transformation? The reasons for that also dates back to the 1970s.

Part 3

#shoujo manga #vintage shoujo #otometique #yumiko oshima #keiko takemiya #yumiko tabuchi #hideko tachikake #machiko satonaka #yukari ichijo #ribon #1970s japan #1970s #year 24 group #moto hagio #vintage manga

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everlastiingiimmortals · 2 months

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a few preliminary headcanons and theories on feixiao, based on existing lore and notes in game (none of these should be spoilers!):

she, i believe, is one of the youngest (if not the youngest) generals currently. the valorous relic set doesn't belong to her, but to the previous yaoqing general, because one of the stories describes exactly what happened during the third abundance war in which they lost their life. what this means is that feixiao rose to her throne only 30 star calendar years ago MAX, and in such a short time frame has become known as one of the best generals in terms of warfare and military prowess, even winning 4 consecutive victories over the abominations in a single year (2-3 years ago).

that relic set also mentions more of the history between the foxians and borisin, especially those of the yaoqing, who are cited to be the most genetically similar to the borisin out of all the ships. what's more is that, while most foxians do not have the capacity to shapeshift (i.e. moon rage/moon madness -- did they change the terminology recently?), it's more common on the yaoqing and feixiao is cited to suffer from it. the reason for this is because the foxian war slaves of the borisin are typically of mixed blood, likely half blood, and the verdant knights of the yaoqing were especially involved in rescuing them. i think that, according to the relic story, the foxian girl mentioned is feixiao, and she's half borisin -- which also is the reason she lacks a foxian tail, because the borisin's tails are stumpy.

further comment on the relic set is her whole "Lacking General" thing, "lacking in worries, regrets and rivals," gives me a very terrible 'ends justify the means' impression. she has claimed countless victories, but at what cost? i hesitate to think she's as concerned about preserving numbers as jing yuan is. this is a prevalent mentality throughout all of the alliance, but especially so in the yaoqing as one of the most aggressive ships of the xianzhou. the previous general has a mantra of 'we are born for war, and we will die for war,' and it's a very clear mentality shared by all cloud knights but, i think, especially the verdant knights of the yaoqing. this is unfortunately also emphasized with the half-foxians, who are stronger and faster but also shorter lived due to the horrific mutations they are at risk of, to the point of being imprisoned in and/or ultimately dying in the armor they once so proudly wore. i think that feixiao is no different, especially with her claim to being a 'perfect weapon'.

the Lacking General sounds so stupid and SHE CHOSE IT HERSELF i love her so fucking much. i genuinely think she has no idea the implications of the nickname on its own or really cares either, she shines confidence out the wazoo and it's amazing

re: the militaristic culture of the xianzhou, it's really no wonder with her track record why she's praised as "the Great General," because the emphasis on victory is so prevalent. this is also why in contrast, jing yuan is considered a coward by enemies and alliance citizens alike. they make for very interesting foils just based on the differences in their personalities and approaches to war (pspsps jing yuans 👀).

this is more of a personal thing than a theory or hc but i also hope she's so mean to jing yuan, because just look at how sushang talks about jing yuan and how she looks down on him compared to feixiao, and jiaoqiu's comment on jing yuan's conduct (which to be fair he did let blade go and lifted dan heng's exile decree without permission) -- mind you fu xuan complained that "jing yuan has committed quite a few violations this time around, and I'll have to deal with them one by one... [sigh] the cloud knight generals are all such a hassle." which gives me the impression that violations are... more common than we think, by all the generals LKHDSAFGKJSH

i. honestly don't think she's well read, both due to her background (and that stupid nickname) and the militaristic culture of the alliance -- especially the yaoqing. i get the impression that she's more of the brawns compared to jing yuan's brains, so she relies far more heavily on her counselors and strategists (jiaoqiu)! to map out plans and such than he does. she's very handy, but she also is described as a perfect weapon, so. yknow. less thinking more fighting.

adding onto that but it's apparent to me that feixiao, while probably involved in the skyfaring commission given the yaoqing's specialty in starskiffs and pilots, probably isn't involved in more administrative matters like jing yuan is, who has ties to the realm-keeping commission and has been involved in regularly transferring and retiring his cloud knights to different departments like with da hao. i get this impression because jing yuan has always been about prevention while feixiao is obviously... not. i don't think she's very big on foresight because who needs it when you kill the enemy first anyway--

a side comment on administration, it's... honestly really quite sad that the yaoqing's realm-keeping commission regulations and sky-faring commission's merchant guilds seem weaker than the luofu's, given how sushang comments in the aurum alley event that the yaoqing has lost a significant aspect of its cultural landmarks and identity thanks to the ipc's involvement in their trade and taking over of the merchant guilds. there's a reason she fought so hard and aggressively for the preservation and revitalization of aurum alley. given that the seat of divine foresight's depository notes oswaldo as a high threat and the damage done to the yaoqing's traditions in the name of convenience and 'modernization', it's not hard to see why the citizens of the alliance tend to react negatively to the ipc even if they have formal trade agreements.

going back to headcanons, based on her half-borisin blood i think that her sense of smell is especially heightened compared to most foxians. i wonder if she's in fact more receptive to lupitoxin, or if it has a different effect on her -- for sure it would probably trigger her moon rage, as it does in full blood borisin. i wonder if she's also more affected by the scent of blood, and perhaps has to take additional medications before fighting the borisin so she's unaffected by both lupitoxin and bloodlust.

feixiao in the midst of bloodlust... surely a terrifying sight to behold. i have a visual in my head of her drenched in the gore of her enemies, screaming a blood-curdling victory cry that's probably far more frightening than morale-boosting. as such...

...i also wonder if jiaoqiu's food and medicine is useful in mitigating or controlling her risk of moon rage? there is something to be said about spicy food being an anecdotal remedy for depression (however this is also contradictory with some correlative studies), and in chinese traditional medicine heating foods (like spicy, hot, or bitter food!) is thought to lessen fatigue and calm and strengthen the heart. i could definitely see this as very useful for countering the side effects of her affliction, especially with bitter or cooling foods quelling the rage.

that said, iron stomach is a go! feixiao loves jiaoqiu's food and will very happily eat anything he offers her without any discomfort in the slightest. super spicy? that's fantastic and delicious! super bitter? that's supposed to be good for her, right? sure! it's good! super sour? she likes the flavor even if her face scrunches up, give her more!

#//about; (MERLIN'S CLAW)#most of these are copy pasted and edited from my babbling to ventium plus some more headcanons #oh. goodness i just finished and this is so long I APOLOGIZE #anyway jiaoqius jing yuans mozes and more pspspspspsps

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roosteraloha · 10 months

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delightful ❄️

Bradley Bradshaw × Reader

wc - 1.9k

warnings - FLUFF, talks of seasonal depression & spending the holiday season alone.

disclaimer - ANY BLANK/AGELESS BLOGS WILL BE BLOCKED!! I also DO NOT give permission for any of my works to be copied, shared, compiled, translated or posted onto other sites!!

a/n - this fic is part of the wonderful @sailor-aviator’s Christmas Challenge!! this is my first writing challenge & my first seasonal fic! hope y’all enjoy this one 🤍 title is taken from ‘let it snow’ ❄️

comments & reblogs are greatly appreciated!!

Christmas. The holiday season that everyone around you seemed to love. You however struggled this time of year, being so far away from what little family you had left was never easy on a regular day, holidays just amplified that longing - something Bradley could relate to all too well.

You couldn’t lie, you loved how the twinkling Christmas lights helped to cheer in the cold, dark nights. But you dreaded being alone, when everyone around you couldn’t stop raving about going home for the holidays and growing more and more excited, while your seasonal depression worsened.

At the first mention of tnr holiday season, Bradley was expecting you to be full of seasonal cheer, but in a way was gladly surprised that you too had lacked the stereotypical family atmosphere during the holidays. He lost both his parents and have a very fractured relationship with Maverick, his only real family, which led to many years he spent the entire holiday season alone. You had very little family left, those who you did have, an estranged aunt and uncle you barely knew, lived halfway across the world. The relationship between you was basically nonexistent, and there was no way ok your meagre salary, that you could afford to fly out to spend the holidays with them.

When you had met Bradley, you were initially cautious of his attitude towards the holiday period. There was no way you could be in a friendship or a relationship with someone who lives and breathes the season. You wouldn’t be able to stand it. You heart lifted when it was revealed that Bradley had the same attitude as you, he wasn’t going to try and change you and your feelings. Instead, he’d respect them and let you celebrate however much or little you wanted.

When December arrived, you immediately became much more gloomy and irritated. You didn’t need to look at the calendar to know the reasoning behind your sudden distaste for everything and everyone around you. The nights grew longer and darker, and you felt less and less like yourself. Bradley had severely underestimated how much you disliked the holidays, assuming you were just being over dramatic like you were known to be on subjects you felt strongly about. He swore that his heart physically hurt knowing how much you hated the holidays, the switch from your usual chipper routine, to barely being able to drag yourself out of bed for work.

You sighed heavily, collapsing onto the sofa, ignoring the snort from Bradley at your dramatics. “What now?” He chuckled, you got very dramatic around stressful situations, and the holiday season was the highlight. Truly he did care about how you were doing, but he only found amusement in these situations due to the one time you broke down crying laughing at how badly you’d overreacted over a tiny trivial thing, he knew you’d never take offence to his laughter.

“I completely forgot that everybody decides to do their Christmas shopping so incredibly last minute!! Like, why are you shopping for presents the week before the holidays?!” You huffed dramatically, unable to withhold your laughter at Bradley’s expression, trying desperately to hold a straight face while you acted out your day. “I don’t know, baby. But I’m thankful for them providing me with this entertainment.” You gasped in faux outrage at his words, grabbing a pillow from beside you and throwing it in his direction without looking, yelling in victory when you heard him yell at the unanticipated contact.

Bradley was cautious about voicing his next statement, already anticipating you to blow up at him, but being polite like his mother raised him to be, “Y’know, you shouldn’t be cooped up in your tiny apartment for Christmas.” He held the cushion in front of him, a pathetic attempt at a shield from your incoming wrath. Eyes widening at your sudden silence, he was quick to add, “Bub…I just meant, I also have to spend the holidays alone, in this big empty house.” He’s by your side now, hands running placatingly on your arms. “What if we spend it together? We can pick out a tree from that lot that Bob can’t stop raving about, you can teach me to bake those cookies we talked about, maybe just make it like any other day, if that’s what you really want?”

Your tense expression melted, tears seeking up in your eyes, not entirely certain whether it was due to the season, or your loving, highly attentive to detail boyfriend’s reaction and creation of alternatives for you, other than your entirely more depressing current tradition of spending the day in your bed, pillow over your head and duvet pulled over you.

Bradley froze at your sudden emotional breakdown. Presuming he had spoken out of turn and instead of pissing you off, had broken your heart, something he swore to himself and his parents that he would never do to you. Internally panicking momentarily, relaxing when you merely snuggled closer to him, curling up on his lap, your head buried in his neck.

The house was cold. That was the first thing you noticed when you got to Bradley’s late after your shift on Christmas Eve. You lived in San Diego. It did not get this cold, ever. Frowning, you trudge through the entryway, kicking off your shoes, then wincing as your socked feet meet the cold tiled floor. You called out for Bradley, he had texted you before you left work, asking you to come over, you assumed for a quick present swap. He had been ignoring your texts and calls since you gave him confirmation that you would be there. He must’ve turned the air conditioning down as low as it could go, which in summer would have been luxurious, but now?

Now, the drizzle and gloom outside was continued indoors, which kept you frowning as you move through the house looking for Bradley.

Hearing soft humming of Christmas songs from the kitchen, you scurry through the house, keeping your feet off the cold floor as best you could. You’d have to get Bradley to fix the AC. “Woah! Stop there! Close your eyes, this is a surprise, sweetheart!” You groaned, reluctantly closing your eyes, feeling a warm presence move in front of you, a soft kiss being pressed to the top of your head as a soft silk is tied delicately over your eyes.

“Bradley…” you whine softly, trusting him, but clueless as to where this was going. He chuckled, his breath fanning gently onto your cheek, a welcome warmth from the chill in the air. Rubbing his hand up and down your arms, appreciative that you were still in your thin work uniform, trying to warm you back up as best he could, “I’m gonna lead you upstairs, then I’m changing you into something warmer, okay?” You whined at the sheer unknown, but gave into the significant trust you had in your boyfriend.

He carefully pulled off your uniform, his warm hands welcome against your cold skin, goosebumps erupting down your arms. A soft, fleecy, warm shirt was pulled up your arms, and Bradley buttoned it up with immense care and precision. Next were the fleecy pants, which you felt were too long for you, and giggled as Bradley pulled on a fresh pair of fuzzy socks. You squealed as Bradley scooped you up bridal style, peppering your face with soft kisses, chuckling at your soft laughter.

Downstairs, he places you gently onto the couch, greeted now by a warmth the room lacked when you arrived. Warm breath fans gently across your cheek as Bradley gently unties the blindfold, squinting as your eyes adjust to the light. The room is bathed in a soft warm light, the scraggly tree you both had picked out and decorated the week before was twinkling softly, but wasn’t what made your eyes well with tears. The fireplace that usually stayed empty due to the warm California weather, was crackling with fresh logs, the fire casting a warm and cosy glow over the entire room.

There was also an extra stocking hanging from the mantle. Where usually there were just three - Goose, Carole and Bradley - there was one with your name lovingly hand stitched, matching the theme of the original trio. Swallowing thickly you glance at Bradley who shrugged nonchalantly, "I didn't have anyone else to spend Christmas with. Hope you don't mind if I spend it with you. Share old traditions…Maybe make some of our own…”

Throwing yourself at him, you hug Bradley tightly. It had been mentioned only in passing that growing up you never had your own stocking like most children, and your only happy holiday memory was spending quality time snuggled together with your family in front of the fireplace.

Bradley ran a soothing hand across your cheek, wiping away the tears you were unaware had started to fall. You had never had someone pay such attention to minute details you shared, not expecting them to remember them months later.

But Bradley was not someone from your past.

He is your future.

Several classic Christmas movies later, you were snuggled closely against Bradley’s side, under one of the seasonal blankets he ‘allowed’ you to keep at his place, It’s a Wonderful Life playing in the background. Your half drunk mugs of hot chocolate sat on the coffee table alongside platters of sweet treats Bradley had bought just for the two of you to share, alongside the decorated sugar cookies that the pair of you had made from an old recipe of Carole’s.

Humming contentedly, you crane your neck to glance up at the face of your loving boyfriend, feeling your eyes on him, he turns, kissing you lovingly, pulling you closer to him. “Happy?” You nod against his shoulder, “This is the best Christmas I’ve had in years, Bradley.” He smiles softly at your words, “You know, if you wanted…” He shrugged, trailing off, frowning, you shift and straddle his lap to get a better look at him. “What? If I wanted to what?” Bradley shook his head, a bashful expression on face, narrowing your eyes, you grabbed his chin gently, forcing him to look at you again.

“I wanna spend every Christmas like this with you.”

“Every Christmas?”

He nods.

“Move in with me.”

“Yes.”

“Why? Because I miss you when you’re not- Wait, yes?! You’ll move in?!” His expression frozen, not believing his ears.

Nodding and kissing him once, his eyes light up, grin taking over his face, laughing joyfully, tugging you close to his chest, covering your face in kiss after kiss after kiss. You join him in laughter at his reaction, tugging him down to lay on top of you, being lovingly overwhelmed by everything Bradley.

If this is how every Christmas would end up, snuggled up in front of a fireplace with the love of your life?

If this is what your future looks like, then you couldn’t wait to spend the rest of your life with Bradley.

#allina writes #bradley bradshaw x reader #bradley rooster bradshaw #rooster x reader #bradley rooster bradshaw x reader #bradley bradshaw x you #bradley bradshaw fanfiction #bradley bradshaw #tgm fanfiction #top gun maverick fic

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felassan · 6 months

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just some thoughts on these (source: this article) original sketches of the Dragon Age world through time / concept sketches of the Thedas map at different points in its history:

(the linked article is worth a read for extra info and context on the maps). like the article says, whenever a name of a place or people is typed as opposed to handwritten, it means that the place or people originally had a different name which was changed by EA's "sensitivity team" due to it clashing with something from the real world. Names of things change when worldbuilding anything all the time ofc, but it’s just interesting to me to look at what's been typed over and list places / peoples which at one point in the creation of the world were called something else before being renamed for that reason:

Arlathan, Frostback Mountains, Alamarri tribes, Anderfels, Par Vollen, Antiva (used to be called "Calabria"), Orlais / Orlesian Empire, Seheron, Orzammar

I wonder what the ones (besides Antiva) used to be called? ^^ there are other names on the map that appear to have been renamed at some point in the process (see below), but they weren't typed over like this.

On the time periods given in some of the bottom-right hand corners: “F.A.” refers to the Founding of Arlathan (elven calendar), where 1 FA is the year in which Arlathan was founded. “T.E.” refers to the founding of the Tevinter Empire (Imperial Calendar), where 0 TE is the year in which the Imperium was founded. Does “F.C.” refer to the Founding of the Chantry, making this an alternative way of notating the Chantry calendar? (the Chantry was founded in 1:1 Divine and World of Thedas tells us that the founding initial event honored in this calendar is that in its first year the original head of the Chantry, Divine Justinia I, was appointed). Was this the original name/way of writing of the chantry calendar before they decided (either in-world or devs doing the worldbuilding) that instead of notating it like FC they would have ages like “-150 Ancient”, the Divine Age/1:10 Divine etc? Is “600 F.C.” the Steel Age? In that map it shows the Qunari Empire borders really quite far south into what became Antiva and Rivain, and we know that in the Steel Age the Qunari pushed deeply into Antiva and Rivain, so it could track. Ferelden would also have been founded as a kingdom at that time, explaining why Ferelden now appears.

These maps are also interesting as instead of purely geographical they are also political in places. (I think DG said at one point on the old forum that the lack of exact borders on the Thedas map we see is intentional, with the rough area controlled by each nation being pretty clear, and “when it comes to areas where they border on each other the exact ownership is probably in question”.) ((there are some cool fan-made maps out there where different people had a go at headcanoning or approximating borders to make political versions of the main map btw)). On some of them we can see dotted lines presumably representing borders or approximate borders of nations/states and the territories claimed or controlled by at that time of different groups of people, past and present, including in many cases the naval territory/their waters. It’s really interesting to see where some of these borders approximately are and to see how they changed through time in the world timeline. There are no border lines on the final sketch/most recent [in-world time-wise] version of the map, I guess as it’s the present time in which DA:O is set, or close to that time.

For example, it’s really interesting to me to see in 1100 TE the borders of the Dales, the borders of the Kingdom of the Ciriane and the borders of the Kingdom of the Planasene. (the Ciriane were the loosely-defined tribe from ancient times that lived in what’s now central Orlais, and the ancestors of modern Orlesians. The Planasene meanwhile were a farming tribe that became the ancestors of most humans in Nevarra and the Free Marches.)

And to see in -100 TE/6300 FA those of the kingdoms of Neromenian and Qarinus before the formation of the Imperium and before they became absorbed by the Imperium.

And it’s interesting to see Tevinter’s borders expand and contract over time, and stuff like how when the Kingdom of Rivain was founded, it was originally a much smaller nation in the northern part of that peninsula only, whereas in the modern day the peninsula looks to all be part of the kingdom of Rivain.

(in general it’s really interesting to compare these sketches with the map of Thedas as we know it hh).

The first map set in -100 TE/6300 FA clearly places the city of Arlathan, capital of Elvhenan, in the forest now known as Arlathan Forest. Codex Entry Enasalin says:

"An example of such a place is Sundermount in the Vimmark Mountains near Kirkwall. According to Dalish legend, this was a burial site for elders and the location of a great battle between Imperial and elven forces—nowhere near Arlathan (if one believes the city was near the forest of the same name in northeastern Thedas).)"

^ The dot there is the settlement of Arlathan.

Some other things I noticed/was wondering about:

It seems like the Venefication Sea during development used to be called the "Venefician Sea".

The ancient elves are noted as “the Elvhenan race”, rather than the elvhen race

A name is given for the tribes that presumably were the ancestors of modern Rivaini humans/the human tribes that inhabited the area around what became modern Rivain: the "Riverian Tribes". This is notable to me as I don’t remember hearing this before, and they aren’t listed in the list of known human tribes.

We can see the “Yothand tribes” noted in the area that became the Anderfels. Before seeing these sketches, the Prima strategy guide for DA:O mentioned that the main population of the Anderfels in ancient times in 500 TE, were called the Yothandi (note the "i" at the end isn't on the sketch map). parts of the info in that guide seem to be of debatable canonicity so that’s interesting too (maybe those segments of the guide were written earlier on during DA:O’s development before some changes were made in the worldbuilding?). In the Anderfels there are also the Orth people who live in the Wandering Hills today, but originally this was an old name for people[s] of the Anderfels (Orthland) in general. “Orth” doesn’t appear on these sketches. So what do we think? ^^ Were the Orth people called the Yothand[i] people earlier on in the worldbuilding process then the devs changed it? Did the Yothand people come first in the in-world timeline, and that was the name of those peoples in ancient-ancient times, before they grew into, came to be known as, or were otherwise absorbed by the Orth, in still-ancient but not super-ancient times? The map with Yothand is set in -100 TE, so in this scenario they were still called Yothand for another ~600 years going by the Prima guide. Are Yothand and Orth synonyms, like the Ciriane/the Cirean? Maybe one of the two terms is/was an umbrella term that includes the other, like Alamarri includes/included multiple tribes (Clayne, Chasind, Avvar)? Maybe there were simply multiple tribes like in Ferelden (Clayne, Chasind, Avvar) in the Anderfels (Yothand and Orth both). Maybe it’s just a case of loosely-defined groupings, like the Ciriane, with different parts or groupings within that having their own names? I'll note that interestingly "Yothand" seems like a combination of Anderfels and Orth.

Maybe "Yothandi" is a variant form of "Yothand" or plural or something?

Whatever the situation with the Yothand[i] and the Orth, given that e.g. the Ciriane for example are a loosely-defined group, given that the Alamarri are/were made up of multiple tribes (Avvar, Chasind, Clayne), given that the sketch gives these groups as “tribe[s]” plural (Ciriane, Planasene, Inghirsh, Yothand) just like it says “Alamarri tribes”, and given human history irl, since there are multiple named groupings underneath the Alamarri umbrella (Avvar, Chasind, Clayne), I’m choosing to headcanon that Ciriane, Planasene, Inghirsh etc are similarly umbrella terms with multiple other named groupings within them, just that they're names that we don’t know, unlike with the Alamarri tribes. makes sense, Ferelden is the most fleshed-out human nation in the setting.

Who are/were the “Shaelan” [sp?] race and the “Olvenene” [sp?] race?? (if you can make out those words better please let me know!!) I don’t think these words crop up elsewhere in known lore. On the sketch that they appear on, human tribes are called “[Something] tribes” and the elves (a people that is not human) are notated as the “Elvhenan race”. Were there a few other races that weren't human on Thedas this far back in the world’s time? Or at this point in the creation of the world in the dev process, were there a few more races who are not humans in the lore and they were then removed? I wonder what these groups were like/what these people were concepted to be like at that point. The “Shaelan race” are given as living in the now-Free Marches area south of the Minanter River. If the way Arlathan is drawn is anything to go by, the “Olvenene race” are given as living in what looks like a forest, north of the Tirashan and near the Hunterhorn Mountains, near where Kal-Sharok is. They have a capital city/settlement in that forest called “FaeFran” [sp?], which to me sounds kinda fantasy-elfy or fey. Maybe the patch of the forest north of the Tirashan on the map sketch became the green bit around the Blasted Hills on the map we know? I wonder if they were a different type of elf or a significant elven subculture within the greater culture Elvhenan, given the way the name sounds and the forest location. (also, like the Elvhenan and their capital in Arlathan Forest, in the next time period, they have also vanished...).

I'm also excited to see the Orkney Mountains appear (below the Tirashan, west of the Frostbacks)! Context on this from the DA wiki:

"The Orkney Mountains are not marked on any of the official maps. Traveler's Guide section of the Dragon Age: Origins: Prima Official Game Guide, Ultimate Edition provides the following description: "The Orkney Mountains, a rugged chain of mountains that stretches from the icy wastelands of the southeast deep into the continent's center, dominate the southern lands of Thedas." They are distinguished from the southern range of the Frostback Mountains, which are described in the following way "A smaller mountain chain called the Frostback Mountains juts between Ferelden and Orlais and holds the dwarven city of Orzammar (thought to be the last until the rediscovery of Kal-Sharok)." The status of the Orkney Mountains (including their supposed existence and location) remains unclear, as they were not mentioned in any other Dragon Age media."

Things I noticed on the later time-period maps:

From the map at 300 FC, it looks like there is a settlement called “Orlay” in Orlais. (again if you can make this out better than me, let me know!) On this map the only other settlement marked is Minrathous, the capital of Tevinter, and they’re marked with the same symbol (dot inside a circle), so I wonder if at one point in the worldbuilding process, the capital of Orlais was called Orlay? In later sketches, I can’t see Val Royeaux and Orlay is the only settlement in Orlais marked with the ‘capital’ symbol. Maybe Val Royeaux used to be called "Orlay" and then the devs renamed it?

On the map at 600 FC, it notes the Qunari as the “Qunari Empire”. I don’t remember hearing this phrase in published lore, unlike e.g. “Orlesian Empire” or “Tevinter Imperium”. Similarly, while Tevinter is called an empire in the lore, you don’t really hear “Tevinter Empire” like the map notes so much as "Tevinter", the "Imperium" and "the Tevinter Imperium".

On the last, most modern-day map sketch, specific locations for Qundalon and Sundarin are given in the form of dots marking them, as opposed to the map we’re familiar with which doesn’t mark them specifically and just has the text nearby in the general area. Sundarin might at one point have been “Sundurin” but it’s hard for me to make it out.

It’s on this last sketch that more settlement detail and more specific settlements that we’re familiar with start to appear, like Vyrantium, Marnas Pell, Neromenian, Redcliffe etc.

Interestingly, the capital of Seheron on the last sketch is given as Alam (marked by the capital symbol of a dot in a circle), with the settlement of Seheron marked with just a dot. It seems that at some point in the worldbuilding it was decided that the capital of Seheron the nation would be Seheron the settlement as opposed to Alam, as the lore we’re given states the capital is Seheron.

Treviso could have been “Trevis”, but the “o” could also just be obscured by the line of coastline. also it's odd to me that Calabria had to be renamed because it was the name of a region irl but Treviso, which is a city irl, just stayed Treviso?

Ansburg used to be on the coast of the Free Marches in the east, south of Rialto. As we know it, it’s to the west inland, north of Markham.

Lothering’s location also changed, quite a bit. In this map it’s on the northern coast of Ferelden, east of where we know Highever is and west of where we know Amaranthine is. (It is there, the first bit of the word is just obscured somewhat by the line of the coastline). In the map that shipped of course, it’s in Ferelden, south of the Bannorn and north of Ostagar.

I’m reading this settlement in the east of Ferelden on the map sketch as Highever. Anyone else also think so? Maybe this is where it used to be in the worldbuilding process until at some point like Lothering it changed? (or the changes also could have been a result of when the artists drew the map-proper, based on what the article says).

I’m reading the red box settlement here as Val Chevin. I wonder what the letters (looks like the end of a word that was partially cut off after “Orlesian Empire” in typeface was added by the sensitivity department) marked in blue said? maybe “-way”, as in the Imperial Highway? And I can’t make out the name of the settlement in brown is or match it with anywhere on the map we know. “Fourehatie”? [sp?] Maybe this place became “Val Foret”?

Lastly, in the Anderfels, I’m guessing that these settlements (“Laro-velanie”? [sp?], “Melo-orthanic”? [sp?]) are Nordbotten (left) and Hossberg (right) respectively. I guess they got renamed at some point in the world-building process. (Note the presence of “orth” in the name of what we know as Hossburg, like the Orth people/Orthland).

Is there anything else you noticed? any other places that changed name or locations, or people/group names that we can only guess at what they were? or maybe I missed something or you can make out any of the words better than me, or you compared the sketch maps to a different Thedas map like the DA:I war table map and noticed something? If you have any thoughts or corrections, let me know. ^^

Image credits: David Gaider [source link]

#dragon age #bioware #video games #long post #longpost #mj meta

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utilitycaster · 11 months

Text

In the course of a couple of conversations I think I have hit on some of the fandom weirdness this campaign, and it's notable because I realized it when it was my answer to both a question about why the fandom response to "Party of NPCs" was pretty negative at the time but I don't think it would be now; and someone pointing out to me how there was a sudden massive spike of enthusiasm for Ashton and Fearne as a ship without a particularly large corresponding boost in any sort of fan works.

I suspect that many of the people who came to C3 as their first CR campaign came through the avenue of shipping; either because Shadowgast and Beauyasha both broke containment to some extent; because of TLOVM (which as a scripted TV show where they know the relationships and how they shake out, there can be foreshadowing), or because of the influxes of people shipping Imogen and Laudna circa May and September 2022. This is in contrast to Campaigns 1 and 2, where a lot of the fanbase came via D&D fandom, fantasy fandom, voice acting fandom, and more general word of mouth. This time, people showed up to ship; of that segment of the fandom, shipping is a major if not the primary way in which they interact with fiction.

Here's the truth: this is a terrible campaign for shipping, and indeed, one of the worst shows for shipping I've seen in a while. This, to be clear, is not a critique of quality. It's merely an observation that this is a terrible campaign for shipping specifically, but a great one for many of the myriad other reasons why one might watch long-form actual play. It's plot-heavy, with a pretty intricate network of laid groundwork over eight years of storytelling, two past campaigns, and two miniseries finally paying off. It's been heavy on showing the unexplored corners of the world in Marquet, rural Issylra and the Shattered Teeth. It's taken risks with the typical D&D campaign structure and with party composition and splits, to varying degrees of success. It's allowed a revisiting of beloved NPCs and locations from the past. It's the lore campaign! It's extremely not the shipping campaign.

I think most people have picked up on that by now, even if it's only subconsciously, and so those who watch with the express intent of shipping, are grasping at the most tenuous of straws because that's pretty much what they have. Two canon ships and one noncanon but hinted-towards ship are with guest characters who are not present and so are necessarily very quiet. Chetney and Fearne is a lot of fun but it does not fit the usual shipping-above-all preferences of monogamous love to marriage/partnership to babies, plus Chetney is weird and old. (This has always been an issue with this mentality, incidentally; for all I think the popularity of Shadowgast is why some of these people are here, the fact of the matter is that many of the people who like Shadowgast like a completely foreign to canon concept operating under that name that erases the frequent long-distant nature and the almost certain lack of children and the deliberate choice to end the relationship amicably due to different needs.) However you may feel about Imogen and Laudna it is incontrovertible that there's been little to no movement in what is now a calendar quarter. And so: two people doing something that is not explicitly romantic while two other characters say "emperor and empress" is a paltry, miniscule - and I hate to use the word but no other will do - crumb; but it is a crumb to a starving populace.

In case my feelings aren't abundantly clear...I say let them eat cake. I enjoy ships and shipping! I enjoy seeing characters recognize themselves through the other and develop over time as they fall in love with another character; I enjoy seeing a deep romance unfold slowly so that I can savor it. But this campaign just doesn't really have that, and that's never been the most significant reason I watch, let alone the main one. I'd rather have no romantic relationships in a work than rushed ones that strain credibility or lack chemistry, and those who do want romance can either find other shows, or focus on transformative work. For those who came to Campaign 3 on the basis of rumors of the great romances in Campaigns 1 or 2, those are still there for you! And while I think we're too far in for a campaign-length romance, there are plenty of ways for the existing ships to become something more interesting. But I think this explains a lot of the weirder patterns in the fandom conversation as of late.

#cr tag

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suchaladyy · 9 months

Text

Broken Resolutions by suchalady (Rated M, 1.6k)

I wrote this from two prompts: one from this list, and one from this one.

Thank you to @nonamemanga for being the first eyes on this and for helping me with the minutia!

—

It was a couple of minutes after midnight, and already there were a couple of resolutions broken.

—

Wednesday hadn’t even wanted to come to this stupid party. She’d had no obligation to, either - this wasn’t Enid’s affair; it was a Nightshade party that Enid herself had only been invited to because she was dating Ajax.

Wednesday certainly wasn’t a Nightshade, a fact that hadn’t earned her much good will with the other attendees of the party, as she had turned them down multiple times, each rejection more insolent than the last. She had a problem with people who couldn’t take no for an answer.

Therefore, there was no reason she shouldn’t be ringing in the New Year in her bedroom, spending the night like she would any other. She was not the type to look for a reason to celebrate, and the changing of the Gregorian calendar year was as arbitrary a reason as any.

Yet she had ended up there anyway, sipping on cheap, flat beer that offended her sensibilities along with her taste buds, as Enid anxiously socialized with her boyfriend’s friends. That was the reason Wednesday was there. Her roommate had been nervous to come to the party and face the scary, approval-withholding “popular” people, so she had turned her puppy dog eyes on Wednesday until she’d broken.

If Enid hadn’t finally transformed in the fall, Wednesday would think the girl had been misclassified and was really a siren.

That was the only phenomenon that could explain how the gloomy girl ended up with glitter swiped across her zygomatic and around the orbital bones of her shadowed, sunken eyes, surely intended to compliment her shimmery black dress, but the effect lacked luster on her cheerless form.

Wednesday blamed Enid for what transpired later, too.

Ten minutes before midnight, Wednesday had gone looking for the bathroom. Apparently, the ancient hidden library did not have modern plumbing, and so she had had to venture out into the deserted halls of Nevermore to empty her bladder.

After she relieved herself, Wednesday’s boot heels clicked against the stone floor and echoed down the hall as she checked her wristwatch. Seven minutes to midnight.

Looking back up, she stopped in her tracks for only a moment at the sight of Tyler Galpin lazily making his way down the hallway in the other direction. What was he doing here?

Back in November, rather than sending Tyler to a mental facility, or better, maximum security prison, after what he’d aided Laurel Gates in almost doing, the state of Vermont had decided that he belonged at Nevermore Academy. With children. The very children that he had tried to massacre not even a month prior.

This decision was probably not made lightly, and the administration would not have allowed it if they thought he posed a real danger to the students.

Still, administrative errors were made all the time.

Wednesday wasn’t interested in getting caught in Tyler’s web of deceit again, no matter what his clean psych eval said. She steered clear. And for what it was worth - so did he. He’d barely looked at her in the last month and half that they’d roamed the same halls, attended the same classes, breathed the same air.

The rest of the student body had a similar repulsion to Tyler Galpin, though she’d bet no ones’ was as strong as hers, not even Xavier’s, who made pointless, exaggerated displays out of berating Tyler publicly. He rarely responded to the taunts or shoves, and when he did it was never more than a twitch of his eyebrow or lips. He was untouchable - to her, to everyone else.

That said, she didn’t think Tyler would have any plans for New Years Eve. To her knowledge, he didn’t have any friends, period. Why was he wandering the halls, then?

She glanced at him up and down as they passed each other in the hall, the wide corridor meaning there was no chance of them brushing arms. He wasn’t dressed up, but he wasn’t dressed down either, wearing light wash jeans and a black t-shirt. He had a bruise on the side of his face and a scrape around his eye. She didn’t know where they came from.

As she continued towards the secret entrance to the library, she wondered where he was going to ring in the New Year, which was now - she checked again - six minutes away.

Was he going to meet a girl? an ugly voice whispered in the back of her brain. She never listened to this voice. It spouted a lot of useless nonsense. She thought Enid and this ugly voice would make great friends.

Wednesday was not paying attention, her thoughts preoccupied with analyzing Tyler’s possible plans as well as his unexpected wound, so she did not notice as he came up behind her until she was suddenly pressed against the wall next to the entrance to the hidden library.

She elbowed him in the gut and spun around, satisfied by his pained grunt, but Tyler grabbed her by the throat - not squeezing, just keeping her pressed back against the brick. His fingers tightened minutely before he leaned down and kissed her, stealing whatever vitriolic words were about to come out of her.

Her mouth opened for him automatically, letting him slot their lips together. She’d only ever been kissed once - a sickeningly perfect moment of innocent exploration in the Weathervane before all of her illusions of romance and trust were shattered.

But this was a crash course in heat; he was hungry and unencumbered as he descended on her. His hand slid from cradling her neck to her chin, tilting her up to him as he licked into her open mouth, finding her tongue and encouraging her to clumsily mimic him. His tongue rubbing against hers, soft but relentless, felt salacious to her, yet she whimpered in protest when he retreated from her mouth.

He soothed her desperation with a bite to her bottom lip, turning her pout into a tiny moan that made embarrassment flare up in her chest. He didn’t give her time to dwell on it, though; he crowded her even further against the wall, towering over her and making her crane her neck up so he could better nip at her lips.

Surrounded by him on all sides, caged against the hard wall behind her, she was enveloped in his scent, so much so that she felt like she was drowning in it. His smell wasn’t anything complicated - clean laundry, some kind of woodsy, masculine cologne, and something that could only be described as boy - but it made her mouth water, made her press up harder into Tyler’s mouth and lick behind his teeth, as if she might be able to taste it. The taste of his mouth was different - pretty much just spit and coffee - but it was no less intoxicating to her. His resulting groan only amplified the effect.

She felt like she was drowning in him, all of her senses overtaken by nothing but Tyler:

Taste - she flicked her tongue out again, this time trailing it along his full bottom lip, tasting his skin, wanting to suck the faint flavor of minty lip balm off of his mouth, and so she did;

Touch - his warm, firm hands on her straining body, smoothing up and down her sides in steadying caresses that only served to make her feel less contained;

Hearing - his heavy breathing and the slick sounds of his mouth on hers filled her ears and made her ache between her legs;

Smell - he pulled back, removing his lips from hers, and Wednesday reflexively took a deep breath of air through her nose, sucking down another heady gulp of his scent;

Sight - and when she blinked open her eyes - he was already staring at her, pupils blown.

—

Ten minutes later, Tyler and Wednesday found themselves in a dark storage closet, his hands much rougher on her body now as their mouths came together again and again. She was drunk on the feeling of his tongue in her mouth; he’d seemingly picked up on how much she liked it and was abusing it to the fullest extent.

There went her first resolution of the new year: To not interact with Tyler Galpin beyond what was strictly required of her by social or academic obligation.

When she moaned emphatically at him sucking on her tongue, he pulled away with bright eyes and a smirk. “You like that?” he asked huskily, teasing her.

This Tyler was a lot mouthier than normie Tyler - which was saying something. He’d already been snarky. It was one of the things she had liked about him. The slight edge that went against what his all American, cookie cutter appearance suggested he’d be like. Now that he wasn’t hiding who he was, or maybe because he wasn’t trying so hard all the time to trick her, he had even more bite - she hated how much she liked it.

“You look beautiful,” he said, his hand running up the smooth underside of her stocking clad thigh.

She didn’t like his earnestness nearly as much. “The posturing is unnecessary.”

“Have I ever lied to you?” he asked, his voice low but lilting, a twinkle in his eye, clearly joking.

"When have you ever told me the truth?" she shot back bluntly.

He sobered up and looked at her seriously. “Anytime I had a choice.”

He didn’t wait for a response, instead pressing his full lips back against hers, effectively silencing her and clearing her head.

Tyler trailed kisses along her jaw and to the soft, sensitive spot behind her ear. “I missed you,” he said, the words ghosting across her skin.

And there went her second resolution: To not ever believe a word that crossed his lips again.

#wyler #weyler #wednesday and tyler #weyler fanfiction #wyler fic #my fic #moodboard

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softly-potter · 7 months

Text

Good Girl Era

Summary: Weiss and Ruby try something new in bed.

Pairing: Weiss x Ruby

Word Count: 1,327

Warning: p0rn with a plot

A/N: loosely inspired by Good Girl Era by UPSAHL

“Beacon,” Ruby groans out, desperate and panting, her skin flushed. “I-I’m sorry, but Beacon.”

“Oh! Okay, okay,” Weiss stammers, distraughtly moving to undo her bonds. In her quick movement to free her, Weiss’ knuckle smacks against Ruby’s forehead, and her heart leaps as Ruby violently flinches away, exhaling shakily.

“Sorry,'' Weiss whispers, trying to calm herself and gently removes the blindfold from Ruby's face before moving to her wrists once more. Ruby sags when the binds loosen, collapsing into Weiss’ arms, shaking as Weiss holds her.

“I’m sorry,” she says again, cards her fingers through Ruby’s short haircut. “So, so sorry, was it too much?”

“I’m fine,” Ruby wheezes and Weiss doesn't miss the way the other girl's breath shakes. “We experiment for that exact reason. I guess… blindfolds are mine?”

Weiss smiles sympathetically. “Okay, noted, no blindfolds.” she says softly, moving her face into Ruby's hair, shifting so that they are side by side with Ruby’s face pressed to Weiss’ chest.

After a few moments, Ruby’s heartbeat begins to slow, her skin cooling. Weiss continues threading her hands through Ruby's hair, her nails lightly scratching her scalp and Ruby purrs in satisfaction, pressing a kiss to Weiss’ chest before shuffling downwards and putting her face squarely between Weiss’ breast.

“Petal, what're you doing?” Weiss giggles.

Ruby looks up, silver eyes blown wide with lust. “I dont like blind folds, doesn’t mean I dont like fucking you.” she says simply, and Weiss feels her blood heat at the words. Ruby smirks, bites at the soft skin.

Weiss laughs, the sound morphing into a moan as Ruby licks her nipple tentatively, before wrapping her lips around it completely and sucking.

“Oh.” Weiss says weakly, tugging at Ruby’s hair, and begins to whine when Ruby's hand begins to work at her neglected breast. Leaning her head back, Weiss lets her fingers trail down Ruby’s torso, dancing over her pubic bone before it settles between the redheads thighs, and she hums when she finds the other girl is still expectant.

She begins to make lazy circles with her thumbs, and Ruby hums against her chest, bites down on the sensitive nub and it makes Weiss’s head fall back, her eyes falling on the discarded blindfold.

“Ruby? What about… if I wore the blindfold?”

Ruby stills, releasing Weiss’s nipple with a wet pop and sits up on her elbows. “I think that's the best idea you’ve had all day.”

Reaching for the satin material, Ruby holds it out, quietly offering to put it on. Weiss smiles, flicks her wrist a final time in a movement that makes Ruby gasp as she lays the blindfold over Weiss’s eyes.

She pulls it tight, descending Weiss into darkness and causing her focus to be on the feel of Ruby’s hands tracing her sides, her breasts, settling on her neck.

“You okay?” Ruby asks, stroking her neck.

Weiss nods, licks her lips. “Mhm.”

She can tell why Ruby wouldn't enjoy the lack of sight and why Weiss might positively love it. There's an element of surprise, an idea of loss of control. Ruby’s a leader, a planner, doesn’t enjoy things going awry when they can be avoided. On the contrary, Weiss has lived the majority of her life on a calendar, moving as it’s written. With a blindfold, she can’t tell what’s to come next, and the thought thrills her. In addition to the unknown, she also finds that her other senses are heightened.

The sound of Ruby’s breathing, the feel of the damp sheets against her back, her blood drumming quickly in her ears. The smell of roses and sex leaking through the various scents of their home. The touch of Ruby’s hand on her thigh, of her shoulder pressing into Weiss’s calf as Ruby spread her legs, of her fingers tracing Weiss’ folds achingly slow. Her thumb presses down on her clit a few times before her fingers descend within her.

Weiss moans, chokes out Ruby's name as she works her with her undying attentiveness, knowing what action will elicit what response. She moves her fingers with purpose, stroking every ridge as Weiss’s pants grow heavier, before switching to a different rhythm and leaving Weiss on the cliff between ecstasy and exasperation.

“Ruby,” Weiss moans, arching her back as she feels another finger added into her, scrambling to grip her sheets. “Fuck, Ruby?”

“What's the matter?” Ruby replies, a grin evident in her voice. “Oh, is that what you need? For me to fuck you?”

Weiss nods quickly, hoping she doesn't look as desperate as she feels, and she clamps her mouth shut to stop herself from whining as Ruby pulls her fingers from her, leaving an intolerable emptiness.

The sound of a door opening echos, and Weiss holds her breath, straining to hear. A box falls to the floor, the sound of clanking and velcro reverberates and Weiss jumps when she feels Ruby's hand on her ankle.

“I’ve got you,” Ruby hums, her hands pressing against the inside of Weiss’ thighs, spreading her. Then she feels the head of Ruby’s strap against her core, a shiver shooting up her spine and she sighs as Ruby sinks into her.

Weiss lets out a breath, and then another when she feels Ruby bottom out with her. “Oh gods.”

She hears Ruby laugh before the other girl settles back, pulling Weiss’ legs together and holds them both over her shoulder, squeezing her around her strap as she begins to fuck her to absolution. Weiss gasps, pathetic whines leaving her lips with every thrust.

“What, no smart ass remark like usual?” Ruby huffs, her arm wrapped around Weiss’s legs tightly, keeping her still.

Weiss shakes her head, whimpering. “In my good girl era I guess.”

Ruby laughs, picking up her pace. “Buuuullshit.”

Weiss gasps, grabs the sheets by her head. While she can’t see the gorgeous view of Ruby sinking into her, she deeply enjoys the obscene smack of flesh on flesh that fills her ears, driving her wild. A hand slithers between her legs, playing with her clit and leaving her knuckles white as her body begins to shudder with a familiar feeling.

“Is that what I have to do to make you a good girl?” Ruby asks sweetly, as if the question isn't absolutely salacious. “Blind you and put my strap to use?”

Weiss moans again, sucks a sharp breath in. “Ruby ‘m close.”

Ruby chuckles, a sweet and filthy sound, before leaning forward, pressing Weiss’ legs into her torso as her fingers danced along Weiss’s clit and pinches.

Weiss groans, the stimulation nearly too much, pleasure cresting and shattering, coming undone beneath her girlfriend.

“Gods.” Weiss cries, her legs opening and escaping Rubys hold, wrapping around the other girls waist and holding onto her as she fucked her through her orgasm, each thrust making a sound that would make prim and proper Weiss cringe.

Ruby kisses her messily, groaning thickly and Weiss puts her hands in her hair, pulling the dark strands as Ruby continues her thrusts, her pace feverish. A final stroke sends Ruby over the edge, and she clings to Weiss like a lifeline, burying her face into the girl's neck and moaning, her hot breath sending goosebumps across Weiss’s skin.

For a moment they lay there, panting and clinging to one another. Weiss sighs, reveling in the afterglow and the feeling of Ruby’s red strap still inside of her, still splitting her in only a way Ruby could.

Then she realizes she still can’t see.

“Ruby?” she says, breathes out through her nose.

“Oops.” Ruby murmurs, undoing the satin fabric and pulls it away, revealing her stunning expression, flushed and ruffled, silver eyes sparkling in anticipation. “So? Whatta think?”

“Good, good.” Weiss pants, rubs the back of her hand over her forehead. “I… good.”

Ruby sighs, rests her head on the pillow beside Weiss’. “You’re still bad at being good, but it seems I’ve found a solution.”

Weiss just giggles.

#ao3 crosspost #ruby rose rwby #whiterose #ruby and weiss #rwby #whiterose fanfiction #blurb #rwby fanfiction #white rose smut #weiss schnee

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the-broken-pen · 4 months

Note

A sapphic detective who gets too close to the truth of a case and gets confronted by her girlfriend for being too obsessed?

“You need to stop.”

The detective didn’t jerk up at the sound of her voice—just quietly stirred, rustling papers as she shifted upright to meet her eyes.

“I didn’t hear you come in,” the detective said slowly, eyes scanning over her. She watched her gaze catch on the water dripping from the ends of her hair, the mascara smudging itself down her cheeks.

“It’s date night,” she said, and even to her own ears her voice sounded tired. Dead. Rotting roses and dirty dishes in the sink.

The detective blinked once, then shifted through her papers until she found a scribbled in calendar. It was stuck on the wrong month.

“I forgot,” the detective murmured. It wasn’t an apology, and neither of them were pretending that it was. She could tell, even now, with her girlfriend pathetic and dripping water onto the hardwood floor in front of her, that the detective wanted nothing more than to go back to her evidence.

“Yeah,” she croaked. “Funny how it’s never the case you forget.”

The detective jerked, slightly, like she hadn’t expected the barbs in her girlfriend’s voice.

In the hallway, there was a drooping bouquet of flowers she hadn’t been able to bear bringing into the apartment.

“You know how important this is,” the detective implored, and it made her want to break things. Burn the papers, shatter the fancy glasses in the cabinet, spill wine across the carpets.

What about me, she wanted to scream. Am I not important to you anymore?

Instead, she said again, “You need to stop.”

“Stop?”

“The case. You need to stop.”

“I can’t just stop,” the detective laughed slightly, as if she thought it would convey how inconceivable the idea of stopping was.

“Yes, you can. Give it to someone else. There’s a whole precinct just waiting for you to put this file into their hands.”

At the thought of it, the thought of giving up this case, the hunt, the chase, pain flashed across the detective’s face.

“You don’t understand.”

“I do,” she replied. She had to shift her gaze to the dead plant on the corner of her partner’s desk, dirt dry and leaves brittle. “How could I not?”

“So then how could you ask me to do that? To give it all up? Why now?”

She had so many answers to that. So many moments that cut into her hands like a mosaic of memories. The bed empty beside her through the entire night. Cancelled reservations, one seat alone at the dinner table, laughs that died in her ribs. Friends, well meaning, who asked where the detective was, and the painful smiles she forced through the explanations. Work, and work, and work. Crime scene photos on the coffee table. The loneliness that seemed to care about her more than her girlfriend did.

There were so many times when she almost said something. Almost said enough. But she hadn’t, and now they were here, as she dripped a puddle onto the floor, and the detective looked at her like she had never seen her before.

When she tried to say that, any of that, it caught in her throat.

The detective took her silence for an inability to answer. A lack of evidence. Like she was throwing this tantrum for no reason, a little kid in the toy aisle of the store.

The detective sighed, rubbing a hand over her forehead. The other was already fanning through the papers once more. Her voice turned into something that begged to be understood.

“I’m so close—“

“To losing me.” She swallowed, painfully. “You’re losing me.”

“That’s not fair.”

“This isn’t fair,” her voice broke as she gestured between the two of them. “What you’re doing to me isn’t fair.”

“I’m not doing anything—“

“Exactly.” It was louder than she meant it to be. They both flinched.

“I’ll have it solved in a week, I promise.” She wasn’t sure who the detective was promising to.

“No.”

The detective blinked.

“No?”

“You heard me the first time.”

“I heard you, but I’m not sure what you’re saying ‘no’ to.”

If she had the energy to be slightly meaner, she would have told her to figure it out. Told her that she was a detective, this should be easy for her.

“I’m not giving you a week.” She took a deep breath. “And you’re not going to solve it.”

The detective’s looked at her like she didn’t recognize the person on the other side of the desk.

Finally, she understood what it felt like to face her girlfriend from the other side of an interrogation table.

Her girlfriend’s face was cold, and closed off. Her jaw was grinding into itself. She was staring at her like she couldn’t decide whether or not to consider her a suspect. As if the only reason she could fathom her girlfriend saying something like that was if she was actively sabotaging her.

She was cold, and her coat was wet, and this place no longer felt like home.

“You won’t solve this case.”

She was pretty sure there wasn’t anything crueler she could have said.

“You don’t know anything.” It was dripping with venom, and fear, and frustration. The fear the detective really wouldn’t solve it. The frustration that it still wasn’t solved.

“Do you really think you’re that special?” By now, it was too far gone for her to stop. There was no pretty way out of this. “You aren’t. This isn’t a TV show. You aren’t the main character who swoops in where no one else has before. It’s been decades of the same bullshit—taunting and evidence trails, and nobody has solved it. Don’t you think if it was solvable, it would have been by now?”

“There’s new evidence, and I’m not them—“

“What part of ‘you aren’t special’ don’t you understand,” she hissed, and the detective shifted away from her. “You aren’t the miracle detective who solves this. They’re going to keep on killing, and driving the people who try and find them crazy, and you’re letting them do it to you.”

“I’m not letting them do anything.”

“But you are,” she countered. “You have been for months. They’re messing with you. They’re everything to you, and you’re a game to them, and I’m nothing on the sidelines.”

“Babe, that’s not true,” The detective tried, voice softening. As if she had just realized something between them was wrong. That her girlfriend was hurting—had been, for a while.

She swallowed the tears rising in her throat.

“Do I need to become a crime scene for you to finally care about me again?” She slammed her hand down on the papers. Pretended the wince on the detectives face was concern for her, and not the papers she crumpled. “Will you look at me, love me again, if I’m a bloody photograph in this folder?”

“I do love you.”

“When someone loves someone else, they don’t leave them alone in the rain, waiting to be picked up. They don’t cancel to go dig through old archives on their loved one’s birthday. They don’t leave them in the middle of the night and let the blankets beside them get cold. People who love someone don’t live their life without a concern for the person they’re putting below everything else.”

“You’re making this really hard.”

“Good,” she snapped. “Because you’ve been making it hard to love you for months, and I’m glad you finally know how it feels.”

The detective paused, at that. Swallowed, eyes flitting around the room as if she would find the perfect thing to say in the remnants of the life they had built together.

“I love you,” The detective managed. Somehow, it was the worst thing she could have said.

“Good. Prove it.” She thought maybe dying would have hurt less than this.

“Prove it?”

“Prove it. Me, or the case.”

The detective froze.

“You don’t mean that,” she said, and it sounded like a plea. Don’t make me choose.

“Look at me and try and tell me I’m joking.” When the detective said nothing, she pushed further. “Go on. Do it. Choose.”

“I can’t do that—“ the detective choked. “This isn’t fair, you know that. I’m so close.”

Somehow, she had expected it to hurt less.

“Don’t make me choose,” the detective, her girlfriend, the love of her life finally said, voice breaking.

She had thought it would feel like dying.

It felt like nothing.

“You just did,” she said. The tears refused to be held, this time. The pain ran rampant through every word.

She knew her girlfriend could hear it.

“I love you,” the detective whispered. A final, desperate prayer for her to stay. But she was no god, and her girlfriend was no believer. And it would never be enough.

She let the door slam on the way out.

The detective never did solve that case.

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mxliv-oftheendless · 6 months

Text

How to Set Up Your Actors (Without Really Trying) (Barduil Month Week 1)

Actor AU: In which Thranduil and Bard are costars for a film and Bilbo is, as usual, rather confused on what's happening and very annoyed by everything.

It's Barduil Month! So I thought I'd participate and write some stories for a ship I love! This one was inspired by this Barduil comic drawn by the amazing @corndog-patrol ! Thanks so much for letting me write a story based on the comic! And thank you @bi-widower-dads for setting up this whole event! Hope you guys enjoy!

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

When Bilbo’s phone vibrated the moment he sat down at his desk, it should have been a tip off of how the next hour would go. But since Bilbo was a very busy man (Valinor Talent Agency didn’t run itself, after all), who already had quite a lot to do, he elected at first to ignore it. Instead, he focused on opening his calendar and checking to make sure That Meeting was indeed today and he was ready for it. Sure enough, it was there, today at eleven o’clock, so in about twenty minutes.

He sighed and pulled out the drawer containing his emergency stash of headache medicine. He looked at it for a moment, contemplating whether he should be—

His phone vibrated again. He turned it over.

—whether he should be proactive and prepare for a potential headache. Anything was possible, especially when Bilbo didn’t feel awake and caffeinated enough for anything. Which usually ended up being all the time. Maybe he ought to see someone about that.

His phone vibrated yet again. Bilbo huffed and turned to pick up his phone and see what so desperately wanted his attention. What he found was a series of angry text messages from dear cousin Lobelia screaming in a flurry of poor grammar and an excessive use of capital letters. Nope. He was not dealing with that.

There was a series of smart, rapid knocks on the door. “Come on in,” he called as he set his phone down.

The door opened and Thranduil Oropherion swept into his office. Yes, that Thranduil Oropherion—professional stage and film actor, known for his cool professionalism, sharp wit, insightful intelligence, and fashionable dress. And also for his long blond hair that he refused to cut. Thranduil Oropherion also happened have one Bilbo Baggins as his talent agent.

Any lesser man may have been intimidated at the prospect of being the agent of such a high profile and equally high maintenance actor. But Bilbo Baggins was no ordinary man—even if he did often wonder why Thranduil refused to cut his hair when he was usually pretty reasonable about other things.

“Good morning, Bilbo,” Thranduil greeted as he sat down in the chair opposite the desk.

“Morning, Thranduil,” Bilbo returned. “Early as usual, I see.”

“I had to be,” Thranduil sniffed. “Have you seen the traffic this time of day?” He raised a hand to inspect his immaculately done nails. “Couldn’t this meeting have been scheduled at a different time?”

Bilbo sighed. Maybe he should’ve taken the headache medicine after all. “Well, it was the best time for everyone to meet,” he said. “Now, once your costar gets here, we’re going to take an hour or so for you both to get to know each other, then we’re going to the conference room for the Zoom call with the screenwriters to talk about the script—”

“And the director? Where is he in all of this?” Thranduil frowned. “I had hoped he would be here as well. I would like to discuss certain things about the script with him.”

Bilbo turned his phone facedown as it buzzed again. “The director had to call off. He’s meeting with the production company.”

Thranduil’s frown deepened fractionally. “Very well.”

He was sure he would regret asking, but Bilbo still ventured anyway, “What’s wrong with the script?”

“Well first of all, there is a clear lack of vision for the characters. Are my costar and I to be playing one-dimensional stereotypes? There is no buildup or suspense for what is supposed to be a horror plot line, and the horror relies solely on cheap jumpscares rather than any actual fear or dread.”

Now, listen, Bilbo wanted to be more annoyed at these critiques. He was sure any decent screenwriter or director would be. But personally, he just thought to himself that this was why Thranduil was such a professional and well-respected actor—he was knowledgeable not just on how to act but also on all other aspects of a production.

However, he did still think Thranduil was being a bit unfair. “I thought the script was good. Maybe it’s just a bit jarring to you since you haven’t played a protagonist like this one before.” From how Thranduil frowned but didn’t respond, he knew Thranduil knew he had a point. “Which is another reason why it’ll be good to meet with your costar and the screenwriters, since then you can get a better sense of what they want from the part you’re playing. And your costar has done more roles like yours, so he can give you some insight too.”

At the mention of his mysterious costar, Thranduil thankfully dropped the subject of the script. “Where is this costar, anyway?”

“On his way here, most likely.” Maybe that was why his phone kept vibrating, because the costar was calling him. But no, that was his personal phone that was buzzing…

“What is his name… Bard Bowman?”

“Yeah, that’s him.”

“What has he been in recently?”

“His last film was—hang on, you didn’t look into him at all?”

Thranduil sniffed. “Of course not. I’m a professional.”

From how long they’d known each other, Bilbo knew that meant Thranduil thought that would feel too weird and he didn’t want to seem strange for stalking his costar’s filmography. He went on. “Well, his last film was a part in some fantasy film—”

“You mean you don’t remember?” Thranduil quipped.

Bilbo just gave him a snarky smirk. “Of course not. I’m a professional.” He continued. “And then for the last year and a half he’s been on a break. Wanted to spend more time with his kids, his agent said.”

To his dismay, Thranduil’s frown appeared again. “His agent is from Dale Talent, isn’t he? Didn’t they come out of the complete cesspool of corruption that was Laketown Talent?”

Bilbo couldn’t help wincing at the name, and his phone buzzed again as if in agreement. That whole scandal had not been pretty. “They did. But Dale’s model is ethical, they pay their taxes on time, and none of their staff have evasion, public disturbance, or harassment charges. Plus their tea was pretty good.” He glanced at the clock. Five more minutes until eleven. “Right, he’ll probably be here soon. Be nice, alright?”

Thranduil gave him an indignant look. “I am always nice, Bilbo.”

“Not backhanded, passive-aggressive nice. Really nice. And that goes for when you’re meeting with the screenwriters, too.”

Honestly, sometimes he wondered if that scowl was just permanently attached to Thranduil’s face. “That will depend on what they have to say about their barely-passable-quality script.”

Bilbo could feel a headache coming on. Today was not the day to put up with all of this. “Thranduil, as your agent—” He decided to appeal to the actor’s more reasonable side. “—as your friend—I am really begging you to behave.”

Thankfully, it worked; Thranduil’s scowl softened marginally even as he scoffed and crossed his legs. “Please, Bilbo. I am an absolute joy to work with.”

Bilbo leveled him with a withering look. He amended himself. “Yes, I will be polite.”

Bilbo’s phone vibrated again as he sighed and nodded gratefully. “Good.” His phone buzzed again (what was going on?) but he ignored it and checked his agenda. “Now, he’ll be here any minute. So make sure to introduce yourself and find something you both can talk about. You’ll both be needing good chemistry anyway—”

“Why would we need good chemistry?”

Oops. He shouldn’t have said that. Bilbo maintained his cool as his phone buzzed again. “There’s going to be some romance—”

Thranduil’s eyes flashed. “The script did not call for a romance, Bilbo,” he said tensely, the sort of tense calm one would find in a very, very small eye of a hurricane.

Bilbo, however, was not intimidated. “Some things were reworked. You two are going to have a romance plot line. Did you not get the revised script?”

“No!” Thranduil leapt to his feet and paced angrily. “Unbelievable!” he ranted. “What is that hack director thinking, doing such a last minute change? Are we film students in graduate school? Is that what this is?” Bilbo’s phone vibrated again. “And where is that constant buzzing coming from?!”

“It’s my phone,” Bilbo grumbled, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Look, I’m not the one who made the changes—”

“Obviously not, because you know better!” Thranduil whirled around on him in a mess of fury and blond hair. “A last minute change like this is unacceptable! Call that director! We need to discuss—”

Bilbo was seconds away from faceplanting on his desk, when there was a knock on his office door. “‘Scuse me?” someone called from outside.

Bilbo checked his wall clock. Eleven o’clock. He shot Thranduil a glare clearly meaning “Behave,” before saying aloud, “Yes? Come in.”

The door opened, and Bilbo’s headache throbbed a bit more when Bard Bowman politely entered the room. Just great. “Good morning,” Bard said politely. “Are you Mr. Baggins?”

Bilbo tried to arrange his face into a look that didn’t suggest he was one more inconvenience away from throwing something and nodded. “I am, yes.”

Bard’s face split into a grin. “Great!” He came over with an extended hand. “I’m Bard. Glad to finally meet you.”

In spite of the day, Bilbo returned the smile as he shook Bard’s hand. At least Bard’s friendly reputation was true. “And you. You’re right on time.” He turned to Thranduil, hoping at the very least that Thranduil still didn’t look like he’d nearly thrown a diva tantrum a second ago. “Thranduil, your co-star, Bard Bowman.”

To his surprise, Thranduil looked far from angry—he was staring at Bard with an almost… awestruck look on his face. The look reminded Bilbo of the look his nephew Frodo would get when he was staring at the anime characters he thought were especially hot.

Bard, on the other hand, didn’t seem to realize that was Thranduil’s look. He just smiled even wider and happily went to offer a handshake to Thranduil. “I can’t tell you how great it is to be working with you,” he said eagerly. “Your work is just amazing. Really, it’s an honor.”

And then Thranduil did the most unexpected thing: he smiled. And not just any smile, but the charming one he saved for interviews and red carpet reporters. “Please,” he replied, taking Bard’s hand, “the pleasure is mine.”

Really, if Bilbo didn’t have such a headache, he probably would have been flabbergasted by Thranduil’s rapid change of attitude. But as it was, the most he could give was a raised eyebrow. “So, Thranduil, do you still want to talk to—”

“No.”

“Alright then.” One less thing to do, at least. Although he probably would be having a word with the director about letting people know about last minute changes. But he could worry about that later, when he had gotten some coffee and ibuprofen tablets. “Well, how about we get started with—”

His phone vibrated yet again, and this time, it didn’t stop. Bilbo sighed in frustration. “Hold on.” He picked up his phone and looked to see who was calling. It wasn’t a number he remembered saving in his phone… But when he looked at the area code, he suddenly remembered when Drogo told him he’d put Bilbo down as one of Frodo’s emergency contacts at his middle school just in case.

He held up a finger to Bard and Thranduil and left his office to answer the phone. “Hello?”

“Hi, Uncle Bilbo.”

What the— “Frodo?” Why was his eleven-year-old nephew calling from his school's phone?

“Can you pick me up from school? Mum and Dad are both at work.”

Was that what all the texting had been about? “Why do you need to be picked up? What happened?”

“I, uh… got into a fight with Lotho…”

“YOU WHAT—” Bilbo glanced at his office door and lowered his voice. “You what?!”

“It wasn’t my fault! He was bullying Tom Cotton and—”

Bilbo’s headache throbbed and he rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Actually, Frodo, don’t. Explain it when I get there.” He checked his watch and calculated how long it would take to pick up Frodo and come back. Yes, he could manage it. “I’ll be there in ten minutes. Do not do anything until I get there.”

“Thanks, Uncle Bilbo!”

“You’re welcome. Be there soon.”

Bilbo hung up and rubbed his forehead, then went back into his office. Bard and Thranduil had sat down on Bilbo’s couch, talking about something, with Thranduil sitting far closer than Bilbo had expected. “Excuse me,” he said.

The two actors looked up at him. “Everything all right?” Bard asked.

God, he wished. “Sorry about this, but my nephew called and I need to pick him up from school. His parents are both at work.”

Thranduil smirked, and Bilbo had no doubt he was wondering what Frodo, who was usually such a well-behaved child, had done to be sent home from school. He could not let Frodo tell him; Thranduil would probably buy him ice cream. Bard on the other hand nodded in understanding. “I understand. I can reschedule, if you like. My kids are in school too, so I’m pretty open most days.”

“Actually, it won’t take long, about twenty minutes, maybe, so why don’t you both get something to eat?”

Thranduil smoothly interjected. “I think that’s a fantastic idea,” he said, giving that charming smile to Bard again (and did Bard shift and smile a little back, or was that Bilbo’s headache muddling things?). “Have you been to the cafe downstairs? They serve excellent coffee.”

Bard smiled at him. “No, can’t say I have.”

“Well, that just will not do. We can eat and,” he smiled coyly, “get acquainted while Bilbo fetches his nephew.”

“Well, that sounds perfect.”

Bilbo wondered if he was supposed to feel like a third wheel right now. “Right, well,” he awkwardly went over to his desk to grab his keys. “Good. You two, get to know each other, and I’ll be back soon.”

As he left the two to… whatever was starting to happen between them… he looked at his phone again to see what all the vibrating earlier had been about. It turned to have been several more very angry text messages from dear cousin Lobelia, ranting and raving at him about how Drogo and Primula were raising a violent, wild child and he needed to stage an intervention so that Frodo wouldn’t attack her dear, sweet Lotho ever again. Ah, so that was what all that was. Frodo must have won that fight against Lotho.

Bilbo sighed and rubbed his forehead. He wasn’t sure what just happened or what he had just done for Thranduil and Bard back there in his office, but either way, he still had a feeling Thranduil would get Frodo ice cream for something today.

#barduil #barduil month 2024 #the hobbit #thranduil #bard the bowman #bilbo baggins #the hobbit fanfiction #actor au #idk how good my writing is but i thought this idea was really funny so #poor bilbo needs a vacation lol #also a cameo by frodo because i love him #if you guys were wondering what happened lotho tried to fight frodo and frodo beat the crap out of him lol #and inadvertently allowed for some romance to start developing lol #fanfiction #writing #my writing #lord of the rings #tolkien

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quietlyimplode · 11 months

Text

the language of flowers and silent things

Whumptober 2023: Day 22 - Watch Out

Warnings: words said in anger, grief, depression

Word Count: 1.6k (gif not mine)

Summary: Clint recovers from the fallout of the Avengers.

A/N: <3

Masterlist

Whumptober Masterlist

2012

NEW YORK

“Get up,” Natasha tells him, the level of despondency irritating her.

She hasn’t left him alone, and whilst she understands this depression, she can’t understand the lack of self preservation that comes with it.

He hasn’t eaten, drunk water only when she’s told him too, and barely got out of bed.

He raises his head and looks at her in a pout.

“Not today,” he says, his voice crackling.

“Today is the day we meet with Fury,” she replies, pointing to the calendar.

“No,” he sighs, “go without me,”

She rips the sheets off him, and pushes a coffee into his hands.

“There’s no, “go without me”, not for this, this is Fury giving you grace, and now you have to deal with the mindfuck that was Loki.”

Clint looks at her betrayed.

“Don’t say his name,” he says angrily.

“Why? It shouldn’t matter, he’s done, he’s gone, we won, we didn’t die.”

“Yeah cause that’s exactly how you responded when you killed Dreykov,” he retorts, meanly.

“What?”

The words feel scathing and Clint can’t seem to stop them.

“Don’t you remember? You couldn’t even make it out of Budapest, you had the nightmares, you couldn’t function without help either.”

“You dissociate and can’t cope and I take it on, but when it turns the other way and I need time to not be in the world, you force it on me.”

He feels his face grow hot as he throws words at her.

“You were compromised, just like I am, and I protected you through it, and now, you can’t even do this. Some partner you turned out to be.”

He pulls the covers over himself and turns his back on her.

She feels anger, and then sadness roll over her.

“Phil would tell you to get up,” she says, a parting shot that makes him feel like shit.

He’s right of course, but she never thought that period of time would ever be used against her as a weapon.

Grabbing her jacket, she leaves, slamming the door behind her.

Entering Shield by herself, she feels eyes watching. They can’t kill her with looks, but the judgement still feels hurtful. Much like when she first defected the label of double agent plagued her.

Small hurts like changing the temperature of her room, stalking her, taunting her, all protected by Clint and Maria.

It makes Clint’s words hurt all the more.

She seeks Maria, knowing she’ll be close to Fury, and finding her way to the offices of Shield, hoping for privacy.

As she passes the empty office of Agent Phil Coulson, she pauses to touch the door.

Grief floods her, as she hold back the emotion, biting hard on her lip. The arrays of bouquets that line the door makes everything more real.

She hates him a little for making her face this alone, despite the difficulties he’s facing.

Natasha moves forward, hoping Maria is actually in her office, and finding the door slightly open.

Maria looks up.

“Nat,” she says, a tone of surprise.

“Where’s Clint? He has a meeting with Fury in twenty minutes,” she says quickly.

“Can I…” she sighs and stops.

“Clint’s not coming, I can’t get him out of bed, let alone out of the apartment,” she confesses.

Maria stops and watches Natasha.

“What?”

She calls through to Fury and cancels the meeting, and tells him she’s going to handle the debrief; then grabbing her jacket, she ushers Natasha out of the room.

“Come on,” she says, to Natasha. “Let’s go see the boy.”

“He said what?”

Maria breaks hard, almost rear ending the car in front.

“Nothing,” Natasha mumbles.

“Nat, that’s mean, he was mean, he has no right to judge you on how you reacted from defecting from your country, killing a man who tortured you and your coping mechanisms.”

Natasha stares out the window.

“I’m judging him on how he’s coping, and how long it’s taking him to reach equilibrium,” she sighs.

“You can reason this out all you want but what he said was mean, you didn’t do anything wrong and probably, you’re one that’s been protecting him from almost everything. You even took on Fury to negotiate more time. Nat, he shouldn’t have said what he said.”

Natasha continues to stare out the window, feeling emotions pulse through her as she knows that Maria is right.

“I don’t think I want to go back,” she confesses, sucking in a stuttering breath at the admission.

Selfishly she feels, she makes a decision based on what she wants and how she feels; not wanting to face Clint or his anger again.

Maria nods.

“I’ll go, I’ve got him for a bit, is there somewhere you want to go?”

Natasha wants to be alone.

“Just drop me at Grand Central Station,” she asks, knowing exactly where she wants to go.

Natasha loves the view from the Grand Central Station, finds it calming to watch the people milling around from tourist to regular New Yorkers.

Even aliens could stop this place, though the marks of damage still show.

They’d tried, she thinks, to fix what they could.

She finds a seat, opens her sandwich and sits and eats, letting the noises wash over her.

She analyses the old man’s gait, determining a hip injury, an old one it seems, then turns her attention to a young woman; stylish in her heels as she stalks across the station.

Two men clasp hands in greeting and walk off together, one animatedly talking to the other as he explained something Natasha couldn’t hear.

Natasha puts in headphones, no music attached, and watches the world.

It feels different here; maybe because so much has happened but still the place functions as though it hasn’t.

Maybe that’s her downfall.

She’s trying to function with Clint as though nothing has happened, trying to make him move past it like it never happened.

But it has.

People died at Clint’s hand.

Phil died trying to protect them all.

Clint lost control of himself.

And, she supposed, they were Avengers now.

Even their jobs had changed in the space of hours.

She sighs, rubbing her eyes in frustration and grief.

The clock alerts her to the later hour as the amount of people dwindles. Past 6pm, she realises that she’d left Clint with Maria for over 10 hours and guilt builds in her chest.

She stands abruptly, making her way for the door.

“Watch out!” the lady calls, her son barreling straight into Natasha’s leg.

He bounces off her and starts to cry.

Natasha squats and looks at the little boy, offering her hand to help him up.

The mother catches up to him and apologizes profusely.

“He moves with such haste, and never watches where he’s going.”

Natasha smiles, though watery she pulls herself together to wave it off.

The boy, still crying turns to his mother.

“Can I show you something?

She uses Clint’s favourite trick and pulls a coin from his ear, and in doing so, it gives her an idea.

The little boy stops crying, and she does it again.

Even the mother is smiling.

“Thank you—“ the woman starts, “wait— are you? Are you the Black Widow?”

The words and the name feel jarring out of the woman’s mouth, and the little boys eyes go wide.

“Do you know Iron Man?” he asks.

The woman shushes him, and grabs for Natasha’s hand.

“Thank you,” she says, “my brother was on the bus that Hawkeye saved and got the people out of.”

Natasha nods.

“I’ll let him know,” she smiles.

Moving away, Natasha pushes down the anxiety of being recognised and heads home, with an idea and a story to tell Clint.

The takeaway sits on the bench, as she moves into the apartment, nervous if there’s any more vitriol she’s going to walk into.

Finding him showered, clothes changed and sitting upright, Clint stands as she walks in.

“I’m sorry,” he opens.

“I shouldn’t have said the things I did, and I don’t know why I did,” he confesses.

“I’m aware I haven’t… been at my best, but the last few months have been hard. I know it’s no excuse, I know, I need to do better but—“

“It’s hard,” Natasha finishes.

“Yeah,” he finishes.

She nods.

“Come and eat something,” she offers, and walking back out to the kitchen, and pulling the food out of the bag.

“I think you’re doing better,” she comments, “but I think we need a project. Do you remember when you taught me the coin magic trick? I think we need to learn something new.”

He shakes his head.

“I don’t…”

She nods, “I’m going to teach you some Russian. Better Russian.”

He almost chokes on his food.

“It’s going to help,” she says confidently.

“Maria’s mandated therapy weekly,” he confesses.

“I know, she told me,” Natasha replies.

“I have to go in tomorrow,” he tells her, playing with the food.

“Do you want me to come?”

Natasha still feels the sting of the words from the morning but seeing him trying so hard when the day before he’d done nothing, lessens the hurt a little.

He nods.

“I’m sorry about this morning,” he says again.

“Vsyo v poryadke,” she replies.

He stares.

“Everything is in order, it is okay,” she reassured him, even though she’s not sure, even if she’s worried about the future, even about the hurt he can cause her and just how compromised she is by this relationship.

He drops his chopsticks and moves to her seat.

“Ya tyebya lyublyu,” he says softly.

“I love you too,” she replies.

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samptlay · 6 months

Text

To My Sweetheart Who Carries A Wounded Heart Ch. 9

Series Masterlist, Chapter 1 🤍, Chapter 2 🖤, Chapter 3 🤍, Chapter 4🖤, Chapter 5🤍, Chapter 6🖤, Chapter 7🤍, Blade & Reader's Relationship, Chapter 8🖤

Lying in bed and staring up at the ceiling, saying he had a lot on his mind would be an understatement. For some reason, His boss had given him off today a whole week in advance because “he’d be needed somewhere else.” Elio seemed to be 10 steps ahead of everything, so he didn’t question it. But what he did question is the fact that something bad happened to you, and he had time off the exact next day, which was only ever occasional. Did Elio have anything to do with your mental health? Did he play a factor in this?

No, although Blade knew the work he did was questionable and sometimes on the radar of the authorities, he knew his boss would never do something to cause people harm. (This wasn’t true, but he wouldn’t do anything that wouldn’t benefit him or proved to be unnecessary.) But Blade swears that Elio could foresee things others can’t.

But then does that mean this is a sign? He hadn’t realized it until after he called Herta personally, informing her of the situation you had faced recently so that you could take it easy for a while. He wasn’t surprised when Herta was questioning why Blade was calling in for you, not your husband. He simply answered that it was a hard time for the couple and that he was just looking out for both. But she knew that Blade did care one bit for your husband, he proved so time & time again.

That was about two hours ago, and when Blade got up from the black sheets to go get ready for work, both Kafka & Silver Wolf messaged him through a group chat that was created by S.W. when they first started working together. He had never been the best with technology, though he’s no boomer, suffice to say. Picking up the device, he unlocked it to see what they wanted.

Baldie: What’s so important that you two need to spam me while I’m supposed to have a day off? User-Banned: you weren’t at work today so I hijacked my way into your calendar, didn’t know you had work off today.

He still rolls his eyes every time he reads that name. Unfortunately, no matter how many times he changed it, Silver Wolf always made her way into the system to change it back. He just let it be at that point.

Black Widow: I’m sure Elio was the one who scheduled it, with everything that’s happened, you get time off. I’m assuming you also contacted her boss? How thoughtful of you, Bladie. Baldie: How did you even- Nevermind. What do you need? User-Banned: well on the work, Kafka noticed Levi’s car while she was on the highway. Spider Lady found it weird that he was anywhere but home with the woman who holds your heart, (AKA, (Y/N), ofc.) Just to drive up a bit more and see another woman in the passenger seat.

Did he read that right? Sitting on the bed, he blinked twice before looking at the slightly dimmed screen again with eyebrows raised as he finally found the courage to sit up in bed. His teeth clenched together and his hands started trembling while the poor phone in his hand seemed to crackle, this man was not happy in the slightest.

How could that fool even leave you alone for a single moment on a day like this? Though Blade lacked experience in relationships, even he knew that couples were supposed to stick together during hard times. And with how long he’s known your husband and your vents to Blade, he can bet a million credits he didn’t tell you that we left.

Another woman?? Someone other than you? He refused to believe you would choose a partner who took amazing things they didn’t deserve for granted, a prime example of what you are. Levi couldn’t be stupid enough to betray your trust, and abandon you when you needed him the most, could he?

*Ping!* Another notification.

Black Widow: @Baldie, I’m sure Elio made you take off for a reason. Why don’t you give our lovely (Y/N) a call? I’d like to do so, as well as the others but we don’t want to overwhelm her & give her the space she needs. So who better than the one person she trusts no matter what? Black Widow: It’s not a secret that you two are closer to each other than everyone else, and (Y/N) must feel so lonely. So why not give her a little company? Honestly, I’m baffled that she has such a man as her spouse. Stelle told me that he used to have a kind heart until he reached the stages of life, leaving him as a scumbag. Black Widow: Anyways, you know what to do Bladie. Don’t make her wait any longer. Oh, and honestly, we don’t know the full story so we can’t say for certain if he’s having an affair. So avoid much conversation about Levi.

Blade stared at that last message for who knows how long. Kafka seemed to understand human feelings better than anyone else he knows, even though sometimes she seems to lack them herself. But was it really appropriate to call you just to what, hang out? Within less than 24 hours of the loss of your child’s life? If he were to do that, would you be angry with him for crossing a boundary? But since when did you two have boundaries?

With all these thoughts going through his head, he really thought he was hallucinating when Blade saw your name pop up on his screen.

Incoming call.

Taglist: @uhfhfhfhf @xdrin @msun1c0rn @lovingnahida @strrawb3rrysh0rtcak3 @ssecylia @skyl8ver @immahuman @meowmeowraven @01234 @markexplanation @esthelily @dawnofazrael

Borders by @cafekitsune

#honkai star rail #honkai star rail x reader #blade x reader #hsr x reader #fem reader #fanfic #ao3 fanfic #ao3 #hsr blade #hsr fic

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rivalsforlife · 1 year

Text

The Yearly AA Series Future Speculation Post

I've given up on calling it aa7 speculation because that has never worked out for me. anyways [apollo justice voice] hiya!

It's been a while since I made one of these little posts where I try to predict things and end up horribly embarrassing myself. BUT this year has actually been very exciting for Ace Attorney. We have Ghost Trick! We have 456 ports! Could there be more? Who knows. Tokyo Game Show is coming up and that's always a bad time of year for my self-esteem.

In this post I will do the following:

-Go over the November 2020 leaks again, to compare that to where we're at now

-Talk a bit about the 456 port and what I think that means for the series and its future

-Talk a bit about how well TGAA is doing, I think

-Brief Tokyo Game Show speculations (there's not much to speculate about)

I'll reference my previous posts and sources where necessary. It'll get long and rambly again so I'll put the rest under a keep reading.

FIRST:

Revisiting the Calendar (Again)

For those who aren't aware, back in November 2020, Capcom got hacked (this was overall bad) and from that hack came a leak of a roadmap for the future of the AA series.

For this post, please keep in mind that this calendar is using the Japanese fiscal year, which starts in in April. Therefore Q1 is roughly April-June, Q2 July-September, Q3 October-December, Q4 January-March of the next year.

This calendar was likely made in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic, which inevitably ended up throwing everything off quite a bit.

Some of these things came true. This leak was where we first heard about the official TGAA ports, and while they were delayed by about a quarter, they still came out pretty close to on time with all things pandemic to consider. What's especially interesting is that now with confirmation of the 456 ports, we now have no idea what is up with AA7.

We know that AA7 was in development at one point. We know that, if things were on track prior to the pandemic, they might have started the main production. However, the plan seemed to be to release it for the 20th anniversary and use those sales and the sales from TGAA to judge whether 456 would be ported; now that we have 456 confirmed before AA7, we can assume that AA7's delay is so severe we have no way of predicting if or when it will come out.

The thing is, though, AA has been doing really well the last few years, despite the lack of a new game. The 2019 ports of the Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney trilogy have sold around 2.3 million copies, when previously no other Ace Attorney game broke a million. The trilogy hit a million copies around December 2020, for reference. Ace Attorney itself as a whole broke ten million copies sold recently. In this post I covered how TGAA seemingly has sold way more than Capcom expected, and sold pretty quickly, and is confirmed to be somewhere between 500k-1 million copies sold.

I don't see any reason to believe that AA is in dire financial straits. We've gotten more official merchandise in the last year or so than we got for a while, AA is featured heavily on Capcom's Captown website, the Tokyo Game Show merchandise store has been selling out of AA merch faster than any of their other IPs... I don't see why they wouldn't want to milk that. And 456 is probably a part of it.

What Do The 456 Ports Mean

Back in March 2022, in an event I almost completely forgot about, Capcom updated their trademark for Apollo Justice. I covered my thoughts on that here, and speculated it might indicate a 456 port. ... Which it apparently did. I'll quote exactly what I said in that post, since I still feel this way:

Presumably, previously, the decision to port or not to port 456 would be dependent both on how well TGAA does and how well AA7 would do. With no AA7, they might be making this decision solely based on TGAA. And they… might actually decide it’s worth the port?

This tells us a couple of things.

1.Capcom is aware that there is a decent market and profit to be made porting the Ace Attorney games to all consoles.

2.This heavily implies that TGAA sold fantastically.

I also said in my post about TGAA's success that the 456 ports would be the best indicator of whether Capcom would find it more profitable to continue along with mainline or stick to writing more things about TGAA. Because TGAA is actually doing... pretty great? It's always seemed to have a pretty good fan reception, but it came at the end of the 3DS life cycle and seemed to do poorly enough that Capcom didn't try to localize it for several years. But now it's big enough that Ryunosuke made it onto the 20th anniversary logo, and Ryunosuke and Kazuma are featured in some of the Ace Attorney merchandise for TGS's merch store.

456 doing well would probably reinvigorate Capcom's desire to continue making stories set in mainline. It also might inspire them to finally give an official translation to my favorite game, Ace Attorney Investigations 2, who is Capcom's poor unloved child these days. I'm not expecting Investigations Ports for a few more years, since they seem to be spacing out the ports by about two years, but... it's more likely now than I felt it was about three years ago.

The Great Ace Attorney Sweep

Also, the last few years have had a heavy focus on Great Ace Attorney, even now a couple of years after the ports came out. Takarazuka made their first AA musical in a decade based on TGAA, and, if you ask me, it sounds pretty heavily like they were teasing for a sequel someday. There also has been a reading theater based on TGAA, with an original episode written by Takumi.

Of particular relevance is this source of dubious credibility I linked to in one of my other posts talking about TGAA's expected success. I've assumed it came from the data in the November 2020 Capcom Leak but I can't be certain, so take this next part with a grain of salt.

Here are the original sales projections from 2019(?): FY21: 195K (originally supposed to launch in Q1) FY22: 55K FY23: 8K FY24: 41K (with 32K being in Q3)

This sudden increase in FY24 has always been interesting. Again, as a reminder, Japan's FY24 Q3 would be equivalent to October-December 2024.

It would make sense to say that the 456 ports coming out would likely lead to an increase in sales for all AA games, and it could be that Capcom initially intended for a 456 port to come out about half a year later than the current projection of early 2024. At the same time... I can't deny the possibility that this could be hinting at a new game in the TGAA setting. And something coming out in late 2024 could be a reasonable candidate for an announcement at some major gaming show that Ace Attorney fans already have an interest in tuning into. These are all completely neutral things I am saying that I have no expectations or hope for whatsoever.

What IS Happening At Tokyo Game Show?

TGS is always the part of the year where I say "This is the most likely place for a new AA game announcement leading up to or during it" and it never happens. This year, though, will be different! We have a CONFIRMED feature of the 456 ports. This is the first time we'll have AA content at TGS since 2018, when I first got into the series, so I think it's a pretty big deal. (2018 was when the trilogy ports were first announced; TGAA ports had an announcement-release window of April-July, so they didn't get a chance to feature at TGS.)

Since all we have for a release date is early 2024, I wouldn't be surprised if there will be an official confirmation of the release date, probably a showcase of port features, maybe in-person gameplay? That could be all, and it would be more than we've had since 2018.

I want to say "because there's going to be 456 advertising there, it would be ridiculous for them to announce some new AA content to detract from that". But I said the same things about the capcom showcase where Ghost Trick was featured and the 456 collection was announced, so. Capcom's decisions on when to announce things can be counterintuitive, it seems, so maybe the least likely time is actually the most likely...?

Anyways, we have no idea what the state of New Ace Attorney Content is like in Capcom. From the calendar from the Nov 2020 leaks, the staff that had been working on the DGS ports would join the main staff for AA7, suggesting to me that there would be part of the staff working on ports and part of the staff working on new things. We have no idea what happened to these people who were supposed to be working on AA7. We *can* assume that at least part of the staff transferred over to 456 ports now, but we don't know when that would have been, or if they'd really need all hands on deck for a remaster.

It's been a few years now since Yamazaki left Capcom. We know absolutely nothing about what Takumi has been doing, outside of whatever contributions he may or may not have made to the Ghost Trick remaster, and only recently contributing to various stage content. (We know he advised at least somewhat on the Takarazuka play, and wrote that original episode for the reading theater, so I'd assume he's not in the middle of a big project right when those were taking place.)

This is all to say, there's reason to believe Something's Been Happening Behind The Scenes. And Therefore -- [clown wig descends onto my head again] Maybe TGS 2023 Will Be The Year Of New Ace Attorney Content. Since 456 will be taking the spotlight, I wouldn't expect anymore than a teaser, if it's happening at all.

And now that I've said it, it won't happen.

OVERALL

-TGS confirmed 456 port feature, which should be interesting to see what kind of quality of life features they'll add. Slight possibility there could be something else AA related teased there, solely because Capcom.

-I think TGAA is doing better than Capcom expected and I wouldn't be shocked if they tried to make a new game of it, or at least more extracanonical content like stage plays taking place in that timeline

-AA7 has seemingly vanished but I am sure it will come back when I least expect it.

-AAI ports someday. please. please. please.

#ace attorney #aa7 speculation #[banging pots and pans together] YEAR 3 OF FAILED PREDICTIONS LET'S GIVE IT UP FOR YEAR 3 #there's not much to say here I just wanted to get something out as we're heading into september #do I even want aa7 anymore? no. am I speculating anyways? yes.

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