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kittenofdoomage · 3 years

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Happy Birthday to my blog, seven years ago today I started out in this strange wilderness and it's only gotten stranger 👍 nearly 700 stories and over 3.3 million words of fanfiction.

I was just going to leave this as a happy birthday blog post but I feel like I've got a few things I need to get off my chest, so this is below the cut, I know not everyone wants to or particularly cares to read it so there's ya choice 🤷‍♀️

There's no big announcements here FYI. I'm just doing what my friends have told me and putting my thoughts down on paper.

Some of you may have noticed I'm not posting anything on Tumblr anymore. The lack of interaction (comments, asks etc.) has just really put me off putting anything on here because it doesn't really feel like anyone either wants to read it or wants me around anymore, and I'm not gonna beg for attention. I'm not surprised, to be honest, my whole life I've been a square peg in a round hole. People just don't want me around - it's not just online. In real life there's exactly one place I feel like no one wants me to leave and that's in my house, with my family. I've just always been an odd person, and there aren't many people who vibe with me, it's cool, I've accepted it. But I'm not gonna be opening myself to that discomfort or pain anymore. My fics are all on Ao3 and I'll continue to post on there, my Tumblr will remain but I can't find the strength to get excited about something and then deal with the crushing feeling that no one wants my work. TBH I barely check Tumblr that much anymore bc I only come on here to check messages (usually from Beka, who knows all of this already but if you're reading this, thank you for listening to me and being patient with my mental breakdowns). My asks are staying off for now (sorry, Heart Anon, I love you, I've no idea who you are but please know you've been a light in my life and I appreciate you so much, and Marie, you have also been a beautiful friend with your daily gifs and hearts) but my PMs are on, just don't expect an answer right away.

I turn 35 tomorrow. It's been playing on my mind a lot, especially since my life expectancy ain't looking too good lol. I don't really have much of a life outside Tumblr. I'm a pretty boring person actually. Writing was the way I expressed myself and I truly enjoyed interacting with people who liked my stories. During the pandemic, it's been a way to keep myself focused and keep from slipping into the dark places we're all too familiar with. But there have been occasions lately where writing has been the cause of a slip into a dark place. And that's not healthy, and I need to work on it. I feel this is the time to stop forcing myself to write, seeing as I can't do much of it with my tiny human home for the school holidays.

My Patrons don't need to worry, I've still got material to share, it's a commitment I intend to honor because really, writing is the only thing I have, the only thing I feel I can do well and I am so, so, so, appreciative of every single person that supports me. I can't have a regular job right now (I hope that will change at some point because I've worked all my life until I got sick and I hate it) but you guys have given me a thread of independence, of dignity, and I value every one of you so much, those who have supported, who continue to support and who do so in the future.

I know this won't get absorbed, because it never does but those of you who read on Tumblr... please share the work you like. Set up a separate blog if you're too embarrassed to share on your main, make a reblogging blog, send asks, whatever, just please tell your author how much you liked what they did. I can assure you, those authors are waiting for it. We work so hard on what we make, what we create, we want you to scream from the rooftops. It doesn't even have to be coherent, we love all the feedback, we crave it (as long as it's not just a demand for part two, even Thor learned to ask for more without being rude about it, everyone else can). Without it, we're like plants without water. We don't feel the want to create anymore. And that's kinda where I'm at now. I don't want to lose my passion for my art but when there's nothing to do it for, sometimes it's out of our hands.

So, that's where I'm at. I'll probably lose followers (though I've already lost 250 in the last two months so that's not a surprise) and if any of my Patrons feel like my statement is unacceptable, that's fine. I don't expect anyone to agree with me. I just wanted to put my feelings down, to be honest with everyone. And I have.

I don't want the list of stories to end at 700. I want to keep creating stories that everyone will enjoy. I really hope things with change, even if not for me, then for the others out there who are on their creative journey.

Much love to everyone, stay safe xxx

(this post will remain untagged so it will not show in searches and I'm not tagging those people who I have spoken to about this and my feelings in general, as they know who they are, and they know they're very special, amazing, and appreciated people to me. I don't particularly care if this gets reblogged or not.)

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duskandstarlight · 4 years

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Embers & Light (Cassian POV - Chapter 26)

Notes: I’ve had a few of you asking for Cassian’s POV when he saw Nesta dressed for Solstice, so I cobbled this quickly together. As usual, let me know if you’d like to be tagged in any of my fanfic updates (or untagged)...

You can read the original chapter from Nesta’s POV here.

As usual, sorry for any typos!

Each rap of Cassian’s knuckles against the wood of Nesta’s bedroom door magnified his apprehension. His nerves had started to fray as soon as he started to dress in his usual black pants and shirt — his go-to outfit for fancier occasions. Even after years of hounding from Rhys and Mor, Cassian couldn’t bring himself to pin down an extortionately priced tailor to fashion his own clothing. Instead, he was wearing what Mas had lovingly made for him with Illyrian fabric. He had paid her handsomely for it and it had made him feel all the better knowing that she desperately needed the money whereas an over-priced tailor did not.

Cassian had been back in Velaris the evening previous, celebrating the coming of Solstice with his family, and Azriel had winnowed him back to the house in the early hours. Thankfully, the ramifications of Cassian’s one-too-many glasses of wine had bled away with his third plate of breakfast, but to his dismay, the disappearance of a hangover had only paved the way for a heavy sense of dread that he could not shake.

It wasn’t that Cassian wasn’t looking forward to Solstice with Lorrian and Frawley. It was more the memories the day dredged up. Namely Nesta sitting as silent as a ghost during last year’s festivities, and his feigned joviality throughout, which Cassian suspected had done little to fool his family. And then, later, Nesta had become so sharp and so dismissive that his heart still twisted at the recollection. At the memory of his anger when she had rejected him so effectively. When he had hurled that damn box in the Sidra…

The contents of which was now nestled in the front pocket of his pants. Its mere presence was enough to make his heart thump against his ribcage, and knowing he intended to give it to her today… that she might reject it once again…. It made Cassian so nervous he almost contemplated retreating from her door and disappearing into the camp altogether.

But then footsteps sounded across the carpet. The door handle turned. And then Nesta appeared in the doorway in all her devastating glory.

So devastating that heat flushed through Cassian with such intensity his words burst forth in a way that was not at all casual and aloof, “Are you ready?”

An exquisite frown twisted across Nesta’s features. It was one of Cassian’s favourite expressions, namely because of the arrows that formed at the base of her nose. “Am I late?”

She was eyeing him strangely. One hand was held purposefully to the back of her head, holding her braid in place, and the other joined it so she could secure the ends with a golden pin.

Too late Cassian realised he was standing as if he were waiting to fend off a forthcoming opponent in the sparring ring rather than to remind her that they were supposed to be leaving.

He wanted to change his posture but he couldn’t bring himself to do it, not as those mercury eyes slowly raked over his body. Instead, he remained stock still until her eyes flitted to his wings. To his dismay, his wings widened without him bidding them to, as if he was enduring a fucking military inspection and she was his superior.

Never in his life had Cassian been so thankful that neither of his brothers was here to witness him making an utter tit out of himself. They would never let him live it down.

“Am I late?” Nesta asked eventually, when he remained silent.

Cassian watched her hands drop from her hair to smooth down her dress, before she knotted them calmly at her front. Today, her hair was fashioned into a loose half coronet, and golden brown waves fell past her shoulders to give way, not to leathers, but a midnight blue dress that he recognised as one she had worn in Velaris.

But what had really made him breathless, was that Nesta looked healthy. More than healthy. As with anything Nesta wore, the fabric accentuated her flawless curves, but rather than the sharp angles and jutting bone her starved body had lent itself to, the material showcased the weight she had gained. Even her skin glowed because of it, and her eyes… they were bright rather than vacant. She looked so, so beautiful that something turned over inside him, as if everything was clicking into place.

Too late Cassian realised he had been staring. He expected he could only count his lucky stars that his gods damned mouth wasn’t hanging open, too.

Or, Cassian thought grimly, that he had not given in to temptation and slanted his mouth on hers. Not that he thought she wanted him to do that. A knowledge that only served to upset him, so much so, that he did not notice Nesta move until she had swept past him.

“You‘ll need to shield my hair,” Nesta clipped. She floated to the door as if she was walking on nothing but air and lifted her coat off of the hook.

If Cassian was a gentlemale, he would have helped her into her coat. But then again, Nesta had a tendency to snap at him for the slightest wrong manoeuvre and his ego was already damaged today as it was.

“Aren’t we going to be late?” she snapped impatiently, when he continued to stand there.

She sounded irritable and Cassian wondered if she did not want to be celebrating Solstice at all. That she had perhaps only accepted Lorrian and Frawley’s invitation because she did not want to be impolite when they were both training her.

The thought did nothing to dampen his insecurities, so Cassian did what he did best; he looked for the easiest opportunity to rile her. “Are you going to wear those shoes?”

Nesta’s glare would have had lesser males scarpering. “Yes.”

“They’re not practical for flying,” he told her shortly as he strode to the door.

“I’m not flying, I’m being carried,” Nesta snapped in response. “And is it not custom to dress nicely for Solstice?”

A cruel satisfaction thrummed through Cassian as he felt her power rush beneath her skin. At the opportunity she had provided him with to study her some more.

Slowly, he dragged his eyes over every inch of her, delighting in her hiss of anger.

He bit back a groan.

Fucking hell, she was a divine temptress and he was a complete and utter gone. And to make things worse, he was now going to hold her for the entire journey to Lorrian and Frawley’s and do his best not to give in to that irresistible pull.

“It is custom,” Cassian agreed eventually - tightly - because that was all he could manage without revealing that in over his five hundred years of living, he had never been so completely consumed by someone in his entire life.

A short nod from Nesta as she wound a scarf around her neck. “Don’t set me down in any mud or snow and I won’t find it in myself to set you on fire.”

At that, Cassian snorted. He had no doubt she’d be setting him on fire very soon. Especially when she realised that tomorrow they would have a pretence to upkeep. That she would be sharing a bed with him whether she liked it or not.

Hauling the front door open, Cassian stepped outside. The weather was so cold it was like a slap to the face, but he merely flared his siphons and allowed his armour to click into place scale by scale.

When he held out his hand to Nesta, she took it with little more than a glare, and he dared to pull her closer, moulding her to his body as if they were two puzzle pieces that slot together.

For a fraction of a moment, Cassian paused, allowing himself to relish in the steady beat of Nesta’s heart and the scent of jasmine and vanilla. To marvel over the way her hand closed around his arm rather than acting like a lifeless, vacant doll.

Then, Cassian spread his wings wide and sprung them into the air.

Tags: @arin1030 @superspiritfestival @sayosdreams @perseusannabeth @mylittlebigplanet @biggestwingspan-az @bellsqueen @ekaterinakostrova @bookstantrash @prophecyerised @rainbowcheetah512 @awesomelena555 @wannawriteyouabook @iammissstark @lovelynesta @melphss @nestalytical @darkshadowqueensrule @laylaameer01 @a-trifling-matter @grouchycritic7794 @thalia-2-rose @champanheandluxxury @swankii-art-teacher @princessconsuela02 @lavendergoomsltd @little-diyosa @princessofmerchants-reads @jeakat @sjm-things @imwritingthesewords @nestable @inejbrekkxr @silvernesta @inyourmindeye @amelie775 @iwastoowildinthe70s @helen-the-weirdo @pizzaneverdisappoints @san-y-a-blog

#embersandlightfic #embers and light #acotar fanfiction #acotarfic #acotar fic #acosf #nesta x cassian #nestaarcheron #cassianfic #nestafic

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what-the--curtains · 4 years

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Not a Piece of Art

Part 1/4 - A Grudge Like No Other

(Javier Peña x f!reader)

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Summary: You’re tasked with an impossible mission and an even more impossible partner to complete it with.

Authors note: I have never not once seen narcos all I know if based on other fics I’ve read so pls be kind but let me know if anything’s wildly out of character! Also I’m aware forensics wasn’t a solid discipline (especially DNA fingerprinting) but we’re gonna pretend it is. Lemme know if you’d like to be tagged (or untagged) 😊

Tw: Mentions of fake parental death, swearing, mentions of sex

Word count: 4.1k

Tagged list: @agingerindenial @diogodxlot

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The morning sun radiates down on your shoulders as you lock the door to your apartment complex behind you. Despite the early hour it was already far too hot, but at least the humidity wouldn’t kick in until the afternoon. You’d been working in Colombia for a few months now, but the heat wasn’t something you’d ever get used to. You weren’t complaining, most days you preferred it to the frigid temperatures that painted your childhood. The frost bitten noses, wool socks and thick snow falls coating tree branches seemed all but a distant memory now. You’d settled on Columbia after your long time best friend Connie convinced you to take the universities offer. She had recently made the move down south and was eager to have you there with her.

She’d told you about the job and honestly, you wouldn’t be surprised if she had marched down to the university herself and dropped off your resume. She’d flown up to Brown and helped you pack up your life and then unpack it after your arrival to the terraced apartment Connie had picked out for you both to live in. It was a decent size and the balcony was south facing which gave you all day access to the sun. When you weren't working you spent your time out there soaking up the sun and watering the small garden you had been tending to since your arrival. Your days were primarily spent at the university working out the finer details of the forensics lab you were hired to set up. Your PhD in forensic anthropology has left you with various laboratory based skills, including DNA analysis, making you a coveted asset to the campus. Whilst in school you had also completed an art certificate which came in handy when facial reconstructions were needed.

After everything was in place you began running samples, processing unidentified remains by working on dental ID’s and facial reconstructions, as well as testing for drug residue. Despite being run by the University your job wasn’t as research based as you would have hoped with your work often falling under the DEA’s jurisdiction. You weren't involved in their day to day protocols. You mainly just ran the tests, or identified bodies recovered from the crime scene only conversing with them when it was absolutely necessary. Police work wasn’t in your wheelhouse, and it wasn’t a profession you supported or believed in.

Many faces passed through your workspace all demanding your utmost attention claiming their projects to be the most important. One frequent flyer through the lab was Steve Murphy, who Connie had met down in Miami a few years back. His relationship to your friend was the only reason you had bothered to make an effort with him. A friendship was established between the two of you faster than you had expected, due in part to his easy southern charm, but mainly because he and Connie evidently had feelings for eachother. You always found it easier to get along with men who weren't trying to get into your pants which was, unfortunately, a frequent occurrence in the male dominated discipline you worked in. There was only one flaw you could attribute to Steve, his work wife, the other half of the DEAs “dynamic duo”, agent Javier Peña. You’d never been formally introduced to the man, but his reputation preceded him. His was a face that also made frequent appearances in your lab but you'd never spoken more than three words to each other which was, probably for the best. You had what some might deem a confrontational personality and from what you understood Peña was, to put it nicely, an asshole.

He always came in sporting a more casual look and sunglasses which he kept on despite being indoors, a habit that drove you up the wall. He’d tap the file on the glass to get your attention always making you walk the five extra steps to get to him. You didn’t bother to look up when he passed the beige folders to you just grabbed the file from his hands and added it to the pile on your desk. He’d started attaching yellow sticky notes with “put a rush on” scrawled across them in impatient handwriting, as if his case was more important than the remains you were currently working on identifying. Not talking was a strategic move on your part, you’d heard he was quite the charmer when he needed something done, and you weren't going to let him get away with that. You ran this lab, not Javier Peña. Was your dismissal of him warranted? Maybe not, but your gut instinct was usually right and the rumour mill had painted Peña in a very specific manner. You weren't about to let yet another hot headed alpha male who took “too much male energy” to an entirely new level into your life.

Unfortunately, your knack for avoiding him became nearly impossible when you were called out to work on a crime scene. Despite your refusal to work in the field, the remains couldn’t be moved so you had to go to them. The site was just far enough away that a daily commute would have been tedious so you, along with the dynamic duo and your forensic team were booked into a nearby hotel. You weren't sure what you'd done in your past life to piss off the gods but somehow you’d ended up sandwiched between Steve and Peña. Steve wasn’t the issue, apart from the TV which you’d hear blare spanish dubbed reruns of Miami Vice between 4 and 8 PM, he was a quiet, considerate neighbour. Peña, on the other hand, was neither considerate or quiet particularly during the late hours of the night while you were trying to sleep. Sharing a wall with the agent proved to be an issue, so much so that by the third day just looking at him filled you with such intense rage that you'd given yourself lockjaw.

Every night without fail you laid awake as the exaggerated, bordering on ridiculous, moans coming from whoever he'd enticed into bed that night reverberated through your shared wall. You'd tried it all, earplugs, pillows so forcefully wrapped around your head you were essentially smothering yourself, but the sounds still permeated through the plaster and into your head. On the fourth night when you heard the talking start you knew what you had to do. You furiously wriggle free from your sheets and make your way out into the hallway. You walk one door over and inhale deeply before aggressively pounding your fist on the door.

“Hey” you say, through gritted teeth.

“Hey?” a slightly disheveled Steve murmurs eyes squirting into the hallway’s bright lights as his arms cross clumsily over his bare chest.

“Look I hate to ask but can I sleep on your couch, the walls are thin and...”

“And Peña has a thing for loud women '' he finishes for you, shoulders relaxing as he opens the door up for you “surprised you lasted this long, come in i'll grab you some pillows”

“Thanks for letting me sleep here, I think I may have killed him in the field tomorrow if I didn't get at least an hour of sleep. Also this isn’t some tactic to get you to bed so you can stop trying to cover your modesty” You say wiping your eyes, as Steve drops his arms to his side laughing.

“I know, believe me, besides i'm sure you're aware I’m only interested in one person.” So he did have a thing for Connie.

“You should go for it, I think she'd say yes” you offer, even in your sleep deprived state you were still a pretty solid wingwoman.

“You think?” His eyes light up, further cementing your belief that Steve, despite being friends with Peña, was a good guy.

“Thanks” you murmur as he hands you some pillows and a light sheet. It's not long before the AC’s quiet hum draws you into a deep sleep.

The alarm blaring out from Steve’s room pulls you from your dreaming state, groaning as you squeeze a pillow over your head. Why was it that you always felt worse after getting a good night's sleep? You briefly doze off again only waking as the smell of burnt toast convinces your brain that either a fire has started, or you were having a stroke.

“Tryna burn this place down?” you mumble, relaxing back into the couch cushions as you watch Steve scrape the burnt bits off into the garbage before buttering it and taking a bite.

“You think you got enough sleep to not kill my partner this morning?” he asks between mouthfuls.

“No, but I did get enough to realize if I killed him in the field there'd be witnesses” you remark pouring coffee into a cracked mug. “Thank you for letting me sleep here “

“Anytime, though Javi should be the one thanking me considering I basically saved his life. Lucky were leaving today or I’d have to put him into protective custody.”

“And I'll never have to hear him ever again” you say suddenly feeling a bit better. You were glad for Steve being so accommodating to your needs, especially considering he didn't really know you that well. “Well I should go get ready for the day ahead what it's supposed to be out?”

“A balmy 40” Steve offers, as he washes your cup up in the sink.

“Wow I should have packed my snow pants when I moved down here.” you dead pan, the delivery causing Steve to snort as you exit the room. As you exit, Javier opens his door kissing the woman he’d spent the night with one last time watching as she strides off down the hallway. You don’t see him, but he sees you. Specifically, he sees you leaving his partner's room, and in nothing more than an oversized t-shirt, he raised his eyebrows. Good for Steve from what he’d heard half the department had been trying to get your attention to no avail. Your head was always buried in paperwork and your ears were always donning headphones blocking out small talk, maybe he should take a page from your book. He didn’t say anything to Steve in the field, but he did watch you interact with one another. Paying specific attention to how you'd made Steve laugh while photographing the murder weapon. Javi watched as you meticulously gathered up a few finger bones that he'd overheard you saying would be used for DNA fingerprinting. He'd tried to talk to you a few times this trip, but the second he'd stepped in your direction he noticed your jaw clench and your body tense up, not wanting to upset you he decided it was best to back off. After getting what you need you packed up your things and headed back home, with no intentions of ever having to interact with Peña for more than 5 minutes ever again.

Several months later

Your lab was now contracted out full time by the DEA which meant you still got to do research but you didn’t have to teach any teenagers which was quite frankly a dream. Unfortunately, the contract meant you'd now be spending time in two male-dominated fields. The boys club offered little that would qualify as genuine friendship. Turns out the ones brave enough to approach you were only nice to you because they wanted to sleep with you. Something you’d found out after overhearing a less than true story about you from one of the guy’s you’d hooked up with. After that you’d stopped sleeping where you work and started looking elsewhere. Your few short lived romances were mainly found in dive bars only going home with people that had been thoroughly vetted (and vaguely threatened) by yourself, Connie and Steve. Who was now a relatively permanent fixture in your life after finally asking Connie out, and you really didn’t mind it. He was good to Connie and he never minded being excluded when you needed a girls' night without him. You also assumed the decrease in misogynistic talk amongst the agents was Steves doing, you made a mental note to thank him later, as you took another swig of the beer you’d been nursing for the past hour.

Steve was still inseparable from Peña and where he went Javi was sure to follow. Your inability to not become enraged by him meant you often found yourself leaving the room as soon as he showed up, subsequently cutting your Connie time in half. Devastating both you and her.

“You know he’s not really as insufferable as he acts” Connie states, Javi was due to show up any minute which meant it was just about time for you to leave.

“ You're not gonna sell me on this” you say, chewing on a stale nacho chip from food you’d ordered hours ago.

“Seriously, he's almost nice sometimes” your pointed look tells her to drop it. Connie was nothing if not resilient and you were constantly amazed by her. You don’t know how she worked as a nurse. You had a hard enough time with the dead, how she also dealt with the living as well was beyond you. She was a quantifiable saint which was probably why she saw the good in Peña.

“Remind me to never make you mad” Steve says.

“No one holds a grudge quite like her” Connie exclaims

“Awe you say the sweetest things about me” you retort after finishing the last of your beer.

“Alright well I’ve got an early morning shift so we should be heading out, tell Javi I say hi” Connie says kissing Steve before the two of you exit the bar.

“Are you really going to keep up this affront against Javi?” Connie asks, interlinking your arms together as you exit the bar.

“Yes, now please and can we stop talking about Peña even thinking about him gets me riled up”

“I thought you said you hated him” she teases causing you to roll your eyes.

“Please don't make me gag” you say pulling a face that causes you both to break into a giggle fit.

“What up her ass? Seriously, am I infectious or something?” Javi asks, slumping down across from Steve who's filling out paperwork at his desk.

“Well considering your history, probability is pretty high” Steve quips back earning him a thwack to the head with a folder you’d dropped on Peña’s desk earlier that morning.

“You know her, what's her deal, why does she hate me?”

“Everyone hates you Javi, it’s a fundamental part of your personality” Steve laughs.

Javier usually wasn’t one to concern himself with how others perceived him, but his work frequently overligned with yours and he figured his life would be made infinitely easier if he could get into your good books. Sure, at first his intrigue in getting to know you was purely physical. He knew looks aren't everything, but for what he wanted, they played a fundamental part. He wasn’t the only person to have noticed you the day you showed up, all eyes were on you as you walked through the DEA embassy for the first time. Your arrival had sparked a competitive energy amongst the men with the agents often vying over who got the honour of dropping off case files to you. A few were apparently even so lucky to have actually spent the night, at least that's what he’d overheard some agents proclaiming loudly, making him doubt their validity.

He’d cracked down on what some would call “locker room talk” when he thought you and Steve were sleeping together, after seeing you leave his room early that one morning. Though if Steve had been spending nights with you he’d never brought it up to Javi, and after he started dating Connie there never seemed a right time to ask about you, so he let it go. He’d gotten more proactive with stopping it once you’d been hired on full time. He’d upped his guard when he’d caught one trying to cop a feel of your ass the day you had been called in on your day off. You’d come in wearing a skirt shorter than what would be considered workplace appropriate gaining you more attention than usual. He noticed the guys hand drop down low, but any contact was stopped when Javi smashed the guys arm back into the wall behind him. In most cases a move like that would have earned him a swift punch to the face but a simple raise of his eyebrows was enough to get the pervert to sit back down.

Despite the scene playing out a few feet from you, you never noticed carrying on about your day as if nothing had happened, headphones on, paperwork in your arms and various scrawlings across your hand, reminders of meetings he knew you'd be late to anyways. He assumes your chronic lateness was a tactic to spend as little time around him as possible. Your hatred for him was palpable, he wondered if it was as obvious to everyone else as it was to him. He'd noticed how you would stand in meetings when the only seat available was next to him. It was starting to get to his ego. He wanted to know what he possibly could have done to be treated like the scum of the earth by you. He’d heard from Connie that you didn’t like cops, but you got on fine with Steve. Your lives continued on with minimal interaction until the day you were called into the head of the DEA’s office.

“Office now!” your boss shouts from the door. Fuck. What have you done now?

“Hey you need something?” you ask, lips parted and forehead wrinkled, feeling like a child who’d just been called to the principal's office. Your head snaps to the left when you feel eyes boring into you, eyes belonging to Peña. He shifts around in the chair to escape your violent gaze. You turn to Steve who's gazing up at the ceiling.

“I have the dental results here for the missing persons from the case last week, it’s a match, I know it's late but...”

“It's not that,” he gestures his hand to the chair beside Peña and you sit, placing the documents down on the table. Javi cranes his neck slightly, eyes darting over the various statistics strewn across the page surprised you were able to piece it all together.

“You have an art degree right?”

“I have an art certificate” you correct

“and you paint”

“A bit”

“She was featured in local galleries back in the States” Steve pipes up.

“ Good, we need you to go undercover” you snort before laughing aloud. Your amusement quickly fades when you realize no one else was laughing with you.

“Wait you're serious? You want me... to go undercover? I'm not an agent, I can’t use a gun, I don’t think I've even held one before” you say, tearing through all the excuses you could think of.

“You can shoot a bow and arrow,” Steve pipes up.

“Ya very different instrument Steve, also does Connie tell you everything about me” he shrugs his shoulders.

“You won’t need a gun anyways, you'll have a trained agent with you at all times.” Your boss reassures.

“No. No way! Im sorry but this… this is beyond the scope of my work and my skill set” you assert, not budging.

“You’ve been to crime scenes before, you’ve been in dangerous scenarios, excavated mass graves, we need you you’re the only one who can help with this”

“Why? You have multiple agents out there who would kill to go undercover, why me?” you push

“ Your background, and relative anonymity. There's been an increase in art dealing amongst the sicarios.”

“So what? Maybe they just really like art.” you offer

“Does anyone really like art” Peña pipes up

“ Yes, the whole world actually” you shoot back, successfully shutting him up.

“We think they're using convincing fakes to smuggle drugs without suspicion” Steve offered, helping to clear up the situation.

“Okay... then hire an art expert to go in and see if the paintings are real”

“We need you to test for residue on the paintings, and to recreate one in time for the next move”

“Okay im good, but I am not good enough to recreate a painting worth thousands of dollars.”

“From what I’ve seen you are,” Steve says further cementing your fate.

“What if I say no?” you ask, exhaling deeply.

“Then you're fired” Javier pipes up, once again causing your head to turn to him.

“And who, pray tell, made you judge, jury and executioner” you spit “last time I check Javier Peña wasn’t the one signing my paychecks”

“No, but I am, and you will do this” Your boss's backing of Peñas statement makes the smirk on his face even more aggravating.

“Fine, but just know I will be personally mentioning you all in my will so everyone knows exactly who got me killed, and I'm gonna want a raise, more vacation time and a new piece of lab equipment if I make it out alive. ”

“Fine” you smile feeling slightly vindicated.

“So what's my story? Who am I to have a million dollar painting in my possession?” you ask, as your boss pulls up a document on his computer.

“You’ll go by Melanie Alverez nee Smith, you were born in London England to parents Maria and Calvin who passed in a car accident four weeks after your nineteenth birthday”

“Shit” you mutter, thinking about your own parents who were very much alive.

“You dropped out of Oxford where you were undertaking a degree in chemistry and moved to New York where you began painting. You were a struggling artist for the first two years but received funding to attend Julliard. After graduation your first major piece was accepted by a local gallery and put up for auction. It sold for 10,000$. The buyer wanted to meet you after seeing your photo. He’d sent thousands of flowers to your gallery before showing up and asking you on a date.

“Must be nice” you murmur

“After a whirlwind romance you eloped and moved down to Columbia where you continue to work as an artist.”

“Alright easy enough, short live romance is a good call that can be used to explain why we don’t know certain information about each other.”

“You'll be staying here” A huge spanish style house appears on the screen. Its prestige was only overshadowed by the mansion looming over it from across the private beach. Must be the target's house, you think.

“It was built by the target, he lives there with his fourth wife. He’s rich, sources claims from drug smuggling, they think he may even have direct links to Escobar

“Like, as in Pablo?” you ask, eyes widening.

“Apparently he’s his art dealer. We need you to go in and see what he knows, if it's not enough then test the paintings in their homes”

“And if they trace?”

“You'll give them the fake implemented with a tracking device so we can target its route.”

“Okay well I'd say easy enough but the threat of being murdered isn’t lost on me. Who's my husband anyways? Obviously he’s rich but did he tragically fall down the stairs and die, did I kill him?” you ask, smiling as Steve laughs.

“What?” you say looking up

“What...” you say as Steve refuses to meet your eyes as he chokes on his laugh.

“Well you haven’t killed him yet but I give it a week.” He responds.

“Who's my husband” you ask, again suddenly afraid and very aware that there were two men in this room, and one was currently laughing at you.

“Your lucky day sweetheart.” Your head turns comically slow to face Javi, the effect only causes Steve to snicker more.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” you whisper.

“This mission is anything, but a joke.” your boss interjects “If we can trace the arts movement it brings us one step closer to catching Escobar. I don’t know why there's animosity between you two and frankly I do not care. You two must work together. If you are to succeed you have to be believable. Study up on each others aliases the target hasn’t made it this far without being killed by being stupid. We’ve tried to get to him before with no success, he will be on high alert. You two will have to convince him, and his wife, that you’re sincere.”

#javi x reader #javi x you #javi x y/n #Peña x reader #Peña x you #javier pena x reader #Javier Peña x you #narcos fanfic #agent peña x reader #agent Peña x you #not a piece of art #part 1

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dappersheep · 4 years

Text

Food Fantasy: An Analysis on what killed a Golden Goose (3/3)

Ladies and gentlemen, we've arrived at our final destination.

Again before we start, we have our obligatory disclaimers. I do not own the game or its characters, nor do I claim to know the true history and likely fate of this game. I am entitled to the thoughts and opinions written within this post. Feel free to agree or disagree with the points being made.

This post also remains untagged from the main foofan tag. Only my followers will see this.

We are in the third and final stretch, and the checkpoint is past the cut.

Community

So... here we are, fellow Master Attendants.

As consumers of this piece of entertainment media, we are free to enjoy it however we wish. Appreciating what is there, creating something new from what exists, playing the game by the meta or however you want to play it (within your means and at your own risk of course). There's no one true and absolute way to experience the game.

However, just as you can enjoy something, doesn't mean you can't also point out flaws or shortcomings of the media in question. As an active veteran player, I've already pointed out the many gameplay design flaws already. And I'd be pretty dumb to say that Food Fantasy's writing is perfect. Hell, it has a lot of holes from a worldbuilding consistency standpoint.

And what of things from the community side? Yes, there will be times you'd see content you consider cringe, or something in fanon you don't agree with. Or there happens to be fan theories and fangirling posts you don't like the take of because of X or Y.

And that's fine. If we all happen to play the same way, like the same thing, agree on the same thing and produce the same thing, well, this would be one helluva boring community, wouldn't it?

But what if someone decides the way you're playing the game is wrong and harasses you over it? What happens if someone decides that their interpretation of the game's flavor text and lore is more important than what anyone else thought about it? What happens if someone decides that they're absolutely right, and you and everyone else who disagrees deserves to be bullied out of the fandom?

As much as I want to say we aren't part of the problem why the game is deteriorating, we are unfortunately, part of the reason why the game is as such even if most of the blame is directed towards Funtoy and Elex themselves.

⦁ Whale Authority. Whales will always be part of a gacha game's ecosystem. Without them, the game won't be able to maintain its upkeep costs, moreso for one that services global regions instead of just one. But when a game decides to cater its decisions of what features should be prioritized and when it should be launched around only its most elite paying players' voices -even if that influence has since tapered off-, you know there is something wrong with the publisher's management team and priorities.

⦁ Interguild drama. While I did not personally follow any of this, this has certainly been the peak of in-game tension back in the day. Poaching good players from both competitive and smaller guilds, guild mergers that often ended up making the annexed guild/s the equivalent of UK colonized India or Australia, suck-ups chummying up to guild leaders to keep a spot in an active, high ranking guild (for bragging rights!) despite never contributing much to overall damage, and just general dislike of certain players' attitudes. Actions like this have disillusioned many players about their playing experience and the reason why many eventually just lost the motivation to log into FooFan.

⦁ Cheaters. You know very well about the Hacker-teme I've mentioned before, but that was in context of Elex being incompetent with dealing with them. Here, I would like to point out the players who are desperate to dominate the playing field for whatever reason to the point that they would resort to cheating the ranks with forceful modifications of the APK. Whether it is to rank high in catacombs weekly, get a top spot in daily disaster damage, or weasel their way into the competitive whale ranks of a major ranking event, these are the people who have no qualms messing with the code to give themselves an easier time with the game. And if they're caught? Some pretend that they've made a mistake, some quickly sell the account to escape the blame, some others just scamper away into the dark and hide in the lower ranks where they can't be found. Others simply don't care and keep cheating until Elex decides to finally ban them... if Elex ever decides their rebates score isn't worth saving the account.

⦁ Ship wars. Ah yes, a staple of drama in any fandom. There doesn't need much explanation to this as we've all had our fair share of running into a battleground in whatever fandom we visit. Someone ships BB52 wholeheartedly? Nope, problematic 'age gaps'. Someone likes Napoleon with Pastel? Someone's bound to misinterpret their bios in order to justify that Napoleon was being abusive. Spaghetti and Borscht? Borscht is minor coded, ship her with Vodka instead. Whiskey and Pizza or Cassata? Cancelled! And I've never heard of the Foe Yay trope or pretend I don't know about it! Rarepairs? Disgusting! No fanon in my canon playground! Turkey and Eggnog? Gasp! How dare you, you pedo-shipper-even-though-you-never-said-you-shipped-them-romantically-but-that-isn't-my-point!

⦁ Character Obsession: Bias. On one hand, you love a character so much. Relate to a character so much. You have thus pulled this character into the folds of your bosom and coo at them like a mother dove and get so minutely triggered if someone so much as makes one disagreeable or joking comment about the character that you fly into an overreactive ballistic rage that would make a Canadian goose honk in fear. You don't care what they are in canon. You don't care about the possibility of mistranslation. What matters is the fanon space you carved out for them to exist in and that's all that matters. The problem with this is when this obsession takes over common sense and social etiquette and it steps into harassment territory. You begin to think: I'm the only one who 'understands' the character. I'm the only one who wishes better for the character, everyone else is out to defame them! Oh wait, you like them too? Do you like them the way *I* like them? No? Maybe if you're my 'friend', I'd let it slide. But to everyone else? No one else has the right to like them as much as I do. No one! Never mind that they're completely fictional- No one hurts my bias because in turn, they're hurting *me*!

⦁ Character Obsession: Anti. On the other hand, you hate a character so much. This character just makes you see so much red. Their smug little smirk just makes your blood boil. Their fictional backstory makes you recoil in disgust. You hate that someone else loves a character you hate so much. You cannot *believe* that someone could be so daringly stupid to like a problematic character. They must be problematic too then. They must be hiding real life secrets that are problematic! Yes, yes. That's right. That person's a supporter of abuse. That person's into pedophilia. That person is into military lolita fashion that Japan started the trend of but clearly Japan was part of the Axis Powers! And that... that person... that person... is a roleplayer and a yaoi fangirl properly interacting with minors and adults. How dare they...!

⦁ Fan Translations. Normally it wouldn't be a problem that a group or two or several are translating pieces of the game's lore ahead of the official. But with Elex's very delayed translations and extreme allergic reactions to translating Food Soul bios, people have become dependent on fan-translation groups to get their fix. The problem herein lies... is when the translators get drunk off the power that they are one of a handful in a small community who can magically transcribe the oriental moonrunes into English. The problem starts when the translator starts to have an inclination. The problem starts when the translator loses their professional detachment and start adding in details here and there into the fan translated product that ultimately changes the meaning and direction of the entire story. The problem is also escalated when that translator's embellished product is touted as the truth by their followers. If there was an upcoming character whose backstory is connected to a character they hated (either because of someone or they just don't like the character) and you were hoping to read the fan translation? How would you know that what you get isn't something doctored to the point it's basically fanfiction?

⦁ Social Justice Vigilantism. Sometimes someone does not have a character obsession or need it to be annoying. Sometimes, someone just wants to ring the alarm over something they find 'problematic' in order to police and sanitize the enjoyment of the media for 'everyone'. They no longer really take enjoyment out of a new Food Soul design being leaked, they no longer read the lore just to enjoy what it has to offer. Instead, they nitpick bits and pieces of the design and point it out repeatedly as a reason why the whole thing is bad. They point out bits of the story and inject their interpretations of it without really comprehending what they've read in full and react badly to it. What's worse is that they have no qualms publicly posting their reactions and eagerly and hungrily await those likes and echoes of agreement that they were right.

⦁ Circles of Influence. Everyone has a group they eventually gravitate to in a fandom. It comes with its own pros and cons. Sometimes you join a group because someone you admire is in there, sometimes you join a group because you just want to mingle and see more content. All valid reasons. Arguments can't be avoided in a group, it has to happen... But you have to take care. You have to take care to feel the change in the air of the group. When someone starts pushing people to agree with them. When your most admired people start to feel overly sensitive about certain characters or issues. When you start to feel obligated to spy on other groups outside of this one for 'nonbelievers', 'traitors' and 'heretics' who do not think the way this group does, and that bringing back bits and pieces of gossip as offerings would somehow make you more favored in the eyes of the inner clique or remain inside it. There is a gripping sense of annoyance when that person comes in to complain but you can't do anything about it but nod and agree. There is a pervading sense of fear and apprehension of overstepping an invisible boundary. There is fear that you might be next on the chopping block, after witnessing one of the others being ganged up on and thrown out without a second thought, their name spat upon like they're worth less than dirt. And so reluctant you are to give up what you have with them that when they push you to do something you are reluctant to do, all in the name of 'harmony and justice'... You do it. Even though it would mean offering yourself up to the mob with no salvation, and the stark realization that... [they] never cared about you as a friend.

And we've come to the end of this analysis trilogy. The writing got a little bit strange in this post, but honestly this is the best way I could put it. I'm aware things can and will be more complicated than the bullet points I've written but I'm just one person and I tried very hard to keep details of all the drama that happened in this fandom as vague as possible. Of course, that wouldn't work if you know what I am talking about.

The community is quiet now for the most part, the game is somewhere between limbo and the living plane. Things could be better for us, but I don't really count on it.

I wish I could leave a bit of a moral warning or something. But rather than do that, I just hope this was an entertaining read into one individual's eyes into Food Fantasy and everything that makes it up.

#ravings of a madman #food fantasy but not tagged right

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jaskiers-sweetkiss · 4 years

Text

Out of Time

Pairings: Avengers!Reader x Daniel Sousa, Steve x Bucky (briefly mentioned)

Summary: Just when you were starting to enjoy your time in 1949 everything falls apart. SEQUEL TO Not So Bad

Word Count: 2.6K

Warnings: some swearing, panic attack, mention of ptsd and war, some angst

A/N: @bookish-bucky @drinkerofcoffeewriterofwords and @mydoctorwho13 asked for a part 2 to Not So Bad so here it is! (I hope y’all don’t mind that I tagged you/lmk if you want me to untag you/idk why it didn’t let me tag all of you). More notes at the bottom!

___

The cat was out of the bag.

Well, really just one cat was out of its bag.

Basically your secret was out and it was entirely your fault.

You were at Howard’s lab for the third time for even more tests. All of the previous tests had been inconclusive, though that came as no surprise to you. You had engineered them to be that way, pretending to suddenly and uncontrollably levitate in response to random tests, doing your best to ensure that Howard would be unable to make any connections.

But today you were a bit distracted.

You couldn’t help it, you were only human after all. And when Daniel Sousa is flashing an award-winning grin while Howard tried his most bizarre test ever (repeatedly trying to scare you in hopes it would spark a levitation reaction), well, any woman in your position would’ve done the same.

You jumped. No, you did more than just jump.

Howard Stark snuck up behind you and yelled while shaking your shoulders and you flew. Shot straight up in the air like a rocket, feeling entirely like your teenage self with absolutely no control of your abilities.

And then, to make matters worse, you disappeared.

You assumed it must’ve been the embarrassment of smacking your head on the ceiling that caused the sudden invisibility though the ‘why’ didn’t really matter anymore. What mattered was you were invisible and Daniel and Howard were shouting your name.

Except, no, that didn’t matter right now either. All you could focus on was the sudden tightening in your chest and the fact that you were finding it harder to breathe. The shouting faded to the background as you began to feel trapped in your own skin.

I have to get out of here.

So you ran.

You didn’t even think as you flew out of Howard’s lab, racing down the hall. You didn’t stop until you were in the bathroom, door locked behind you. You slid down to the floor, knees pulled tight against your chest as you leaned against the door.

Briefly, you noticed that you were still invisible, though the thought left as soon as it came. You also vaguely noticed the tears streaming down your face, though you were unaware of when they had begun. Your thoughts zipped back to the lab and the concern lacing Daniel and Howard’s voices as they called out to you and for a moment you felt bad for running away but that too was pulled away in the hurricane of your mind. Your whole body felt abuzz and you couldn’t think or breathe as a feeling of utter helplessness settled into your bones.

You tried to remember what Tony had told you to do- something about box breathing exercises and the five senses- but you weren’t sure that you were in control of your mind anymore.

“Y/N, if you can hear me name four street names from where you grew up.” Daniel’s voice rang through the bathroom door. Before you could even consider how he had found you or why he needed to know you answered,

“Main Street, Birch Street, Higgins Drive, Cobalt Lane.” The words were stuttered and separated by harsh inhales and exhales.

“Name your five favorite movies.”

“La La Land, Ferris Bueller, Beauty and the Beast, Spirited Away, Inception.” The words were smoother this time, though tears still streamed down your face and your bones still felt heavy and your skin restrictive.

“Okay, name ten presidents.”

“Uh, Ellis, Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, FDR… Teddy Roosevelt, Eisenhower… Reagan, Nixon… Kennedy.” Your voice was steady as you spoke, your chest no longer heaving with sobs and shaking breaths.

“Good. Now name seven state capitals.”

“Albany, Trenton, Tallahassee, Nashville, Lansing, Richmond, Raleigh.” When you opened your eyes you noticed you were visible again, though when it had happened you weren’t sure.

“Are you okay?” Daniel’s voice came through the door, soothing you more than you realized.

“Yeah.” You answered quietly, your voice raw.

“If you’re comfortable with it, will you open the door?”

Your soul turned to mush at his words, Daniel Sousa- ever the gentleman. You felt an immense amount of comfort in the man despite only knowing him a few days but you were scared. You had just fully exposed your powers and had a panic attack, you hadn’t been this vulnerable to another person in years.

“It’s okay if you don’t want to, I just want to make sure you’re okay,” Daniel spoke again, no judgment lacing his voice, only kindness, compassion, and caring.

You stood slowly, your muscles aching as you stretched them from their tensed position, and unlocked the door, opening it to reveal Daniel. Your eyes immediately jumped to his face, his expression almost pained though it changed as soon as he saw you, morphing into relief and something else you couldn’t quite place.

“How did you know how to do that?” You blurted out, though you had really wanted the first thing you said to him to be “thank you” or “I’m sorry.”

Instead, apparently your brain was preoccupied with how the man before you had walked you through your panic attack.

“Oh, uh…” He rubbed the back of his neck nervously. “Well after the war… ptsd and all, I’m no stranger to panic attacks.”

You softened at his confession, forgetting, despite his limp and his cane, that the man before you had gone through a war and had not come out unscathed. Before you even knew what you were doing you were hugging him. He let out a small “oof” as you wrapped your arms around his middle, squeezing slightly.

Tentatively, he wrapped his arms around you in return.

“Thank you,” you finally mumbled into his suit jacket. “I’m sorry.”

“Why are you apologizing?” Daniel asked, confusion etched into his features as he pulled away from your embrace.

“I-I disappeared and I ran and I panicked and you had to come get me and deal with all that.” You gestured wildly as you spoke, words fumbling together in your rush to get it all out.

“Y/N, helping you isn’t a burden to me,” Daniel spoke softly, tilting your chin up so you could see the sincerity in his eyes. “And what you just went through- what you’ve been going through with these... strange abilities, your reaction was completely justified.”

Your heart clenched at his words. He was speaking to you with such honesty and openness but you were lying to him. You sighed, taking a step back, his arms falling away from your waist and you suddenly felt cold without the heat of his embrace.

“I-” You faltered, needing to take a breath before you could continue. “I need to tell you and Howard something.”

___

“What exactly were you hoping to accomplish with this lie, Miss Y/L/N?” You winced at the use of your last name. Daniel hadn’t used it since that first night in his house.

You tried to shrink into yourself, considering going invisible once again to escape the look of betrayal Daniel was fixing you with.

“Are you a spy?” He was angry and betrayed and you could see him trying to reason this out to himself, but you knew he’d never even fathom the truth. “Was this an attempt to infiltrate SHIELD? Who do you work for?”

“Daniel,” you whispered, and the stern look you were fixed with told you everything you needed to know. The only way out of this was the full truth, timeline be damned.

“I work with a team of powered people called The Avengers.” You sighed. “About two weeks ago, two of our members stole the Tesseract from Camp Lehigh in order to save the world from an alien who wiped out fifty percent of the universe. After we succeeded, I was tasked with returning the Tesseract but due to a malfunction I’m stuck here.”

“I’m pretty sure we would’ve noticed the Tesseract being stolen and the destruction of half of the world,” Daniel said crossly, clearly not believing you though you didn’t blame him.

“You wouldn’t have because for you none of that has happened yet and I returned the Tesseract immediately after it was taken.”

“You mean this happened in the future?” Howard finally spoke, looking at you with a newfound curiosity.

You nodded. “In the year 2023.”

Howard let out a low whistle at the date but there was a gleam in his eyes like a kid in a candy store.

“I have so many questions.”

You smiled sadly, “Surely you understand that I can’t tell you what happens without destroying the timeline.”

“No, we don’t understand.” Daniel snapped, “Because time travel doesn’t exist.”

“Daniel I can’t make you believe me, I literally have no way to prove this to you,” you sighed, not wanting to argue with the man. “I didn’t even mean to drag you into this, I came here for Howard’s help fixing my device so I could go back.”

“If it makes you feel any better, if I was a spy, I’d have absolutely nothing to report. I didn’t get anywhere near SHIELD or any of Howard’s projects.” You tried to smile, though you felt like crying. “You’re a good agent and a good leader, Daniel Sousa, but most importantly you’re a good man and I am not deserving of your help or your trust.”

Daniel’s eyes softened at your words, though he still held a defensive stance. The lab remained silent for a few minutes but your eyes never left Daniel’s face, observing the flurry of emotions that resided there.

“Time travel would explain those movies and presidents I’ve never heard of.”

You cringed slightly, not realizing you had potentially blown the timeline during your panic attack.

“Yeah, those won’t come out for another few decades,” you rubbed the back of your neck embarrassedly, “And I suppose I ruined a few elections for you.”

“I’ll live,” Daniel responded with a shrug before his eyes widened in realization, “I will live right?”

“Honestly? I have no idea what your life looks like. I didn’t pay a lot of attention in school.” You answered sheepishly, a small smile gracing your features at the forgiveness, however small, that came with Daniel’s statement.

“I’m not even going to ask because I already know that I must be remembered for my genius because you came to me for help,” Howard smirked cockily, “Now, let’s get your time machine fixed and get you home.”

“Oh hell, you did not need that ego boost,” you groaned.

Howard had the audacity to wink.

___

The next week was difficult. You were still staying with Daniel but the dynamic between the two of you had changed entirely. There were no more soft, shared glances, or meaningful looks, or chats over coffee in the morning. In fact, Daniel seemed to be avoiding looking at you at all, only doing so when absolutely necessary. He had thrown all his energy into getting you back to your time.

It broke your heart a bit, though you’d never admit it. You’d known the man for a little over a week, you couldn’t be getting all teary-eyed because he wasn’t looking at you anymore. Plus, wasn’t he doing exactly what you wanted by helping you get back? Still, it felt a little as though he was trying to get rid of you.

That week had felt like torture. A constant turmoil of indecipherable emotions swirling inside you and you had no idea what to do with it all. So you pushed on. Pushed all the way to the day Howard fixed your time travel watch.

“I think I’ve finally got it!” He exclaimed, gleefully. “I’ve invented time travel!”

“Not so fast, Stark.” You chided, “My team invented time travel, you’ve just fixed it.”

Howard merely rolled his eyes, muttering something about “no fun” and brought you the device. Daniel was standing off to the side, eyes refusing to meet yours, consistent with the past week. You sighed, accepting the watch and sliding it onto your wrist.

“Well, we’ve only got one shot,” you may have been stalling, though you wouldn’t admit it to yourself. “Are you sure it’s right, Howard?”

“Honestly? No. But I’m sure that I have no other solutions than what I’ve already done.”

“Is this a good idea?” You asked aloud, to no one in particular.

“Y/N, you need to get back.” Daniel sighed, lifting his eyes to meet yours and you thought you saw grief in them. “Your team is probably worried about you.”

“If this works how it’s supposed to, I’ll be back just seconds after I left,” you shook your head sadly, “Just in time for retirement cake.”

“Retirement?” His head was cocked to the side like a confused puppy and your heart leapt into your throat at the first unprofessional conversation you’ve shared in a week.

You nodded, “One of my teammates is stepping away to settle down with his boyfriend.”

“His boyfriend?” Daniel questioned skeptically and you forgot what time you had been stuck in. You knew from Steve and Bucky’s stories that the 30s and 40s were not a good time to be lgbt but you could tell by the way that he had spoken that Daniel didn’t hold any of those biases. It was just one more thing about the future to be confused about.

“You’d love them,” you whispered honestly.

He probably would, the three of them have so much in common between the war and SHIELD and Peggy Carter and Howard Stark. For a moment you let yourself imagine a world in which you had been born in this era, in which Bucky had never been captured and Steve never frozen. A world where you could fall in love with Daniel Sousa and live happily ever after surrounded by friends.

You shook yourself out of it. There was no future for you here and there was a team waiting for you in the future. You sighed, punching the date and time into your watch. You were out of time.

“What if I didn’t go?” You blurted out, unable to contain the question any longer.

“Y/N, your team-” Daniel started.

“Doesn’t need me. They all have lives and happiness and fulfillment and-“ you shuddered as you released this word vomit of feelings you didn’t even realize you had before you whispered, “And maybe I deserve some of that myself.”

Daniel Sousa made you feel cared for and appreciated in a way nobody ever had in the 21st century and you’d be damned if you gave that up without a fight.

“What about the timeline?”

“Fuck the timeline!” You exclaimed and Howard giggled and your cursing.

“Daniel,” you sighed. “You make me feel things I’ve never felt before and I don’t wanna put too much pressure on this, but I think meeting you might be the best thing that’s ever happened to me. But if you don’t feel the same way tell me now and I’ll go back.”

You were standing right in front of him now, having closed the distance during your speech.

“Y/N,” he sighed, his eyes swimming with emotions you couldn’t read though he looked at you with such tenderness that you thought you might melt right there as he reached up a hand to cup your cheek.

You weren’t entirely sure, but you thought you might’ve muttered “kiss me” before his lips were on yours, soft and warm and you felt like fireworks were erupting in your stomach. It was a short kiss, no more than a few seconds, but it confirmed a number of things for you. The most significant thing being that you were never going back to 2023.

___

A/N: A few things: 1. the street names listed while Y/N is having a panic attack are actually copied directly from Jessica Jones. 2. The listing miscellaneous things (street names, movies, presidents, etc.) is something my friend has had me do when I’ve had panic attacks. Idk if that works for everyone, but it certainly has helped me in the past and I can really only write from my own experiences. 3. I lowkey wanna write a oneshot for the fantasy Y/N has towards the end where she’s born during the same time period as Stucky, Peggy, Howard, and Sousa and she probably joins SHIELD which is how she meets Sousa (Edit: this exists now and you can find it here!). Idk, let me know what you think!

#daniel sousa x reader #avengers!reader #endgame #agent carter #shield #howard stark #daniel sousa #steve rogers #bucky barnes #slight stucky #time travel #avengers #mcu #marvel #post endgame #1940s

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veridium · 4 years

Text

fuck it, queer meta.

About a year ago I wrote one of my first and largest meta posts about why I consider Cassandra a prime example of queerbaiting despite her being a character who explicitly says she is heterosexual. This lead to quite the day of inbox hate mail from people throughout the fandom. Most were upset I used the “q slur” and left it untagged as such in the big DA meta tags. I can imagine for those folks, the substance of what I had to say mattered little as a result.

I deleted most of those messages and my responses soon afterward. They upset me greatly even as I took it all in stride. However, given that it’s been about 365 days since that fiasco, and some interesting events have happened with regards to current and former DA writers, I thought it would be “fun” to write a recap and reflection on why, generally, I still feel the way I did when I wrote that post. With some changes and growth, of course.

The gist of it is, as we have come to learn in past, recent, and ongoing discourses in fandom, that much to the chagrin of a lot of folks in this fandom: BioWare, and in this instance DA writers, are not your SJW Icons. Furthermore, they never should have been, or should be, considered as such.

The gist (part two) for me, is: for as much as diverse characters, worlds, and societies are being uplifted by Games these days, the counterbalance of bullshit is still there. And I think it survives most sturdily in the kind of logic the BioWare writing culture throughout the years. This sense of egalitarian, “of course” logic, that appears to make socially deviant identities normalized but really just falsely positions those identities as meant to be in lock-step with the norm. Representation to gaming, and most of media writ large, all-too-easily falls into the trap of “we want what the privileged have,” which it to say, we want our existence to be a no-brainer, even if it means we lost the essence of why our stories are so profound, important, and necessary to do justice.

I really can’t imagine accepting the way characters like Cassandra were written because I don’t accept the writer(s) who wrote her. Why?

Come with me, and we’ll be, in a world, of pure fuckery...but with citations...because I’m an Academic and that’s my roll.*

*Please see tags for pertinent content warnings before clicking.**

**if you reblog and tag this shit with “q slur,” I will take all the reserves of understanding I have as a DA fic writer for all of the enraged womxn in the series and express it accordingly. And, as a femslash-oriented author, I can promise you: that expression will be consumptive.

Hm, I wonder, what with the predominant writer for her character inquires on Twitter for “lesbian fanfic porn” recommendations for writing “research,” but seems to be unable to hire appropriate creatives to write, consult, etc. for the project.

Or that the writers room made, and continues to make, space for a writer who continually does Black and queer characters dirty with his mediocre-at-best work, in both game and novel form (because, plot twist, he’s a shit writer) (1) (2) (3).

Or that the writer’s room, and specifically Ga*der, attesting that the development of the Qunari was based on Arab cultures around the time of “Medieval Europe,” which is somehow his way of getting out of the thematic botching of the Qunari language, social structure, etc. from Islamic tradition.

Or, the writers who intentionally shaped the story so that Vivienne, one of the limited number of Black women characters in the entire series to have a role as an ally, to be a red herring of an distrustful and conceited antagonist, to the point where her treatment by fandom has been incredibly racist, heinous, and lazy for years.

These are a few of MANY reasons, with thorough exposition, why the veneer of “progressive inclusion” studios like BioWare claim to be authentic. Having “diverse” writers in the room -- and I’m using that word incredibly tenuously here -- didn’t change the result of any of these harmful scenarios. In fact, it created them. This, combined with the tale as old as time: toxic fandom culture with white, anglo-centric, cisheterosexual masculinist ideals at the fore, have gotten us here.

So, do I hold all of the reasons why I am angry about Cassandra’s character writing the same way now, as I did then? No. Certainly not. In fact, there are parts where I would correct myself. On the other hand, the thesis for me remains largely preserved: I revile G*ider, I revile that he gets the accolades he does by fandom for his “diversity” of characters when he exploits, erases, and uses slippery morality to get out of admitting he has shortcomings in his work. I hate that the exaltation for representation still funnels itself onto the heads of white writers and predominantly white-staffed studios.

And, underneath it all, I am mad that some of ya’ll see no problem with that. Because what does it matter, if you do not come from communities, cultures, and coalitions that get the brunt of this misrepresentation? What does it matter if it angers a lesbian fan that the writers who have a long history of misusing and conveniently copping themselves out when they write women and queer characters, seem to use that “expertise” as permission to do what they are supposedly combating?

G*ider, the hero himself, is on written record saying that it should not be second guessed as to why Cassandra is straight, just as he thinks it should not be second guessed that Dorian is gay. Yet, when he asked on Twitter if there was some moral significance to people modding character’s sexuality (in this specific instance, Dorian, actually), G*ider said that in the end, people’s mods “do not change” what he wrote, and that unless they claim their changes “supercede” canon, there’s no harm done.

So, really, I’m just over here like -- is this ya’lls hero?

Why in the fuck would someone be modding a gay character to be bisexual or heterosexual, if they didn’t somehow believe that version “supercedes” the canon rendition? Secondly, where is the attention to the fact that, in an ensemble of multiple romanceable characters, Dorian has to be the one that has to be sexually and romantically accessible to those outside of his canonical realm of attraction?

I mean, for fuck’s sake, it’s the whole virtue grounding his companion side quest, the fact that he is estranged from his Father who tried to magically change his orientation! This is a crucial part of Dorian’s entire journey to serving the Inquisition, and serving Tevinter as a dissident.

But, you know, it doesn’t change what G*ider wrote. And he’s correct, it doesn’t change what he wrote, which he got credit, money, and esteem for. It doesn’t change that if you load up the base game, Dorian’s gay. In G*ider’s head, that is the protective force: the parts where he has ties, and not the culture of the fandom, the culture the fans who helped fill his pockets from that game have to dwell within. This isn’t revolutionary, this isn’t good-faith representation. This is getting a piece of the rotten-sweet pie and saying “let bygones be bygones, you toxic, funky heteronormative assholes!”

But, where are my manners. I’m getting heated, aren’t I?

Basically, if you condemn queer fans for calling out queer bating -- or any marginalized fan for throwing up the alarm for bullshit -- and your first reaction is to side with folks like G*ider who got theirs and said screw everything else, fuck off. Literally, fuck off. I call Cassandra’s circumstance queerbaiting because she’s one example of writers getting their cake and eating it, too. If they are so aware of just how much of their fanbase is marginalized folks, they don’t get to say they don’t have fingerprints on things like queerbaiting. You don’t get to be acclaimed and excused for the shit you say you are combating, which is the source of that acclaim. And if your claim is happy ignorance, then you definitely don’t get to blithely equivocate when fans do ask you why the story happened the way it did.

I also just want to keep in mind here that there’s a deductive conclusion to be had about this, given how La*idlaw explicitly stated they endeavored to make Cassandra extremely hot, “really enticing.” That conclusion is:

(1) Either they aren’t/weren’t nearly as attuned to their queer audiences as they generally claim to be, or

(2) They were, and had no intention of developing compassion or empathy passed G*ider talking out of his ass about why Cassandra was developed as straight. Which, ultimately, does coincide with conclusion (1) more than not.

No matter what, the contour to the conclusion is: wow, a taste of nauseating objectification, in the BioWare writer’s room. Who knew!

It’s no wild accusation to make to a writer like him and his colleagues, that they don’t know how to handle sapphic, wlw, and/or queer-related storylines, especially with women. Especially when the answer seems to be, “well, it was decided before I took the lead, and in any case, why question it! You wouldn’t question a gay character’s orientation!”

But that’s just it, you complete and utter turnip. People did question Dorian’s sexuality. People do question Dorian’s sexuality. That fantasy world of equal bearings is as insincere as it is out-of-touch. And why not, when, as you said,

it doesn’t change what you got paid for.

The ethos seems to be crudely reflexive: people’s phobic interpretations and alterations of the canon do not matter, but then again, why would you even question why a character is straight? Why would you question my narrative vision, in all of its beautiful shittery?

It’s all a game of dodge, ya’ll. Dodge, dodge, dodge. With a strong and acidic dose of vanity.

So. In summation, folks: I could care less for your false equivalences. I could care less about my contribution of queer content fucking up your good time in the meta tags. Obviously you aren’t there to actually engage in creative, exploratory thought, so why bother reasoning. There is more to the possibilities of queerbaiting than stringing along a could-be, would-be, should-be queer storyline directly. There’s knowing your audience enough to exploit your good graces with them. There’s benefitting from a charade of liberal progressive clout. There’s the ability to foresee that queer people will cathect to a given character, and not only denying an experience they could have, but denying it so harshly that the character says they can’t love yours because you’re female.

And I am so, so, so sick of these people continually enriching themselves off of the “nobody’s perfect” grace. To me, that grace is the promise of good faith, and the intention to do right by people. When that isn’t there, the grace isn’t going somewhere where it’ll be appreciated, that it will be nourished by. I mean, fucking hell, people, this is rainbow capitalism: don’t you taste it?

That’s that, then. “Cassandra and Queerbaiting Rant,” one year on. An extra dose of salt, just for the haters.

#da meta #cassandra and queerbaiting rant #one year reflection?#yeah #so #queerbaiting #cassandra pentaghast #bioware critical #bioware bullshit #cw: lesbophobia #cw: homophobia #cw: queerphobia #cw: discussion of Dorian's experiences with his family

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heauxplesslydevoted · 5 years

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As The Dust Settles (Chapter 2)

A/N: I can’t even express how happy I am that so many of you guys enjoyed the first part. All of the support is genuinely appreciated. As always, please let me know if you want to be tagged or untagged, or if you were supposed to be tagged but I missed you. And enjoy!

Tags: @princess-geek @chetachisblog @dorishi-desu @hatescapsicum @annekebbphotography @drakewalkerfantasy @zambazeus @loilko @blackcoffee85 @randomchoicesblog @fortunatelywaywardsandwich @canknot @lapisreviewsstuff @akacalliope @senseofduties @badchoicesposts @ao719 @stanathanxoox @supercoolperson0808 @soft-for-drake @i-bloody-love-drake-walker @choices-lurker @oofchoices @ramseyandrys @molly7998 @narrytheworld @fan-of-all-trades

Marissa is confident that she’s worn a hole into the floor with all the pacing she’s done. It’s mostly a nonsensical route from her bed to the walk-in closet, something to do in order to keep her mind from racing.

The girls are tucked into bed, having shoved their faces with as much pizza as they could, so she was up by herself. Thomas is working late at the office, his client practically holding him hostage. And while she misses her husband, she’s glad to be alone. It gives her time to think.

“How much time has passed?” Marissa asks anxiously.

“Since you peed on the stick 15 seconds ago?” Alma shoots back rhetorically. “”It’s been 15 seconds, doll. 17 now.”

“Sorry.” Marissa turns on the faucet and quickly washes her hands. “I know I’m probably being a total spazz right now.”

“It’s fine. I’m sure finding out you’re pregnant is a stressful thing.”

“I’m not pregnant, I might be pregnant,” Marissa corrects. “We don’t know yet.”

“I’ve watched you puke your weight today, and you haven’t had a period in weeks, if you aren’t pregnant, I will give you my right arm.”

“What if my appendix is currently rupturing?” Marissa asks hypothetically. “Or I have some type of worm?

“Gross. And you don’t have appendicitis, nor are your insides being eaten by a tapeworm.”

“I don’t think that’s how they work.”

Alma rolls her eyes. “Whatever, my point remains.”

“The last time I was in this situation, I was 21, in my cramped apartment. It was my senior year at Fresno State, I was broke as hell, and I was 8 credits shy of graduating. When the stick showed that tiny little plus sign, I panicked. And Guy pretended to be happy and supportive, until reality set in.”

Alma grabs her friend’s hand and gives her a supportive squeeze. Now the panic makes more sense. “Well, guess what? You’re 32 now, you’ve graduated from school, you aren’t broke. You have a wonderful job, a strong support system, and an amazing husband. Thomas is a great man, and Guy isn’t good enough to shine his shoes, so don’t even start comparing the circumstances. He’s going to be ecstatic.”

“Yeah.” Marissa nods. “I know all of that, but I still feel anxious. I can’t help myself.”

“It’s going to be fine,” Alma says confidently. “You’re going to be fine.”The timer on Alma’s phone goes off, the loud beeping interrupting their silence. “Well, the moment has come.”

“That 3 minutes went by way too fast.”

“Come on, let’s rip the bandaid off already.”

Marissa reaches over and picks up the pregnancy test with a trembling hand. Staring back at her is a tiny pink plus sign.

Marissa crawls into bed and pulls up the duvet. She closes her eyes in a feeble attempt to get some sleep. That doesn’t work, as she tosses and turns for a few minutes before she finally sits up in bed. The events of the day weigh on her now that she’s not moving, now that she’s finally allowing herself the space and opportunity to think. She’s pregnant. She’s really pregnant, there’s a bun in her oven.

A hand flies down to her still flat abdomen and she strokes the skin gently. It all still feels surreal. Is she ready to do the baby thing all over again? But this time around, she has Thomas. Sweet, supportive, compassionate Thomas. They’re in it together. A smile flits across her face at the thought.

An hour later, after a lot of tossing and turning, Marissa finally feels herself dozing off. Her exhaustion pulls her in, when the door to their bedroom softly opens. She opens her eyes and sees Thomas slowly tiptoeing further into the room, in an attempt to not wake up.

“I’m not sleeping,” she says, startling Thomas. She can see him squinting towards the bed to get a good look at her. “You don’t have to sneak in.”

“What are you doing up so late? You should be resting.”

“Can’t sleep,” Marissa says.

Thomas walks over to their bed and crouches down so he’s at her eye level. He strokes her cheek gently with his thumb. “How are you feeling?”

“Mostly tired. Drained, really.”

“Whatever you have, I hope it passes soon.”

Not for another 9 months, Marissa thinks to herself. But she nods along with him nonetheless. “Right now, I’m okay though. I should be back to myself in no time.”

“That’s good news. As soon as you’re feeling better, I’m taking you on a date. Fancy dinner, expensive , the girls can spend the night with Alma.”

“That sounds amazing,” Marissa says with a sigh. “Now hurry up and change so you can get in here with me.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Thomas quickly changes clothes and brushes his teeth, not bothering to hang his suit, opting to throw it over the bench sitting at the foot of their bed. He slides into bed and wraps an arm around Marissa’s waist.

“How was work?”

“Long. These clients are getting progressively worse.”

“Any progress on the fighting sisters?”

“Yeah. They’ve decided to try mediation, because they realized that going back and forth to court was only draining their inheritance.”

Marissa chuckles. “That’s something they could’ve figured out a long time ago.”

“True, but I get paid by the hour, so that was more money for me.”

Marissa scoots in closer to Thomas, and runs a hand through his hair. He sighs dreamily and his eyes flutter shut at contact.

Her mind is racing. Would now be a good time to tell him? Should she wait? Maybe she should confirm things with her doctor before making the announcement. But why drag things out further? Just rip the band-aid off, right? Early pregnancy tests are pretty accurate, so there’s no need for more confirmation. She already knows the answer.

“Thomas,” she calls out gently, deciding to get out it out. There’s no response. She looks up and sees his eyes are closed. “Thomas, are you up?” He mumbles something intelligible and she hears a faint snore pass his lips.

“Okay. We’ll try again later.”

~~V~~

The next morning when Marissa wakes up, she lingers in bed for a minute, bracing herself for the inevitable nausea that’s going to wrack her body and ruin her day.

But it doesn’t hit.

So Marissa slowly gets up and quietly makes her way to their en-suite, careful not to disrupt her husband’s sleep. Now that she’s in motion, she’s shocked that the urge to vomit still hasn’t kicked in.

After brushing her teeth and washing her face, Marissa is convinced that she’s experiencing some sort of miracle as the morning sickness is still at bay. Maybe it’s a sign that she should tell Thomas the news.

Returning to their bedroom, she sees that Thomas is still sleeping. He’s flat on his back, one arm tucked behind his head the other one across his stomach. She crawls back into bed and sits on him, the unexpected weight rousing home out of his sleep.

Thomas blinks a few times, getting adjusted to the soft light peeking through the curtains. His eyes settle on Marissa who’s staring back at him. “Well, this is a sight I can get used to.”

Marissa leans down and kisses Thomas softly on the lips. “Good morning.”

“Morning. You seem to be feeling better today.”

“I am. Much better because I don’t have any morning sickness today.”

“Well that’s good to–morning sickness? Did you just say morning sickness?”

“I did.”

“But that’s for pregnant women,” Thomas says, still half-asleep, not fully putting the pieces together. Marissa stays silent, watching the wheels practically turn in his head. His eyes grow wide. “Are you pregnant?”

Marissa nods. “Yes, I took the test–”

The sentence is interrupted as Thomas practically jumps out of bed and scoops Marissa into his arms, hugging her tightly. “Oh my God! When did you find out? How far along are you?”

“I took the test yesterday and it was positive. Alma was the one who suggested it, and I can’t believe I didn’t notice the symptoms earlier. And I don’t know how far along I am, but I can’t be more than 6 weeks.”

“I’m going to be a dad again?”

Marissa nods. “You are.” Thomas spins his wife around excitedly, her giggles filling the quiet room. “You’re going to make me very dizzy, Lawyer Man.”

His cheeks flush a deep shade of pink and he stops spinning, planting her feet firmly back on the ground. “Sorry! Are you okay?”

“I am. But with all of the throwing up I’ve been doing for the past few days, I don’t want to risk it.”

Thomas drops to his knees in front of Marissa. He slowly lifts up her shirt, exposing her stomach to him. Holy shit, they created a life together, one that was currently growing inside of her.

“Hi,” Thomas greets, his voice thick with emotion. “You’ve given mommy a tough time these past few days. I guess that was your way of making your presence known.” His fingertips graze the soft flesh. “I’ve known about you for all of 2 minutes, and I love you more than I can express with words. A please be a boy because I am severely outnumbered in this house.” That gets a laugh out of Marissa.

He places a lingering kiss on her stomach , then another for good measure before he stands back up.

“I love you so much, Marissa Mendez.”

A pleasant shiver runs down the length of her spine. She always gets a kick out of him using her full name. “I love you too.”

His hands reach up to gently cup her face, and he runs his thumb across the apple of her cheek. Maybe he’s just on a natural high right now, but she has never looked more beautiful to him than she does in this moment, something he didn’t think was possible. He leans down and kisses her softly.

Marissa tilts her head up slightly and deepens the kiss, earning a small groan of approval from her husband. He kisses her back with just as much enthusiasm before his lips travel down her neck.

“Hey, dad and Marissa, can we have–”

The sound of their bedroom door opening followed by Luz’s loud voice forces the couple to spring apart.

“Ugh, not again,” Luz grumbles.

Thomas rolls his eyes. “What do you want, Luz?”

“Ivy and I wanted to know if Marissa could make us French toast for breakfast,” Luz explains. “But only if she’s not sick anymore.”

Marissa nods. “Yeah, I’ll make French toast.”

“Great.” Luz turns around and runs out of the room. “IVY, I FOUND THEM KISSING EACH OTHER AGAIN!”

“EWWWW!”

“BUT WE CAN HAVE FRENCH TOAST!”

“YAY!”

Marissa chuckles and rests her forehead against Thomas’s chest. “You ready for another one?”

“Yeah. I love our two goobers.”

“Me too.”

“And I know I’ve said it before, but I’m going to Home Depot later today so I can buy a lock for our door.”

~~V~~

The rest of the weekend flies by in a blur and before Marissa knows it, it’s time for her first prenatal appointment.

She and Thomas opted to have their appointment early in the morning while the girls were at school. They still don’t know about the pregnancy, and Marissa wants to wait until she is in her second trimester to make the announcement.

Now they’re sitting in a drafty hospital room, and she’s wearing an itchy hospital gown, and where is her OBGYN? This limbo, this waiting will be the death of her.

Thomas places a warm hand on her knee, stopping her from bouncing it any further. “Babe, stop.”

“Sorry! I’m just–”

“Anxious?”

“Yes.”

“Everything is going to be fine,” Thomas says confidently.

They sit in silence for a few more minutes before there’s a soft knock on the door. An older woman wearing a white coat peeks her head in and smiles. “Marissa Mendez?”

“That’s me.”

“Hi.” The woman fully enters the room. She extends a hand to Marissa, who eagerly shakes. “I’m Doctor Lancaster.”

“Nice to meet you.” Marissa gestures to Thomas. “This is my husband, Thomas.”

Dr. Lancaster and Thomas exchange greetings. The woman closes the door behind her and sits down. “So, I heard we’re here today because of a pregnancy?”

“Yes. I was feeling really sick last week, but I brushed it off because my daughter had a stomach bug. But she got better and I got worse, so my friend suggested that I might be pregnant. I took a home pregnancy test and it was positive.”

“Okay. Well congratulations.”

“Thank you.”

Dr. Lancaster logs into her computer and pulls up Marissa’s medical files. She jumps right in, asking Marissa a wide range of questions from when her last period was to all of the symptoms she’s experienced. “Your vitals look good, you’re a healthy weight. Do either of you smoke?”

“No.”

“Drink?”

“Not consistently,” Marissa says. “The last time I drank was a few weeks ago when we went out to a sushi restaurant and I drank sake.” Her eyes widen. “Is that okay? Alcohol and raw fish on the same night?”

“It was before you were pregnant, I’m going to give you a pass. But now that you’re aware of the pregnancy, no more drinking and no more sushi. And you’ve had one previous pregnancy, correct?”

“Yes, my daughter, Ivy. She’s 11 now, I had her at 21.” Marissa bites the inside of her cheek. “I’m not too old for this, right?”

“Advanced maternal age is 35 and older,” Dr. Lancaster explains. “But technology and medicine have greatly improved within the last few years, so getting pregnant in your 30s is not the end of the world. And given your medical history, there’s no need for me to treat this like a high risk pregnancy.”

Marissa breathes a sigh of relief at the words. “Okay.”

“Do you two have any questions for me?”

Thomas nods. “I know pregnant women experience morning sickness, but Marissa seems to not get any relief. She’s been miserable lately. Is there anything we can do?”

“I can prescribe you something for the nausea, but if it gets too bad — like you start losing weight, or you can’t even hold down water — then I want you to come back.”

“I can do that.”

“Now, let’s see if we can get a peek at your little one. Go ahead and lie back for me, Marissa. Put your legs in the stirrups like this is any other routine exam.”

Marissa follows the instructions. Thomas’s eyes scan the room and he sees Dr. Lancaster grab something that looks like a wand.

“What is that?”

“Well from all the information your wife has given me, it sounds like she’s only 6 or 7 weeks along, which is too early to detect anything with the traditional transducer you’re probably used to seeing,” Dr. Lancaster explains. “This has to be inserted so we can see the baby.”

Thomas takes a deep breath, absorbing all of the information. He looks down at Marissa, whose eyes are shut as the doctor inserts the wand. After a moment she relaxes and looks at the computer screen.

They stare at it for a while, and Marissa doesn’t see anything. It just looks like a blank screen.

“Okay, so this is your uterus. And right there in the center, do you see that?” Dr. Lancaster points to a dot on the screen. Marissa nods. “That’s your baby.”

“That’s it? That tiny little dot?”

“It’s your tiny little dot. And that little flicker on the screen is the heartbeat. Right now, you’re measuring at exactly 7 weeks and your baby is the size of a blueberry.”

Thomas doesn’t say anything, he just stares at the screen in complete astonishment. Marissa’s having a baby, his baby. This was real. Tears prick the corners of his eyes and cloud his vision to the point where he can’t see past them. Fat tears eventually fall down his cheeks and he tries to wipe them away to no avail.

Marissa looks up at his and swipes her thumb across his cheek. “Don’t cry.”

But he truly can’t help the onslaught of emotions he feels: joy, anxiousness, excitement and strongest of them all, love.

He bends down and kisses her, every inch of skin he can find — her hands, her forehead, her cheeks, her lips, her nose — murmuring soft, “I love you’s,” in between every kiss.

“I love you, too.”

Dr. Lancaster smiles at the happy couple. “How about I print out lots of pictures?

~~V~~

After a slew of more tests, Marissa and Thomas were finally able to leave the hospital, just in time to pick up the girls from school. They’re in the Bernhardt parking lot, jammed between a line of luxury cars as parents and nannies wait for the day to end.

Thomas looks over at Marissa as she’s sitting in the passenger seat, their hands interlaced at the center console. He hasn’t been able to take his hands off of her all day, close never being close enough.

“How are you feeling?” He asks gently.

“Tired. It’s been a long time since I’ve done a prenatal appointment, I forgot how long they could be in the beginning.” After the ultrasound, Marissa got a pelvic exam, and gave blood and urine samples to the hospital lab. It took a lot out of her. “And Dr. Lancaster is much more thorough than my old obstetrician.”

“When we get home, you just get some rest. I can help the girls with their homework and figure out dinner.”

“You’re the best,” Marissa says. “Just put a lasagna in the oven.”

“I think I can handle–”

Thomas is cut off by a loud knock on his car window, startling him. He rolls down the window and sees Vanessa. “Vanessa, hello.”

“Thomas, hi. It’s always a pleasure to see you.” Her eyes flicker over to Marissa. “Hi, Marissa.”

“Vanessa,” Marissa greets back.

“I saw you guys parked here and I just had to come over. Marissa, we missed you at another PTA meeting.”

“Yeah, I couldn’t make it.”

“Is everything okay?”

Marissa narrows her eyes at the question. Since when does Vanessa give a damn about her? “Everything is fine. I had an appointment that was more pressing than this meeting and I couldn’t miss it.”

“You’ve missed two PTA meetings in a row now.”

“Is that a problem, V?” Marissa asks. “Ivy isn’t here on scholarship, so I’m not mandated to go to these terribly inconvenient PTA meetings anymore. I’m a part of the committee by choice, and if I miss a meeting or two, I’m sure the sky won’t fall.”

Vanessa bites the inside of her cheek to keep quiet. This woman was still as petulant as ever. “We like consistency, M.”

“Sorry. I’ll try to make the next one.”

It’s clear that Vanessa’s presence is a sore spot and Thomas doesn’t want to agitate his wife further. “This has been a lovely chat, but we should continue it some other time.”

“Oh Thomas, just one more thing!”

“Yes?”

“I don’t know if you’ve heard any rumblings at your firm but the partners are thinking of selling it.”

“What?”

“You guys haven’t had many high profile cases recently, and they’d rather just cut their losses.”

“And how on earth do you know that?” Thomas asks.

“Because my firm is angling to buy yours out,” Vanessa replies smoothly. A smug smile appears on her face. “And if things go like I think they will, you and I might end up being coworkers.”

#choices: stories you play #playchoices #mother of the year #moty #thomas mendez #thomas mendez x mc #pixelberry

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hope-for-olicity · 5 years

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Fabulous Olicity Fanfic Friday - July 12th, 2019

Happy Friday! So this is my attempt to both thank awesome fanfic writers for their amazing work and offer my recommendations to anyone who is interested. Here are the fantastic fanfic stories I read this week! They are posted in the order I read them. This and all previous Fabulous Olicity Fanfic posts can be found on my blog. There are many great stories out there that I did not read - such as anything from S7, you should check those out too!

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished multi-chapter WIP by @kuningatarmirka - Felicity wanted to do good. Her virus was only supposed to be used for noble causes. But things don't always go the way you want. University AU inspired by Wicked the Musical. https://archiveofourown.org/works/19452214/chapters/46299487

A Soul Lost at Sea multi-chapter WIP by @tinaday3w - MAGNIFICENT regency romance where Oliver is a pirate who had returned to his previous life. http://archiveofourown.org/works/8181362/chapters/22297091

Ride or Die multi-chapter Complete by @someonesaidcake - They say that life is a series of events that we can neither predict nor control.... And then there is him. He’s a bit of an enigma. ~*~*~*~ Young CEO Felicity Smoak is just trying to make her mark on the world, yes she's a little high strung and stressed, but it was what is was... until he came along. With eyes a girl could lose herself in and shoulder-tapping hair made for hanging on to Oliver Queen was reckless and carefree. Also, he rode a bike. He was everything she wasn't and he was a sucker for those sinful red lips and everything that came with them. https://archiveofourown.org/works/11800128/chapters/26616567

The Strong Do Not Always End Up On Top multi-chapter WIP by @godswritingfool - Having passed as a Beta all her life, Felicity Smoak had desired normalcy with a little taste of thrill every once in a while. IT girl by day, hacker by night. Or maybe weekends. Was that too much to ask? Turns out the Bratva Captain, overbearing CEO of Queen Consolidated Oliver Queen, is her Alpha Matched Mate! If that wasn't bad enough, Felicity's revenge against the Triad left a power vacuum in the criminal underworld of Starling City. When the turf war ends, the dust settles, and the new mob takes control, sick and bizarre events and even more disturbing and crazy crimes escalate in Starling City. Can the Bratva and remaining criminal organizations get a handle on the newcomers who are spreading chaos in the streets? Underneath it all, while dodging the Triad, Stalkers, Jealousy, the new Mob, Possessiveness, and Outside Forces, can Reluctant Omega Felicity Smoak and Territorial Alpha Oliver Queen get over their issues and stubborn pride and finally accept their soul deep connection? http://archiveofourown.org/works/7701490/chapters/17547565

Time for a Story multi-chapter WIP by @smkkbert - This fic shows Olicity and their life as a (married) couple with family. Although Olicity (and their kids) are the protagonists, other characters of Arrow and Flash make appearances. YOU NEED THIS STORY IN YOUR LIFE. https://archiveofourown.org/works/3912157/chapters/8757172

The Way Back Home multi-chapter WIP by @it-was-a-red-heeler - When Moira Queen agreed to pay the ransom money to get her beautiful boy back she was told to keep silent and wait for instructions. She’s heard nothing for a week. Meanwhile, halfway across the country Felicity Smoak meets a homeless man with beautiful blue eyes. And no memories. https://archiveofourown.org/works/18647716/chapters/44221912

Helplessly Wrecked multi-chapter WIP by @cruzrogue - A very smart, passionate, woman. Worked to get her dual masters from MIT, it may have taken longer being a mother of triplets but at least she has her mother’s support. Oliver Queen still has a yacht incident and was marooned for shorter time frame on a real deserted island. He never flunked out of his Ivy League schooling and is a very sought-after bachelor. His relationships never last more than half a year and is known to throw himself into his work. His motto ‘work hard play harder’. https://archiveofourown.org/works/19194103/chapters/45628978

Providence multi-chapter WIP by @so-caffeinated - Will Queen has struggled in silence in the year since he was shot. But when a shadowy crime lord known as Domino targets the only woman Will’s ever truly loved, fate forces him to confront his demons in ways he never could have imagined… Whether he wants to or not. Amelia Prescott has fought to take control of her life since learning two years ago that her personal and professional worlds were manipulated by others. But nothing can prepare her for just how hard she'll have to fight to set her own course, especially when her heart belongs to a damaged man and a crime lord threatens her every professional move... And her life. Destiny brings them together, but as chaos reigns and personal demons haunt Will and Amelia both, it may also threaten to tear them apart. https://archiveofourown.org/works/17919056/chapters/42308753

little wonders (twists and turns of fate) multi-chapter WIP by @alexiablackbriar13 - Oliver and Felicity's drunken mistake of a hook-up in the bunker comes with unexpected consequences in the form of a... souvenir. Deciding to remain romantically uninvolved, the two of them will have to battle all the trials and tribulations of maintaining a platonic relationship while Felicity is pregnant and the two of them are living together, coping with all the emotional baggage that they both bring to the table - and dealing with the fact that they are still very much in love with each other, but scarred by the events that broke them apart in the first place. https://archiveofourown.org/works/19436164/chapters/46256896

Mother and Daughter multi-chapter WIP by @geneshaven - This story takes place about a month after the end of season four of Arrow. Part 1: https://geneshaven.tumblr.com/post/185514424509/mother-and-daughter Part 2: https://geneshaven.tumblr.com/post/185838451529/mother-and-daughter Part 3: https://geneshaven.tumblr.com/post/186160753704/mother-and-daughter

Mothers Know Best multi-chapter WIP by @smkkbert - Since they have been kids, they have been best friends. Since they have been friends, their mothers wanted them to be together. After coming back from the east coast, Felicity takes over a position at Queen Consolidated, the company her best friend will soon take over from his father. Their mothers still push for them to be together, and they seem closer to that goal than ever because wedding bells are ringing. The only problem is that they both plan to get married to someone else. https://archiveofourown.org/works/18921118/chapters/44918146

// @emmaamelia95 // @mel-loves-all // @oliverfel4 // @green-arrows-of-karamel // @coal000 // @miriam1779 // @memcjo// @captainolicitysbedroom // @tdgal1 // @spaztronautwriter // @lalawo1// @quiveringbunny // @wrongshipper // @thebookjumper // @vaelisamaza // @myhauntedblacksoul // @lovelycssefan // @laurabelle2930 // @laxit21 // - let me know if you want to be tagged or untagged!

#FabulousOlicityFanficFriday #olicity fanfiction #fic recs

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jovialyouthmusic · 6 years

Text

Charlotte’s Choice

A Royal Romance AU Fanfic

20 An unexpected visitor

An old friend makes an appearance to lend a hand, and Drake and Charlotte have some time to themselves

Scenes of a sexual nature, not suitable for under 18s

@ao719 @agent-bossypants @andy-loves-corgis @sleepwalkingelite @boneandfur @blackcatkita @brightpinkpeppercorn @choicescommunity @darley1101 @drakewalkerrosenberg @debramcg1106 @fluffy-marshmallow-heart @goirishsunshine @gardeningourmet @katurrade @livingthroughchoices @likethetailofacomet @mrs-nazario @mind-reader1 @ooo-barff-ooo @silviasutton1989 @speedyoperarascalparty @zaffrenotes @missevabean @mrsdrakewalkerblog @cora-nova @missameliep @tanelle83 @endlessly-searching-for-you @jlouise88 @drakenazario @annekebbphotography @tabithacarlisle @furiousherringoperatortoad @notoriouscs @classylady1234 @wickedgypsymoon @carabeth @choices-fangirl @indiana-jr @indiacater

Please let me know if you want to be tagged or untagged. For those of you that are busy writing, or don’t have time - you know where to find my Masterlist xx

20 An Unexpected Visitor

Hana sat in her father’s private jet en route to Cordonia. She examined the encrypted email she had received from Applewood again. She smiled – it would be good to have something to work on again, something to get her teeth into. It had been a while since she had visited the country and wondered how Charlotte would receive her. She had spent a few happy summers at Applewood with the Royal Court, but once she set on her diplomatic career, she had had little time to visit her friends.

She shuffled through the dossiers Constantine had sent her – one for each of the suitors, and brief notes on each of the members of the Council. She thumbed though them, spending the flight committing them to memory, shuddering at the thought that they could have been intercepted but satisfied that the Royal Seal had indicated they had not been tampered with. Before she alighted, she put them through the shredder. Constantine was so old fashioned, using hard copies. She would have to teach him how to use digital means, though she feared it would be a step too far as he was pretty set in his ways.

She had been surprised and gratified when he contacted her for help. She looked forward to meeting her friends again, although it had been a couple of years since she had visited. So much had changed since then, and her parents had reluctantly accepted that she would never be married after she had been recruited into a very exclusive and secret section of the service. Constantine had called on her services recently to investigate the plane crash that had killed Regina. She was fast coming to the conclusion that it had not been an accident at all, that some dissident group was responsible for her death. She didn’t look forward to telling him and wasn’t sure if he would be sad or angry. It was fortunate that the protocol that prevented the two of them travelling in the same jet meant that Constantine was still alive.

The jet landed and she smiled as she trod on Cordonian soil – or tarmac – once more and breathed the cool autumn air. She had a journey of some two hours to get to Applewood – a limo waited for her and she lost no time in stepping in while her bags were loaded into the trunk.

Charlotte awoke the morning after Neville and Tariq had been eliminated from the list. Milo had been the one to come and assist her with the paperwork that night, and her suspicions had been correct. He was very knowledgeable about diplomatic protocol and Cordonian law but was almost clueless on finance. He was also crushingly boring, and she very nearly fell asleep whilst he droned on about some obscure law concerning the right to grow apples.

The plus side of her evening was that she had sneaked down to the library and into a secret passage that lead to a little niche that Drake had claimed as a den when he was a teenager, and ever since had kept it cozy and stocked with Whiskey and snacks. They had snatched half an hour together, snuggling up and just talking and drinking whiskey, with many tender kisses and hugs. It was almost like they were dating, their meeting chaste, their clothing remaining undisturbed. She had reluctantly returned to her room alone and slept soundly.

Charlotte, aged eight, was playing quietly when her mother came to fetch her.

‘Charlotte darling, come here, there’s somebody I want you to meet’ She got up and happily trotted over, placing her small hand in hers.

‘Who is it Mummy?’ She was taken into the drawing room that adjoined the nursery. A tall man was there, and he squatted down to her level, smiling. She wasn’t sure of the stranger and tried to hide behind her mother’s legs.

‘It’s alright darling, this is Jackson. He’s here to protect us, keep us safe.’ Charlotte looked up at her mother ‘He’s kind of like our very own policeman, like the guards you see every day. He’s going to be telling all the guards what to do, and he’ll be looking after me and you when we leave the Palace to go other places’ Charlotte felt a little better as the stranger held out his hand

‘Hello, you’re Princess Charlotte aren’t you?’ he said ‘It’s my job to make sure you and your Mummy are safe. If you’re ever scared, you look for me and I’ll help you’ Gravely, Charlotte reached out and took his hand. Now she knew his name and why he was here, she was happy. He looked nice and smelled like Daddy’s cigars.

‘Pleased to meet you, Jackson’ she said, just as Mummy had taught her to behave when meeting people for the first time. ‘Will you be staying in the Palace?’ He smiled back at her grownup question.

‘Yes I will, then I can be close to you and your Mummy. I have a little boy the same age as you, and a little girl, but she is very little and still a baby.’ Charlotte looked up at Mummy

‘Can I meet him?’ she asked ‘Perhaps he’d like to play with me when Olivia and Maxwell aren’t here’ Mummy smiled again

‘I expect so, I’ll ask your Daddy if it’s okay but I’m sure he’ll say yes.’

The boy kicked at the stones, looking sulky. His mother, holding his baby sister on her hip gently prompted him. His dark hair flopped over his forehead, stubbornly resisting his mother’s attempt at smartening him up.

‘Drake, this is Princess Charlotte. She’s the same age as you and she’s invited you to go and play with her. What do you say?’ He scowled and she nudged him.

‘Thankyou Charlotte’ he mumbled. He looked up at his mother ‘She’s a girl’ Bianca tried to keep a straight face

‘Yes Drake she is, but remember what I told you? Boys are not better than girls, they are just different, but there are plenty of ways they are the same too.’

‘I’ve got friends who are boys’ said Charlotte with a smile. ‘Do you like chocolate?’ Drake brightened up a little.

‘Yes, everyone likes chocolate’

‘Then that’s one way we’re the same’ she said ‘And I bet you like chocolate cake, and ice cream’ He nodded and Charlotte looked thoughtful ‘Do you like horses?’ His face broke into a smile

‘My grandpa has horses’ he said

‘We have stables, and I have a pony. She’s called Star. Would you like to see her? We’ve got lots of big horses too’ Drake nodded enthusiastically. Charlotte held out her hand to him and he took it, and they walked off to ask her mother if they could go to the stables together.

The following morning dawned bright and sunny. It was to be a relatively quiet day, and the following day the whole court would be on the move to Valtoria, to Anton’s Duchy. The only remaining location would then be Ramsford, home of the Beaumonts, and after that the Coronation would be held back at the Palace. She sneaked a visit to the stables and a ride with Drake, though they only rode and talked, and returned to the Manor for Lunch. She was surprised to see a limo standing in the courtyard, and she entered swiftly, intending to find out who the visitor was. A familiar figure stood in the hall talking to Maxwell, and Charlotte squealed like a teenager when she saw who it was.

‘HANA’ she cried, and rushed toward her, pulling her into a warm embrace ‘Whatever are you doing here? I thought you were on a diplomatic mission’ She held her at arm’s length ‘It must be years – oh my god you look amazing’ and she squeezed her tight. She felt Hana shake as she laughed with happiness.

‘Your Father reminded me of your present situation, and I found I had a window in my appointments’ Charlotte drew back

‘Wait - Father sent for you?’ she queried. Hana took her arm and led her to the drawing room alone. She embraced her again.

‘Lottie, it’s so good, you can’t imagine. Your father tells me you need a little help with – intelligence’ Charlotte raised her eyebrows.

‘Intelligence? I don’t follow’ and Hana patted her arm, sitting and indicating Charlotte should too.

‘Constantine feels that you need someone to ah – liaise with the Council, find out a few things that you might have missed.’ Charlotte recalled her conversation the previous day and her eyes widened.

‘You mean – sort of like a sp..’ she put her hand over her mouth ‘Should I call you double o seven?’ Hana’s laugh was musical.

‘I’m not licensed to kill, but I am for want of a better title, a sort of special agent’ Charlotte’s jaw dropped open

‘you are never – Hana that’s incredible’ her friend looked down at the floor modestly

‘It’s not nearly as glamorous as it sounds, but I will be tagging along with the court, finding out things that would be useful to you, liaising with Bastien – would you like that?’ Charlotte smiled widely

‘Have one of my best friends work for me? That would be amazing. Livvy will be thrilled too’ Hana smiled again.

‘Are you sure about that? We didn’t really get on last time we met’

‘Believe me, when she finds out why you’re here, she’ll blow a gasket!’ Hana looked sad

‘I don’t know yet who we can trust or who we can let in on this. I’m sorry Lottie, truly I am, but for now I can only trust you, your father and Bastien. I’m going to be happy, fluffy Hana looking for a husband’

‘Then I have to warn you that the Toad is out of the running’ replied Charlotte ‘Please tell me you’re not going to throw yourself at him’ Hana made a face

‘Sadly, whatever needs doing, I will do it if it helps you’ Charlotte grimaced, then brightened up.

‘Oh Hana, you should have been here for the Lord of Misrule, Neville won’t forget it in a hurry’

‘Lord of what?’ She asked, ‘It looks like we have a lot to catch up on.’

That evening it was Rashad’s turn to help Charlotte with the papers, and again she was exactly right – he was very knowledgeable on economics and finance, but how to actually run the country was a mystery to him and he had no idea that he was lacking in that area. Money was everything, diplomacy a closed door. He was good company and made her laugh, but she knew he and Milo would be the next suitors to be dropped, leaving Anton, Maxwell, Brad and Drake still in the running.

She was worried – how could she present Drake as the perfect Consort? She doubted he knew much of economics or diplomacy. Would the fact that he had her heart sway her Father? Could she pretend to be choosing one person while actually leaving her final decision to the last minute? Could she rule Cordonia with someone who perhaps wasn’t up to the job? Her stomach churned as she made her way to Drake’s cubby hole again. There would be no such luxury in Valtoria, so they would make the most of it while they could.

He was waiting, candles lit and glass of whiskey in hand. She put her doubts aside, swooped down to him and they kissed tenderly.

‘I’ve been looking forward to this all day’ he smiled ‘And it’s interesting Hana turned up. What do you think she wants?’ Charlotte considered telling Drake her true purpose but thought it was better not to for now.

‘Uh, she’s taking the opportunity of all these eligible bachelors’ she smiled ‘She was busy before, but now she has time’

‘Are you pleased to have her here?’

‘Oh yes, it’s great to see her again. Now let’s not waste any time, it might be a while before we’re alone together again.’ Drake pulled her closer, inhaling her scent, stroking her cheek. He reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a silver chain. He handed it to Charlie, dropping it into her palm.

‘While I remember, I thought you’d like something to remember me when we’re not together’ he said. Charlotte looked at it – on the chain was a bullet cartridge, drilled through so it hung on the slender chain. She turned her head back to look at him over her shoulder, leaning into him.

‘It’s from my first shooting lesson with my Dad’ he said ‘He made me clear up the cartridges after, and I kept one as a memento’ Charlotte looked at him incredulously.

‘Drake – you can’t give me this – it’s yours’ She held it out to give it back to him, but he curled her fingers around it.

‘I have one or two other things. I think he’d like you to have it too’ Charlotte swallowed against the lump that had suddenly appeared in her throat.

‘He was a good man. Thankyou Drake’ She unfastened it and he took it to hang it around her neck ‘I can’t always wear it, but I’ll keep it close, promise’ she said, and held the cartridge in her palm, feeling it grow warm. She settled back into him with a sigh.

‘It’s like we started again, like we’re dating. What would we do on a third date?’ he asked.

‘I think some physical intimacy would be okay’ She felt him grin

‘Oh yes? How far should we go?’

‘I don’t think removing clothes just yet’ she replied ‘But maybe some release would be good considering we may not have the chance for a few days’

‘Whatever you say, Princess’ she felt his deep voice through her back pressed into his broad chest. She shifted luxuriously and his hand snaked around her waist, delving under her blouse. She gasped as he found bare skin – it had been a while since they had been so intimate, and it lit a fire in her belly. He pulled her hair away from the side of her face and bent his head to her ear to nibble at her earlobe, biting and pulling at it softly. His breath sent delicious tingles down her spine and she reached her hand up to cup his cheek. He let go of her ear and spoke softly, the words that always turned her bones to jelly, blood surging around her body.

‘You’re mine, my sweet Princess’ he murmured ‘No matter what comes, you’ll always be mine, and I am yours’ She felt tears prick her eyes at the uncertainty of their situation, but she forced herself to stay in the moment. She turned her whole body, his hand sliding around her waist to her back as she faced him and pressed her lips to his – little butterfly kisses that strayed over his face – his cheeks, his jaw, his nose, and he closed his eyes so she could kiss his eyelids. He sat with his back against the wall, padded by cushions that he had smuggled in there from the library. Cushions padded the whole of the little cubby hole that he had made his own, and blankets covered them. His legs were outstretched, and Charlotte swung her leg over his so that she straddled him. He bent his knees so she could rest back on them comfortably.

He started to unbutton her blouse, biting his bottom lip as he concentrated on the task, sliding his hands around her back to unfasten her bra, then stopped with a mischievous smile.

‘What do you think?’ He asked ‘Do I fumble the catch or should I be a pro? Is it okay to be going this far on a third date?’ Charlotte smiled

‘Oh, I’m so smitten with you that I’ll let you… and you’re so smooth it practically undoes itself’

‘Mmmm, I like this version of us’ he murmured, unfastening her bra smoothly, gently pushing it up out of the way. She sighed with contentment as he cupped her breasts, leaning forward to place his lips over the areola, and gasped as his tongue whirled over her hardening nipples. She felt his hands slide lower to push her skirt up around her hips. She put her hands on his, stopping him from going any further.

‘Woah tiger, not so fast’ she said firmly ‘Do you unwrap your Christmas presents this fast? Slow down and savour’ He groaned and relaxed his grip on her hips.

‘Whatever you say, my Princess’ he said softly, and she chuckled. He savoured the sight of her creamy skin, smooth and unmarked, saw the pulse at her neck in the dim flickering candlelight.

‘You’re mixing things up’ she said, ‘Are we ordinary us, or Princess and Duke?’

‘It doesn’t matter’ he replied, ‘We’re us. We’re Charlie and Drake, and we’re together’ he looked into her eyes searchingly ‘We belong together’ and he claimed her lips, open mouthed and hungry for her, and she returned it, her hand cupping his face. She slid down his thighs until her mound pressed against the bulge in his jeans, circling her hips and pressing against him. They broke the kiss and he grinned at her, her dark hair loose and falling over her shoulders.

‘Who’s in a hurry now Charlie?’

‘Less talk, more kissing’ she whispered. They went back to devouring each other, pushing clothes out of the way without removing anything – opening, unbuckling, unzipping, shifting to expose bare flesh, hands roaming, stroking, caressing, squeezing, nipping, nails gently scraping so there were no marks. Drake slid his fingers into her wet folds, curling his fingers and coaxing, pressing, swirling, pulsing, pressing, registering her every response; every moan, sigh, gasp as she turned, rocked, twisted, ground into him, trembled, shook and cried out softly. He brought her to orgasm and held her as the waves rolled and broke and subsided.

She panted and quietened, then went to satisfying his needs with her hand, with her mouth, lips, tongue. He groaned and writhed under her, rolling his hips, holding back for as long as he could, so their time together would not be over. He fought against the urge to thrust wildly, so his orgasm built until it crashed over him, grunting with the intensity, gasping out her name as she swallowed his seed.

‘Charlie – my Princess’ and finally they both lay spent, limbs tangled and clothes awry. They spent some time whispering sweet nothings, cleaning up, rearranging their clothing until their separation couldn’t be put off any longer. They rose, and Drake saw her back to the door into the library and with a lingering kiss, Charlie said her goodbyes.

#drake walker #drake x mc #drake fanfic #the royal romance #choices the royal romance #choices trr #trr drake #trr #trr choices #trr fanfic

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migleefulmoments · 6 years

Text

Is Darren’s watch gay?

Today the CC fandom has a theory that Darren wore his PINK and blue watch because it’s a “gay” watch or a symbol of his queerness.... because PINK obviously means gay, right?

The watch has the added advantage of being both pink and blue ...therefore it’s a solid representation of both Chris and Darren -at least according to the CC belief that blue represents Chris and PINK represents Darren, like DUH! For anyone new, the color symbolism is something the CCers have long believed....I mean, that is something normal adults do right? Assign colors to their OTP or even better, to themselves and then actually wear those colors once a year to send a secret “high-five” to those fans who are paying enough attention to “get it”..I mean it’s totes normal, right?

Anonymous asked:

hello love! i hope you’re doing well! i know this doesn’t mean anything but i saw the thumbnail for the interview you linked of d saying he doesn’t know who he came out straight to and he’s wearing a watch with a blue band and pink face and i noticed he’s wearing either the same or a similar watch when rehearsing in lsb! but then his watch changes and i thought it was weird,,, anyway sorry for the ramble!!

ajw720 answered:

Hello nonnie!!!! Excellent observation. That is a watch he has had for years, He used to always wear it, now much less, likely not approved by his team, plus often the watch he wears now is a paid endorsement.

But the pink and blue watch, that is genuine D and what he loves. Add pink is D and Blue is C and those colors have been associated with their relationship since the beginning.

I always smile when he wears that watch. I think it is very special to him.

LSB rehearsal 2019. He clearly looks happy and like his watch is “special to him” and we all know that photos (and screen grabs) are PROOF of Darren’s emotions.

LSB BTS package 2019. He’s MUCH happier here.

George Stroumboulopoulos Tonight 2012

Apparently, Darren hasn’t worn the watch much -not something I have ever paid attention to- but it was spotted on his arm during rehearsals for LSB. It’s clearly not the same watch as the band is teal in the 2012 screen grab and blue in the more recent one.

(I posted the comments out of order so ya know go read the original if you want a more accurate reflection of their thought process).

Sometimes the CC Conspiracy Theorists catch the fact that the items they are matching- don’t actually match....

souly

If I remember correctly, this is not the original watch though. I don’t remember what he said about the original one, but he stopped wearing it for a while. At the first Elsie (or was it the second?), a fan gave him the new watch. There was a post about it back then, but I don’t know if it’s still around.

Anyway, I do believe though that he loves this watch for what it stands for - the original and the new one - so it always makes me smile when I see it!

(Plus, these BTS videos made it obvious that he is wearing the silver one for promotion and prefers the other one in private. And now look at the paps shots and so-called “private outings with friends” again and look at the watch he is wearing there.)

flowersintheattic254

I’m happy that at least he can wear something that’s special to him personally. Even for a short time.

There is always a “no longer available” post to explain CC Confirmed. As for whether it is special to him? Darren has never indicated that the watch is special to him. That is called MAKING UP A STORY. But from this day forward the fandom will believe that this little queer watch is meaningful to Darren.

The watch is a sporty, more causal-and presumably less expensive- than the watch he has been wearing. Wearing a less expensive, more casual watch while exercising isn’t logical CC reasoning, noooooo, logical CC reason is of course that his team WON’T LET HIM wear it. He has to be sneaky when he wants to express his sexuality through accessories. Also, they claim that he is forced to wear a “paid endorsement” watch most of the time..

ajw720

@flowersintheattic254 it has been almost 5 months since the JH promo began and they essentially stripped him of the rings we know mean the world to him (absolutely intentional, M and RR knew precisely what they were doing when they got that campaign, it was about much more than a free trip to Bali). So I agree, it is good to see him supplement an accessory here and there that is actually meaningful to him. I cannot wait until he is free to just be himself.

Sooooo, I’m not entirely sure why she brought up “JH promo” here, but I read it to mean that the watch that he normally wears is promotion for John Hardy. They have obsessively raged about the John Hardy jewelry since his trip to Bali in September. Yes, I am sure that was a promotional trip. Who cares? He got to spend a week in Bali and all he and Mia had to do was wear some jewelry. Darren seems to enjoy the designs as he has worn them quit a bit since then- UNTAGGED. I honestly never pay attention to these things but the CCers always comment. The thing is, something is only “promotion” on social media if it is tagged. Wearing an untagged ring or bracelet isn’t in anyway promoting the item. Only the most diehard, rage-filled fans recognize the untagged John Hardy pieces. The idea of promotion isn’t simply to get free stuff and wear it on social media, it’s to drive traffic to the John Hardy website and them to get people to actually purchase the pieces. Wearing them untagged doesn’t serve this goal.

But back to the watch...is Darren wearing an (untagged) John Hardy watch as per his endorsement deal?

Uh, NO. There are no John Hardy Watches. If he is wearing a promotional watch for a different brand-he really sucks at it.

Some thoughts on other CC comments:

...they essentially stripped him of the rings we know mean the world to him (absolutely intentional, M and RR knew precisely what they were doing when they got that campaign, it was about much more than a free trip to Bali). So I agree, it is good to see him supplement an accessory here and there that is actually meaningful to him. I cannot wait until he is free to just be himself.

So let’s analyze the facts:

Chris gave him ring(s)? The CCers have long claimed that Chris gave Darren a ring, a ring he often- but not always-wears on his right hand. Over the years, there are I believe, 5 different rings that Darren has worn and all were attributed to Chris until the John Hardy rings were added in September. Why were they attributed to Chris? Literally NO reason whatsoever other than their fantasy. These same people have raged over their claim that Mia has sported 5 different engagement rings in the last year. The rings all look to me like the same diamond ring with other rings added when the mood struck her. CC Mia is horrible for caring so little about her Engagement Ring that she would wear 5 different rings, but Chris is romantic AF for giving Darren 5 rings.

The rings are meaningful to Darren? Darren has NEVER said the rings hold any meaning for him or who they are from that I am aware of. He doesn’t wear them consistently. Seems to me that they are fashion accessories and nothing more. He’s worn the John Hardy’s rings quite a bit since September. Clearly, the CC fandom couldn’t claim the John Hardy rings are from Chris, so they fell back on their favorite excuse: his team “forced” him to wear the rings. I’m never sure exactly how one “forces” another adult to do something. I’ve been married for 24 years, if someone can tell me how to “force” him to do my bidding, I would love it.

One final CC comment on this topic- The Impossible Dream comment

bjpb08

Concur @ajw720. The thing is D has always found a way to fight back, sometimes subtly, sometimes overtly. We have seen it on the frontline, we do not see behind the camera or in the soecifics of his life. Sometimes I am sure he has sat it out, waiting. D has said too many times he is private, social media is not his way of communicating. He seems to pick whatever means he is afforded. Glimpses that we see, I love…it reminds me he is fighting and still remains the human being I so love and support. He is Dar/ren Eve/rett Cri/ss first and formost a son, brother, uncle, cousin, but first and formost a partner to one Chr/is Col/fer. He will do what he needs to do for those he loves. And that includes fighting a foe that we will never know the depth of.

To dream the impossible dream

To fight the unbeatable foe

To bear with unbearable sorrow

To run where the brave dare not go

To right the unrightable wrong

To love pure and chaste from afar

To try when your arms are too weary

To reach the unreachable star

This is my quest, to follow that star

No matter how hopeless, no matter how far

To fight for the right

Without question or pause

To be willing to march

Into hell for a heavenly cause

And I know if I’ll only be true

To this glorious quest

That my heart will lay peaceful and calm

When I’m laid to my rest

And the world will be better for this

That one man scorned and covered with scars

Still strove with his last ounce of courage

To fight the unbeatable foe

To reach the unreachable star

Songwriters: Joe Darion / Mitchell Leigh

I believe D would not agree. This song always comes back to haunt me in relationship to D. He lives it, he breathes it, he feels it on a daily bases. Soon he will find he will reach the reachable star.

D has always found a way to fight back, sometimes subtly, sometimes overtly? Yes, because the CC fandom literally fabricated all of these things he did to “fight back”. The things are “subtle” because the fandom made them up...they are overt because they made them up. As long as CCers continue to make up claims about what he is doing and how it represents a ‘fight”, Darren will continue to “fight” back in ways that are asinine. He will continue to hide deep In the closet while sending the CC fandom subtle messages of his “truth”. He will continue to walk the red carpet with Mia and take her to awards shows where he says nice things about her. He will continue to be a straight bro, to wear John Hardy jewelry and play piano at Tramp Stamp Granny’s BECAUSE THAT IS WHO HE IS. The CC fandom will continue to claim that everything he does that we see and everything he says that we hear- is all fake or forced upon him by this team while he lives a secret queer life with his husband Chris Colfer. A life we cannot see or hear BECAUSE IT ISN’T REAL, it’s pure CC fantasy. And his story will continue to be something only they are paying enough attention to see it because they are the ones writing it.

D has said too many times he is private, social media is not his way of communicating. He seems to pick whatever means he is afforded. This is literally an argument for why he isn’t secretly communicating with the CC fandom via social media.

Isn’t it convenient that “he seems to pick whatever means we fabricate he is afforded”? He will always “conveniently” do whatever fits the CC fantasy...that is how it works when you are writing the fanfiction as you go.

Is Darren’s life The Impossible Dream? The CC fantasy about love conquering all and CrissColfer being “a love for the ages” is how tweens and young teens believe love works. It is fodder for fanfiction and the best rom-coms, Twilight and Disney Princess-esque romance novels, but it isn’t real life. Real life is messy and hard. Love rarely survives even the most mundane stressors of life, it would never survive

9 years of hiding from the world while the spotlight is focused directly on it

9 years of being apart and pretending to love someone else

9 years of overt lying about Darren’s sexuality and his life

9 years of traveling with someone else and sharing his life with Mia with the world

9 years of mundane real-life stressors while hiding

Add on Chris’s mom’s death, his dad’s remarriage, his sister’s illness, Chuck’s divorce, and all of the things we don’t know about

Love doesn’t save people from life’s difficult moments. Love certainly doesn’t excuse deception and lies. Darren isn’t gay because he wears a PINK and blue watch.

#CC #CCEr #CCerrs #CC fanom #CC blog #CC family #CrissColfer #Darren Criss #chris colfer #gay watch #fanfiction #CC fanon #CC fandom #Pink isn't gay #Pink watches aren't gay

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dappersheep · 4 years

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Food Fantasy: An Analysis on what killed a Golden Goose (2/3)

Welcome back. Before we get started, disclaimers again! I do not own the game or its characters, nor do I claim to know the history and future of the game. What I am entitled to are the thoughts and opinions written within this post. You may or may not agree with the points spoken of here. This post also remains untagged from the main foofan tag. Only my followers will see this.

We are now on the second part, so let's go forward under the cut!

Elex

And here we have our beloved global publisher that most of seem to have Stockholm Syndrome for. Don't lie, at least half of us are still playing this damned game due to sunken cost fallacy, sunken time fallacy and the cute/hot jpegs.

In 2018, everything started out fine. Sure, maybe we had some translation mishaps here and there -coughwe'llgettothatwreckagelatercough- but overall, Elex was running the game fairly well. Rewards were on time, we had active social media and support, and a discord was set up!

Hint: Please note I use quite a bit of sarcasm in most everything I say.

And then somewhere along that road, things got derailed. And I mean it like, we're in the midst of a trainwreck in slow motion and we've only cleared the initial collision and still hurtling forward or backward into a steel wreckage ticking inferno.

Problems started cropping up as early as late 2018, just a few months after the game was launched in July.

⦁ Art contest mishaps. You know when you hold an art contest on Facebook out of all places with its shitty tagging system, you're bound to have entries lost to the void, people forced to register an FB account just to participate (seriously, who even has an FB account that isn't just there to appease family members?) and having to wrestle with figuring out how FB's tagging system works. Add to that the panel of judges happen to be Elex staff who don't have a good eye for good artwork (we actually had a kiddy figure drawing win over a well drawn one during the last contest!) and that they ALSO weren't very good at organizing such contests on FB... well, we had several grievances over that.

⦁ Region blocked FB announcements. Strangely enough, I stopped getting announcements around Father's Day of 2019 while everyone else outside of SEA kept getting updates. Turns out that someone on Elex's staff really didn't like SEA players or was just really bad at fixing the settings for the group and never bothered to revert it back. It didn't matter in the long run though, because...

⦁ Abandoned social media platforms. FooFan Twitter, FooFan Facebook... they all floated slowly into the void and was never heard from again. And this was before the 2020 pandemic.

⦁ Remember what I said about Discord? Yeah, apparently, they opened one up a little too early and the staff in charge of it knew zero about how to setup and mod a discord community, and didn't even have the manpower needed to mod the influx of members that came in! Suffice to say, they had to get help from top players and mods from the FB groups to come in and sort things out because someone kept pinging @ everyone every few seconds other than the usual chaos that comes from a server with no filters and people trying to turn the discord into Global Chat 2.0, minus Russian hours.

⦁ Also in line with the point about abandoned social media platforms, they've also mostly abandoned the discord too and only pop in once in a while to check the bug reports or lost accounts. You have a slightly better chance of response with the in-game support. Only slightly. And there's a running joke with several variations on the main discord that the Owner account of the discord server was manned by an intern-kun who never bothered to pass it on to the next unfortunate soul left to maintain this game.

⦁ Favoritism. Funtoy is also guilty of this but they don't publish the game for Global. If you're a top spender the likes of maxing out your cash rebates within the three months or so and you kept spending even beyond that, Elex could possibly invite you to a funky little club where your voice is more important than say... 99% of the playerbase. On top of that, if you keep spending, you could technically also ask for stuff like getting this frame over that frame, or well.... delay certain features from coming to Global for over a year. Now you can simp AND be heard! (Note: In 2021, it's possible that that club may be dead too, as all things shall be)

⦁ SJW Friendly. I don't know if Funtoy themselves have anything to also do with this particular decision... but it's saying something that after a certain little tiddy tantrum from the community side, Elex decided not to announce anything about a certain event's fate and when asked by it by other parties (not me) they either lie through their teeth, or beat around the bush with a non-answer.

⦁ Partial translations, mistranslations. Now, I understand that a lot of Chinese grammar and semantics are confusing to translate properly into several other languages, but you'd think Elex would have given their translators more context to the character or the mechanic to avoid such mistranslations that later set off gender debates or worded the skill/artifact description a little clearer. That is... unless Elex really is hands-off trying to get to know this IP from the start and only gave it the most bare minimum of English where they can cut costs for it, so people can understand it 'well enough' to throw money at an obviously not beta-read quality game.

⦁ No translations. Yes we do have certain parts of the game that are in Chinese since forever since xx patch. Some characters' voiceline texts are still in chinese, especially during the Pledge scenes. More recent artifacts are also in chinese with no announced translation in sight. And don't get me started on the Food Soul bios, or lack thereof.

⦁ Delayed events. Prime example? We had weeks of minor events/no events and still Elex managed to eff everything up for our second Anniversary in July 2020. We ended up getting the Croissant event in late August with barely any apologies and compensation for the delay... and this likely would have never arrived as 'early' as it did if people hadn't been railing about where our Anniversary event was. As it stands, we are several minor events behind CN, at least a year and a half's worth behind. I know Global had requested heavily for more spaced out events (to save resources, not that it actually worked with all the nerfed rewards we get) compared to CN but this is extremely ridiculous.

⦁ Delayed permanent features. Hm... Guild Wars, Sky Tower, Bar, that Wuchang Fish Showdown... several Quality of Life updates.... that new permanent pool update... Food Souls still missing their JP voice packs... Food Soul Bios... *slowly ticking off more than I have fingers and toes*

⦁ Customer Support is whack. You'd be lucky if you got someone who understood your problem/inquiry right off the bat AND did something about it efficiently. You'd be luckier if they answered you honestly if you were inquiring about event updates or other buggy features or reporting hackers.

⦁ The Great Turkey and Apple Incident of 2020. Well, if you were around for that little SNAFU during the Turkey re-run event, you'd know a percentage of people suddenly got logged out of their accounts and had a baller of a time trying to get their accounts back. You were especially unfortunate if you were playing on an iOS account because even if you did bind it (like a responsible player should be doing), you probably still wouldn't get it back in time to rank properly during Turkey. Some Android players also experienced this, but it wasn't as bad as what the iOS players experienced. And then there was the compensation mishap for that too.

⦁ Hacker-chan and not-so-uwu Hacker-teme. Hacker-chan is a meme. Hacker-chan was a harmless player who regularly topped in Top Showdown every week for a time to send a message to Elex just how easy it is to hack the game in certain rankings and invited Elex to ban them every time, just to test how competent Elex is. In the end, Elex has proven to be incompetent and also glaringly stupid about how their published game works. Hacker-teme is a collective of individuals over time who have cheated the game during important ranking events or in somewhat important permanent battles. If you tried to report a Hacker-teme with evidence to prove it -and trust me, people repeatedly have-, Elex would tell you that they're not cheating and/or lie through their teeth that they're 'investigating the case' and then not do anything about it and let them keep their event ranking and thus get the rewards while someone who actually worked hard/whaled hard to get the spot gets denied. In one case, they believe that if an account has rebate points and the player level is at least around level 80, then the hacker-teme is obviously playing the game fairly. Never mind that their units happened to have low to no artifact nodes opened, and not high in ascension.

And that is the end of the Elex saga. I'm aware there's likely more things about Elex that I've missed, but feel free to add on to this analysis post with your own thoughts.

The last part of this trilogy is probably what many of us are waiting for, for obvious reasons.

#ravings of a madman #food fantasy but not tagged right

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combatneurosis · 6 years

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ALRIGHT FUCKERS; I'm about to air out some dirty laundry cause I'm SAD but making PROGRESS and I have to document how I'm feeling to myself for myself during this shitty ass moon shit and retrograde so when I look back on this and see how insane I was and I can like "glad I moved on lol" !!!

so the other night was like a big step I think (idk I say this shit and then I'm a mess 2 days later so who knows) BUT I was talking to a really good friend about my ex and how our relationship and I wasn't even attempting to like shit talk my ex, I was just sad about our anniversary so I was just talking about him and I was just stating our dynamic and things he would do/say to me and my friend just looked literally mortified as I was saying this shit. and that happened a lot when I would talk to my friends about him after we broke up but I knew all my friends hated him anyways and so I thought they were just going off not liking him. but this person was never around when my ex was and has no idea what he was like, all he knew was how much I desperately loved him and how much the breakup FUCKED me up and he just looked at me and was like "I'm so glad you're not with him anymore" and it was the first time it REALLY has sunk in with me how bad the emotional abuse was. I had to look back at everything I had just said and be like "wow I really let all of that shit happen to me"

I've gone between being crazy and angry and knowing he was abusive but being too angry to rationalize why and therefore just acting insane, to feeling guilty that he had to deal with me and my mental illness and guilty that I hurt him and that he treated me like that because I deserved it and just being sad I didn't have him anymore and that it was my fault but like I feel like I now fully understand that I don't have to feel guilty for shit.

Him thinking something happened that didn't isn't my fault. And I've tried to reflect on the things I DID do wrong in the relationship so I won't be that way with someone else in the future and because I want to fix my bad behaviors and like yes, I emotionally invested myself into other people who wanted to give me attention and care because I wasn't getting that from him and I let other people treat me in ways that I myself didn't even feel respected that I knew were wrong because I had a partner and that's something I will not let happen again for my own sake and my future partner's sake but I can't feel guilty for wanting emotional comfort and to be told I was beautiful and loved by other people because my own boyfriend refused to do anything that made me feel that way. He wouldn't even so much as like my Instagram photos LOL. And don't even get me started on how he would treat me when I was doing sex work (he was literally one of those dudes who would tell me I was cheating on him by being a sex worker and selling nudes and wouldn't let me go in public in a revealing shirt but was obsessed with porn and kept pics of naked girls on his phone lol)!

Like I look back and try on reflect on the bad things I was doing and thinking about why he left me and why I felt like I needed to constantly fight for his attention and love and in reality it was never me. There was nothing I could have done. I revolved every aspect of my life around him. I would have done ANYTHING for him. I ate, slept, breathed, bowed down to david and that was my life. It was so horribly unhealthy that I dedicated every aspect of my life to this person who constantly pushed me away and made it known how unloved and unwanted I was who just lived their own life away from me and I just existed there when they were lonely. I was a chore for him when he was the only thing I had. I pushed my friends away for him, wanted to sacrifice leaving all my friends and family behind to live across the country with him, I revolved my whole day around when I would be able to talk to him, all my plans around when I would see him, everything. And he always made me feel like so much as HAVING to come see me or HAVING to talk to me was work for him when he could be living a totally different life without the annoyance and burden of my mental illness or even my love. He would hold times he came to see me against me when I would get upset that we hadn't seen eachother. there was a time that we hadn't seen eachother for four months and he kept telling me he didn't have money to see me and I would beg him to let me pay to come see him and he kept telling me no and then literally IN THE SAME BREATH tried buying a plane ticket to try and see another girl and had the fucking AUDACITY to say that I was abusive because I got mad at him for it ....

There were so many worse and fucked up things that I am just so stunned at myself for tolerating. I was so blinded by how much I loved him that I let so many horrible things slide. Like the fact that a girl messaged me the first year of our relationship that he was sending her nudes and shit and I didn't even bring it up for almost two years because I was so hurt that I couldn't even process it, and I'm pretty sure because of future events that were really confusing/unexplained regarding my health, he was probably sleeping with her!!! Or the fact that when I was sexually assaulted by my boss and he told me it was my fault and I let it go and we were sitting in a coffee shop this past January and he literally said - to my fucking face - "I know I've said some really fucked up things to you, like what I said about your boss or whatever but that doesn't make me a bad guy" and I literally didn't even know how to react, like he just brushed it off as if he told me he didn't like a dress I was wearing. Or there's the simple fact that he would constantly invalidate my mental health issues and call me annoying and pull a "here we go again" or "can we just have a normal day" when I would have an episode or simply express my feelings...... like imagine living every day of your life struggling with a psychotic mental illness with no money for therapy or meds just for the one person who is supposed to be your support and safety telling you they want to leave you and don't love you every time you're sad because that's so much easier than dealing with it.

OR THERES THE WHOLE FUCKING THING WHERE HE LEFT ME BECAUSE OF SOMETHING THAT DIDNT HAPPEN and continued to remain in my life after he left me because he wanted to fuck me knowing how attached I was so he could. He literally broke up with me for "cheating on him" (when in reality it was an easy way out of a relationship he never wanted to be in) (and let us not forget he cheated on me years before this) and yet... still talked to me and was telling me how hot I was and how he still wanted to fuck me and then one day cut me off and deleted every picture of me and untagged every photo I ever tagged him in on every social media site (because he's a literal sociopath) and blocked my number with no explanation and I know now it's because the guy who he thinks I was seeing messaged him saying some dumb shit and lied to me about it but

A) I literally showed David my messages between us and proved I didn't have any interest in this person sexually and every time I let this dude in my life was because David told me he didn't want to be with me and didn't love me and I needed emotional support from having my boyfriend consistently break up with me or "need a break from me" - especially when I was going through sexual abuse that I was told was my fault

and

B) EVEN IF I FUCKING DID I SHOULD HAVE CHEATED ON THIS FUCKER FOR HOW THE FUCK I GOT TREATED

like it literally feels like my whole body is on fire every time I talk about this. Both dudes were so fucking horrible and shitty and I just ..... loved and cared and wanted to be loved back so badly that I literally let all this shit happen and it's my own fault for being dumb enough to trust people who did nothing but hurt me from the beginning. and so this is a HUGE learning and growing process for me and I just won't trust people anymore, I will not give people second chances. also will not EVER let myself be treated like this again. I was so horrible mentally this entire relationship because I loved this person so much who would straight up tell me to my face they didn't love me and would manipulate me all of the time and CONSTANTLY made it seem like it was my fault this was happening. and got out of this relationship with me looking like a horrible person and not taking one fucking ounce of responsibility for anything he did to me because now he has some fucking "cover up" because apparently "cheating" looks worse than blatant emotional abuse.

Nothing about any of that relationship was healthy. And I still love him so much and I think about him every single day and I miss parts of him and that relationship so much but none of that ever could have been worth the shit I put up with. Getting cheated on, ignored, taking for granted, told I wasn't loved, not helped when I was dealing with a trauma, I deserve fucking better and I will stop allowing myself to feel guilty for something that I didn't do. I WILL STOP ALLOWING MYSELF TO FEEL GUILTY FOR SOMETHING I DIDNT DO. I deserve better. I DESERVE BETTER. I deserve love. I DESERVE LOVE.

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dragonsinkwell · 6 years

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If you don't mind me asking, what are all of your AU's? And what are they about?

Oh boy get your popcorn ready because this is a doozy of a question, but one I am more than glad to answer because I love these so freaking much. I will point out that I keep a tidy list here (x) of the AUs I’ve introduced so far, both for basic explanation but also contains links to each tag for easy reading, but I know a lot of people aren’t gonna read every link on my blog so I’m fine with explaining them here~

First we’ll tackle the non-Persona 5 AUs because I have… way, way too many of those tbh. I’ve done a few practices on a Danganronpa mastermind!AU where Shuichi Saihara was the mastermind of NDRV3, though should inspiration strike (or a request come in) I’d give a go at writing for other characters taking up the role, and how those scenarios might play out.

I have an untagged Fate/Grand Order AU for completely self-indulgent purposes where I and a friend joke about what like in the Chaldea base might be like with us two being the last remaining Masters. It’s a disaster, but you can catch references in the small F/GO snippets littered about.

So far I have two AUs for the Arsène Lupin novels, one a modern!AU where it’s exactly what it says on the tin and it’s just a modern take on the character. The other is a time travel!AU (although it also contains dimensional travel but I don’t care enough to change the name for my own tagging purposes) where he’s brought to an alternate version of the modern day via parallel universe/string theory bullshittery.

On to the meat of this ask: my myriad Persona 5 AUs. First and foremost is my first (and dubiously favorite) AU, the vampkira!AU. Named so because at the time of creation the only canon name we had was Akira Kurusu and I haven’t changed it because I like vampkira better than vampren. But this is separate from what I might otherwise call a vampire!AU because the universe is based for a very specific story idea that I have, where the Reader Character is a Spirit Agent in Tokyo who ends up having to deal with vampire!Ren. The whole thing is aimed at my vicarious love of ‘Enemies to Friends to Lovers’. I do plan for the other PTs to show up including: werewolf!Ryuji, witch!Ann, fairy!Yusuke (like Tinkerbell, it’s meant to be funny), alchemist!Makoto (think Atelier series alchemist, not FMA), brownie!Futaba, fae!Haru (spooky fae, the kind you don’t mess with, not funny at all), and a fellow spirit agent!Akechi who actually got the help and support he needed to be a better person.

Next comes the palace!AU, another fairly self-explanatory one, where Persona users can indeed have Palaces of their own. So far I’m currently writing a full fic for Ren’s palace, though I have definite plans for an Akechi palace fic, and I’m kicking around ideas for possible Yusuke and Ryuji palaces.

Then we have my youkai!AU, the foil in some ways to the vampkira!AU, where they’re more traditionally Japanese supernatural creatures. Unlike the vampkira!AU I don’t have one overarching story idea for this, so far it’s just four separate ideas for the PT guys featuring nekomata!Ren, oni!Ryuji, kitsune!Yusuke, and tengu!Akechi. I might write stuff with them knowing each other, I don’t have any qualms about seeing them interact but I just don’t have one big plot for this one.

I’ve written some bits and pieces for a proper thief!AU, but this is some really self-indulgent faffery because I want actual-gentleman thief!Ren to sweep me off my feet. (And it’s good potshot fodder when you’ve gotta make a friend weak in the knees). I just want thief banter and sass, ya feel?

There’s also a pocket pals!AU I’d like to do more for, an AU where the guys get shrunken down and the poor Reader Character gets to babysit until it wears off. The whole point is crack and fluff, and seriously just picture tiny!Akechi and tiny!Ryuji getting sent to a cardboard jail because they keep fighting while tiny!Ren laughs (at Akechi, mostly) and tiny!Yusuke tries to be the Goodest Boy while painting the tiniest paintings. Adorable.

Another plot heavy AU is my velvet attendant!AU, born of wanting to write some porn I got distracted with some really, really cool story ideas and now it’s going to eventually become a full, coherent fic of it’s own. The basic premise is that the story takes place after a very specific canon bad end (the one where you make a deal and the Metaverse remains, you know the one) and to fix this an alternate version of Ren (one who got another bad end, if you fail the interrogation, you know the one) becomes a velvet room attendant to the Reader Character in order to help her fix things, all under the nose of the ‘current’ timeline’s corrupted!Ren (the one who made the Deal). It’s a complicated mess, but it will let me take a look at a lot of interesting facets to Ren Amamiya and his reaction to the power he was given and what it could have done to him.

And now we reach AUs I have, but haven’t yet introduced to you all just yet, though surely they will appear in due time.

Of these, first up is a twin!AU, an easy to explain AU where Akira and Ren are the Amamiya twins and it’s absolute faffery just to have two of these crimeboys running amok. Can you blame me? Also carries a huge sitcom vibe, set in college where they can all be goofy friends. Former-child actor Goro Akechi and current-model Ann having gossip sessions, anyone? Smuggling high-school senior Futaba into the dorms to have TTRPG sessions? Hella.

Then I have a non-reader insert AU I’d like to tackle: a role reversal!AU where due to varying circumstances Akechi and Ren’s roles are reversed, with Akechi having fallen under Sojiro’s care and benefiting from it, saving him from his canon downward spiral, and Ren loses out on this support system and becomes a twisted antagonistic force instead.

Back to the reader-insert, there’s an Arabian Nights!AU idea I’ve kicked around, but I’d like to spend some time reading the actual Thousand and One Nights first before I get too deep, but it looks to be a fun and promising venture.

In my notes I have what I call a Disney prince!AU for Akechi, where the whole story idea is basically a Disney movie, and Akechi is the prince to your princess. Still very much under construction, but absolutely a fic I’m going to write.

BIG EDIT: I also got a request for a detective!Akechi piece and I’m totally gonna turn that into an AU, you bet ur bippy. Look forward to that, Akechi Anon.

Bonus edit: I do technically have two more AUs, though I have no idea if you’ll see them here unless I get more ideas or y’all really want to see them. One is a mahou shoujo!AU where the PT + Akechi are a band of magical boys and girls who fight evil and Shido and Yaldy are totally dressed like 80′s anime villains. The other is a sort of companion to the pocket pals!AU where the guys are animals instead, featuring cat!Ren (anyone see a theme here?), shiba inu!Ryuji (literal sunshine), fox!Yusuke (duh), and beagle!Akechi. This one has mostly been reduced to joking headcanons with a friend, but if anyone really wanted to see it make an appearance I’d be glad to write and post something here.

Morning addendum: Since this has become my de facto AU master post I’m gonna mention that I forgot an eventual yakuza!AU. Because.

Another edit because I lack self control: Been considering both a Starbound!AU and a Stardew Valley!AU because both games are good and they’d make for good crossover fodder.

#chatter #anonymous #alternate universe

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