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harleehazbinfics · 6 months

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Can We? an au lucifer x reader oneshot

Author Profile a/n: SURPRISEEEEEE. i got 'we become we' -journey to jerusalem song on a loop since i found it and i knew i wasn't gonna get it out of my system unless i do something about it. so pls enjoy my ramblings lmfao word count: 1200+

"Your Majesty, please reconsider this! Our kingdom needs a Queen!"

Lucifer sighs at the aide's words, feeling irritated with the insistent suggestion of a Queen.

"I agree, your majesty. The people are quite worried for you. You need an heir, and you aren't getting any younger either," another aide jumps in.

Lucifer surrenders to them with hands in the air in exasperation and finally replies, "Fine."

The people in the room sigh in relief that they somehow got through to him. But hitch their breath when he adds on.

"However, I won't just choose anyone. Only the best candidate will stand by my side and be rightfully called the Queen," he glares.

"Good day, your majesty. My name is (full name), Princess of the Eastern Kingdom. I'm grateful for this opportunity," you smile amiably.

"Likewise," he responds quite honestly shocked from your tone.

You were the guest that was expected to arrive at the palace after receiving the invitation to be a Queen candidate. However, after word got around that you will be joining the fight for the title. All the ladies mutually agreed to resign. When he asked why, all the aide's replies were, "There is no other person worthy to be by your side other than the Princess."

Now, you stood in front of him. You were dressed beautifully, but not as extravagant as those ladies that came before him. You had a melodic tone in your voice that was pleasant to the ear. Your hands folded together gracefully. Everything about you was enchanting.

You tilt your head confused about his speechlessness. "Did I catch you in the wrong time?" you ask him.

His cheeks reddened, embarrassed that you left him dazed just from your introduction alone.

"No no," he excuses then coughs to get a grip on himself, "I apologize. I must have been tired from all the work this morning."

You give him an understanding smile and reply, "No apologies needed, your majesty. I feel honored to be here and see how hard you work. I'm sure this kingdom is grateful to have such a diligent King."

His blush intensifies from your non-stop flattery. He's heard many compliments in his life for his achievements. However, when you were the one saying those words. He can't help but believe it was all true with how genuine you sounded.

"Please, I'm quite embarrassed to hear such words from you, Princess. I've heard many tales of your acts of charity for your and other neighboring kingdoms. You've paved the way for others to follow in your example and gave a chance for the poor, homeless and orphaned," he redirected trying to calm his flaring cheeks.

He was pleasantly surprised at your reaction.

"P-Please! You've heard of that? Oh, I'm embarrassed! I hope only good thing reached your ears," you stumbled over your words when the attention turned back to you.

He laughs at you as you tried to hide behind your hair as you also flushed red. 'For someone, who gives out so many compliments. She can't even handle a couple of her own.'

'This wasn't such a bad idea,' he thought as he watched as you smile and continue talking to him.

"(Y/n), can I ask you something?" he says sitting at the edge of the bed where you sat beside while reading a book.

It had been several weeks since your marriage and it's been quite busy for the both of you as you adjusted to your married life. Lucifer finished paperwork for his projects and formal preparations for your ascension to your rights as the new Queen. Thankfully, it had finally calmed down and now you helped him with his work and even the inner management of the castle.

You have shared the room since the beginning, and you've already shared your first night as husband and wife together. Which was.. quite passionate to say the least. But, after both of you would wake up earlier or later than the other, too considerate to wake up the other from their well-earned rest. So, now that it has finally calmed down and Lucifer approached you. You couldn't help but feel nervous.

"Of course, anything," you reply putting away the book and taking his hand in yours.

He smiles and gains courage as he caresses your hand back and says, "Are you okay with this arrangement?"

You tilt your head unsure of the meaning, "About what?"

"This," he gestures to the both of you, "are you okay about our marriage?"

You huff out a laugh relieved, you thought it was a life or death situation, "Of course I am. Why wouldn't I be?"

He shrugs and replies, "I don't know. I just thought you were having doubts about us."

You give him a meaningful look and stood up from your spot. You then tugged him to stand with you. You made him hold your waist and hand while you placed yours on his shoulder. You led him into a slow dance with a smile on your face.

"Remember, our dance together?" you asked.

"At the wedding?" he asks.

You shook your head and laughed, "We danced one together way before that. That night where we shared the stars together."

His eyes lit up, remembering that night.

"During that dance, I thought that being with you will be worthwhile. And if wherever this choice leads me. I won't regret being with you, Lucifer," you say with a deep look in your eyes.

His eyes soften as he gazed at you. You were nothing but wonderful to him, it was childish of him to assume you were having doubts. He should have trusted you and made you happy instead. You deserve nothing less than that.

"Can we become more Than half of a union we're chosen for?"

He sings as he pulls you closer to him.

"Where I am your best half And I am yours,"

You continue with a huge smile on your face as you followed his lead, gliding around the room.

"Stuck here forever And hopefully not ending in estrangement,"

You sang together faces inching towards each other with half lidded eyes.

"Can mine become yours Combining our dreams Without keeping score?"

You twirled around the room with him catching you. He opens the door and leads you out into the halls where you continued your dance.

"Always together, but never bored No choice in the matter but This will never work without each other,"

The both of you laugh like children as you chased each other down the halls.

"Can we become we? (Can we become we?) Start a new line on this family tree,"

He catches up to you and lifts you off the ground and kisses your cheek with a hearty chuckle from your deviousness.

"Two hearts connected by one beat, Your hand in mine and,"

You beam him a smile as you placed your hands on his chest feeling the rhythmic thumping of his heart from chasing you around.

"I could never choose to love another," Lucifer whispers as he pulls you into a kiss which you return with fervor.

After minutes of kissing one another, he places you down and hold your waist as places another kiss on your temple with a beaming smile. You return it and let him lead you back to your room.

"Maybe one day I can learn to love you, too," you whisper as you gave a passing gaze at the portrait of a blonde woman with her face covered with a large cloth.

Other Lucifer Fics:

@bonnie-02 @marxo5 @whaatttlaufey @froggybich @rybunnie @midorichoco @bontensbabygirl @janey @akiqvq @wonderlandangelsposts @spoiled-slutt @preciousbabypeter @roboticsuccubus83 @simbalioness @reachthestars @atlas-rin @manachpo@luc1fersducky @lovestruck-enby @azullynxx @delightedtosee @cherry-4200 @aria-tempest @lvstyangel @0strawberrysorbet0 @corvid007 @kaminarithebest @whydosnakesnotdance @psychoanalyze0 @sweetadonisbutbetter @lunalily19 @dionysusismypatrongod @skyeliteratures @sappire904

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artofvisualshock · 5 months

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Messages from the GazettE to the fans (Google translations)

〈 RUKI 〉

At the end, he said, "I want the GazettE to be forever." I think what he meant by "forever" was that he hoped that the amazing scenes he saw from the stage in 2023 would continue forever.

The scenes he saw with his fans, the happy faces of his fans, and the scenes where we all sang together were treasures that could not be replaced by anything else, and I think he hoped that moment would continue forever.

I remember him saying that he wanted to perform live soon.

Even now that he's grown up, he was a kind and passionate man who can honestly say, "Even if something bad happens, it's the most fun when we get together like this and laugh with the band members."

I loved that honesty.

This year was no different, and every year on our birthdays we would jokingly tell each other to take care of our health.

The band will never be a four-man band.

No matter what anyone says.

Because you're the only bassist we have.

Because I believe that my soul is always beside me to the right.

I'm sure everyone can feel it, even if they can't see it.

The proof that Reita has built up in the GazettE so far will not disappear and will definitely live on.

I believe that, so I will continue to sing beside him so that his soul can be right beside me.

I will not become the GazettE that Reita hates.

I don't want to make him sad.

Although all humans live in a finite life, I believe that souls never disappear.

Reita's soul, the members, myself, and the fans.

I want to continue to perform live shows that make all the people who loved me want to come back to the stage forever, even after they have become souls.

So it is only with each and every one of our fans that we can create the scenery that we hoped he would be eternal.

That's why I want him to stay by my side and be there, unchanged from now on.

He should look at me and smile, and think, "He was the best guy!", rather than looking at me with a sad face.

We are more determined than ever to protect this band.

We will make Reita's wish for eternity come true.

So, Reita, rest assured that you can come to every live show from heaven.

Your seat will always be there.

You're going to be super busy from now on.

I'll contact you again when the schedule is decided.

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

<Uruha>

To all the fans who have supported REITA up until now.

I think he was a huge support for everyone, and for me.

I myself have not been able to accept and realize the fact that he is no longer here and that we can no longer stand on stage together.

There may be many things that I will come to understand little by little from now on.

However, if I continue to be drowning in sadness, I will not be able to make his wish for eternity come true, and I strongly feel that now is the time for me to have the strength to look forward and move forward.

I also think that the path we walked together until now was irreplaceable for him, and I think it will continue to live in the hearts of everyone and myself.

He gave us so much, and we walked together for so long, and he is still and will always be our best friend.

Please treasure all the words, memories, and love he left behind in your heart.

REITA will continue to exist and live in everyone's hearts.

We would like to express our sincere gratitude to everyone who has supported and cheered on the GazettE REITA.

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

〈 Aoi 〉

For a long time, the members and a small staff have been working on various projects, saying "this and that," but writing this letter was the last thing I wanted to do.

There have been moments when I felt like giving up on my dreams.

Every time, we talked about it again and again, sometimes pushing each other, and pulling the members' arms so that they wouldn't give up.

Because we were such a band, the GazettE has been able to keep moving forward without stopping.

REITA, you're not the one who wishes for eternity, you're the one who connects eternity.

I can't say something clever like "I'll take care of you."

I wanted to make more music with you, and see more scenery together.

Every scenery is wonderful because we see it with the five of us, surrounded by our fans.

I don't know why, but it's so painful that I can't make it happen even though I have so many things I want to say.

When I get there, I'm going to start with a big lecture. I know it's lonely because we're gone so suddenly, but please take a rest until then.

I have a few more things to do here.

Thank you for walking this long road with me. Rest in peace.

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

〈 Kai 〉

For me, REITA is an immeasurably big presence, saved by his many words and sounds, the mood maker for the band, and all I remember are really fun things, and above all, the sight of him shining on stage.

He is the best partner and the only one in the rhythm section.

That has never changed, and will never change in the future.

I want to continue carrying his feelings and continue with the GazettE with even greater resolve.

Finally, to all the fans and people involved who have supported us for the past 22 years.

Thank you very much.

And from now on, our feelings will remain the same and we would like to continue running as a group of five, so please continue to support us.

REITA

Thank you for all your hard work.

With the same feelings, we will continue to protect the GazettE together with our many friends... I promise.

There are many friends out there who don't want your 22 years to go to waste, and they are waiting for you.

You must come to our shows too!

Let's have some good sake again.

#the gazette #reita #rip #uruha #ruki #aoi #kai

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spookberry · 6 months

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Shadow High series 3 my new beloved

I didnt even like most of em until i saw them in person, but the knowledge that they'll probably never be in the show has my brain in a "well its free realestate" kinda mood

Random list of information cuz ive been plotting out friend dynamics and background lore

-i like to pretend Rainbow High/Shadow High are actually Rainbow University/Shadow University cuz im in art college Right Now and i think it makes more sense with the whole dorm room situation. And also major makes more sense than focus IMO

-I changed Pinkie's major from film to just undeclared. I think she eventually does land on Film. She just has a lot of interests! Her dream has always been to one day direct films, and I think she comes to love them even more while developing ideas her with the group as she winds up in a Director/Producer position for most of them. BUT also every time she takes a class in a different program she cant help but fall in love with that way of making art too. So she has a hard time picking for a while and changed her major a couple times before landing on Film.

-Pinkie and Berrie bond a lot over a shared interest in vocal synths (tho Berrie knows more about them than her).

-The two made Pinkie's vtuber model together!

-the fandom wiki says PJ is from germany?? Idk how canon that is tbh but ive decided to embrace it i guess

-Rooney's canon name is Scarlet Rose, but i thought it was kinda lame especially when Rosie Redwood is also in this line sooo I renamed her! Stuck to the color name puns tho. Mar Rooney. Maroon. Haha

-Speaking on her though i love that shes from texas and likes writing scifi mystery type stuff and that being said i just Know deep in my bones that she was a Voltron Legendary Defender fan and Keith was/is 100% her favorite. She has a continued fondness for mothman specifically cuz of this.

-PJ and Rooney actually talk about fandom and shows/movies ALL the time. They dont have a ton of overlapping interests, but where they do? The two literally never shut up.

-Rosie is such a random character, like outside of her design she feels very poorly considered. So I scrapped the cosmetology thing and made her an illustrator instead! I think it works better with her love of making art in nature. I can see her being really into illustrated guide books. I think shes a bit snooty when it comes to art too. It takes being friends with other artists to become more open minded.

-I like the idea that Rosie is mainly friends with Rooney and Berrie ontop of that. The three of them often tag team storylines and how theyd interpret them into different mediums. Rosie will draw up a bunch of concept stuff while Rooney writes up a pitch bible and Berrie will start making shit move and throwing in her own ideas on camera angles and character designs.

-as an animation major Berrie was required to take a sound design class early on, which is where she met Oliver! Hes very laid back, and likes to go with the flow, but functions a little like the "mom" of the group. Often reminding the girls to take breaks, drink water, stop looking at their screens lest they get eye strain etc. He's multi-talented tbh but Music is his one true passion and he likes how the girls are always giving him collaboration opportunities.

-Oliver and Rosie like to talk sports a lot, both having played a bunch when they were younger and throughout high school.

-Lavender Lynn is Oliver's number one "person who needs constant reminders to settle down" she is in a constant buzz of trying to get the best shots and is utterly obsessed with the process of artistic documentation. Everything must be documented.

-the whole school loves her for this actually, she has a whole side gig where other students hire her to help photograph their projects. She saves everything she earns from this for her future dream plans to visit paris. She has it set really, many of the artists who she helps photograph now will remain steadfast clients of hers forever onward.

-PJ and Lynn actually took a print media class together at one point. Which didnt at the time spark an everlasting friendship. But it did give PJ an easier in to ask for Lynn's help documenting a project the group was working on. One of Lynn's first times photographing them work happened to fall on a day where Rosie had planned to trick everyone into going on a nature walk sans devices... Lynn wound up really appreciating this outing and decided to continue hanging around the group even after that project had ended.

#shadow high #rainbow high #my art #fanart #i had to write down all my ideas just to get them outta my head #now im free

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nellyofthevalley · 10 months

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wedding dress

astarion x fem!tav rating: explicit content: wedding night, marriage/domestic living, sad and sweet, stupidly soft tailor astarion, smut but it's not the focus (cunnilingus, fingering, piv), death. summary: astarion makes tav's wedding dress and looks back on their life together. i don't want to say too much, just read it :)

Hand-making a wedding dress was hard work, but he loved it. He would lose himself in it and insisted that he be the one to craft it because he couldn’t trust anyone else with the task. No other dress could do his love’s beauty justice, but he’d spent years perfecting the arts of tailoring and studying her—he knew better than anyone what was worthy of being draped on her body.

based on this post by @spacebarbarianweird! i hope i did the concept justice. it was a joy and a challenge to write.

i really hated writing the vows lmao don't laugh

read it on ao3 or below the cut

i'll be here

Astarion spent months and months in his study sewing away at the white fabric. All day, all night; the hours passed without notice. Not until Tav would softly knock and enter and put her arms around his neck and shoulders and ask him to retire to their room with a heavy yawn, taking care to avert her eyes from his project.

Hand-making a wedding dress was hard work, but he loved it. He would lose himself in it and insisted that he must be the one to craft it because he couldn’t trust anyone else with the task. No other dress could do his love’s beauty justice, but he’d spent years perfecting the arts of tailoring and studying her—he knew better than anyone what was worthy of being draped on her body.

“Come to bed, love,” she’d say, and he thinks of it often. He remembers exactly how she said it; he remembers her tone, her voice, the way she’d kiss his ear and down his neck to entice him on the nights he was particularly engrossed in his work.

He remembers one evening he’d been in his study since the minute they woke and shared ‘good morning’s, so close to finishing the skirt; she entered quietly and startled him, trailing her hands from his neck down the front of his shirt, begging for him to come to bed with a whispered ‘please’ that he couldn’t say no to.

He finished the line of stitching he was on and set the dress aside, turning his head to look at her and steal a kiss from her plush lips, just as eager to kiss her as he was in the beginnings of their relationship. The passion and desire never faded in the slightest, not after so many decades, and not even when they fought and yelled and cried.

Astarion kissed her over and over again with haste, cupping her cheek; he could hear the blood course through her body and feel the warmth rush to her face, a lovely, irresistible display of her own desire. He rose to his feet and picked her up, her legs draped over his arm and hers around his neck as he carried her to their bedroom.

“Darling, you’ve interrupted my very important work,” he said as he laid her down to the bed and crawled on top of her, trapping her under his weight. “I have a deadline to meet, you know.”

It was only a few weeks until their wedding night. The whole thing was a formality really, they’d been living as if they were married for years—rings and all, but Tav insisted on it. She dreamt of walking down the aisle as a little girl, she said, and Astarion relented despite his protests. But after a few weeks, after he’d started working on the dress, he was just as hellbent on it as she was.

“You’ve been working so hard,” she replied, fingers impatiently tugging at the collar of his shirt.

“For you,” he reminded her. “But now, I’ve lost my focus.”

She managed to unbutton half his shirt before he bent forward to press his mouth to her neck, giving her tender kisses down to her collarbone. He lifted her nightdress, pulling it over her arms and head and continued kissing down her front, slow and damn near torturous, relishing in how her heart raced for him; true power, he thought, was the power to make her plead for more.

“My sweet love,” he purred, finally tugging at the sides of her underwear and guiding them over her legs. “I’m afraid I can’t return to my work until I’ve tasted all of you.”

Never had Astarion felt more alive than on their wedding night.

A very quaint, private affair in the woods with the friends that could make it: Shadowheart, Wyll, Halsin, and a few friends they’d made in the city attended. Gale, honored by Tav’s request, officiated and he’d never seen Astarion looking so… elated, and so regal; the nobility in him blossoming in his white and gold attire, a fine suit and eccentric jabot. Astarion certainly softened during their journey, but here, he was far more than that: he bore a beaming smile that not even a God could wipe from his face and when Tav finally came out with her dress, the dress that he worked on days and nights for months, he watched her, thoroughly enraptured by her, as if the world around them had simply dissipated.

“Beautiful,” he whispered as she approached.

All he saw was her. Gale, the guests, the arch blanketed in flowers and strands of magicked lights were little more than a blur in his peripherals. Astarion lifted a hand to her face and delicately ran his fingertips across her cheek—the touch of her warm glow never lost its appeal—and brushed her lips with his in a modest, affectionate kiss.

“Usually, we save that for the end,” Gale joked.

“No chance in the Hells I’m waiting that long,” Astarion retorted, blithely aware the ordeal would last a mere few minutes. “And where did you find such a perfect, magnificent, finely crafted dress, love?”

It was his best work, and he was sure he’d never set his eyes on anything sweeter than her wearing it.

The bodice top of the dress hugged her waist exquisitely and donned a sweetheart neckline covered in detailed floral embroidery. The skirt was long and composed of layers of netted fabric with more scattered, intricately sewn flowers; it had an almost ethereal, softened look about it as it flowed when she walked. He’d spent weeks alone searching for the finest material with a cost difficult to swallow, but worth every last coin.

She was the embodiment of grace and elegance in it—like royalty, a beauty beyond the imagination.

How they gazed at one another while Gale officiated went unnoticed by not a single person; the vibrancy of their love and devotion radiated off from them as it breathed life into the air, and captivated every guest—every friend.

Astarion hadn’t cried since he killed his master, but a tear gathered at the edge of his eyes as he recited his vows.

You’ve given me something to care for. I choose you. I give you my hand, my love, my soul, and with you, I live again. I’ll always be here, my love.

Tav didn’t share his same composure, she couldn’t stop crying; she wept as she made hers, and through every word, he held her face gently in his palms and wiped them away.

Where you go, I’ll go. Where you stay, I’ll stay. I give you all my love, my passion, my heart; it beats for you, belongs to you, for eternity.

“Careful not to let your makeup run onto that dress, dear,” he smirked.

She managed to hold her tears as they exchanged rings—old but new; not the ones they’d been wearing for years as she expected to see, but ones Astarion had saved ever since they found them in the shadow-cursed lands. Tav extended her fingers and looked at hers, a cute little cute little alexandrite gem on a simple golden band.

There was something enticingly dangerous and bittersweet about them with their magical warding bond and tragic tale of the couple who once possessed them.

Astarion insisted she wear the ring of embrace, reminding her of his enhanced healing abilities since being freed of the tadpole and arguing, “My life has flourished with you, now let me protect you with it.”

“You may kiss the bride,” announced Gale, taking a deep breath before continuing, “again.”

Astarion reeled her in with one arm behind her waist and his free palm took one of hers, intertwining their fingers; he brushed his lips against hers, remarkably subdued as he taunted her with a little peck and gentle nip on her bottom lip before sweeping her into a deeper, heated kiss.

When he pulled away and lowered the hand on her back, she heard a sniffle coming from Gale.

“Are you… crying?” Tav asked with a laugh, still resisting her own cry, but when Astarion was the one to walk up to Gale and wipe his tears away, she couldn’t keep from weeping any longer.

They rented a lavish room in the Upper City and joked about becoming part of the snobbish high society for a night on the walk there, drunk on their new life, her new name. It must’ve only been two seconds they were in their room before Astarion swept her into his embrace, taking her by the waist and gently pushing her to the closed door.

“Astarion, wait,” Tav said, giggling as he removed the space between them and pressed his body flush against hers.

“Darling, I’ve been so patient already,” he argued, his hands meticulously removing the ties and pins keeping her hair perfectly in place. “I’ve been waiting ever since I set my eyes on you in this dress.”

She turned her head and tried to shy away as Astarion kissed the tip of her nose, her cheek, and beside her ear; he continued, “It’s been utterly distracting.”

His cold kisses spread goose flesh through her arms and raised all the tiny hairs at the back of her neck. No matter how many times it’d been, he could always incite her fierce need for him, crumbling her into dust with his carefully crafted words and sweet touch…

“Don’t you know how hard it was for me to focus on reciting my vows for you, when all I could think of was tearing the dress from your body and making you cry for me?”

Astarion knelt and lifted the front of her dress, draping it over his back and disappearing beneath. He hummed with satisfaction in the way Tav’s breath caught when he slipped his fingers under her underwear and kissed her over the dampening fabric.

“Seems it was hard for you too, wasn’t it?” he teased as he slid the garment down her legs.

“Oh, shut—ah.”

She wished she could see him—his face on her cunt, wearing that devilish look he had when she glanced down at him, every time, well trained in picking up on every small thing that made her weak between the thighs—but he loved to toy with her and slapped her hands away when she tried to raise her dress with a tsk.

Tav‘s palms tightened against the wall and her legs quivered while Astarion lapped at her cunt like it was every bit as delectable as her blood. He worshiped her with his tongue, tasting every part of her he could reach—and when she started to truly unravel, legs shaking and weak and her mouth unable to keep its quiet, he gripped her hips firmly and swept the very tip of his tongue across her clit.

“Astarion, I’ll—”

Ah, her protests only encouraged him. Two fingers slowly pushed into her cunt, coated in her fluids; she pawed at the wall like she was trying to rip through it as Astarion licked and sucked and curved his fingers inward. His pace hurried, curling and nudging her inside between thrusts until at last, she threw her head back and cried his name, a sound that paralleled no other, a sound he’d remember for the rest of his life, even thousands of years from now if he survived that long; no one said his name like her, and she said it best when he was on his knees.

He withdrew his fingers as she clenched and writhed around him, but he refused to waver and set her free, absolutely not, liking to push her and drown himself loving her until she nearly went rabid trying to get him off. He kept his hands firm on her hips, lapping up every last fucking drop of her come and circling her clit until—

“Gods, Astarion, please!”

She hastily lifted her dress and dug her hands and nails into his hair and scalp, clawing at him and pulling him away.

Astarion just stared at her with a smirk and her come shining all over his face, thoroughly pleased. She was panting, recovering, and she looked like a mess with her hair tousled and her face red and sweaty and it was fucking beautiful.

“You, my love, my wife,” he started to speak, kindly kissing her thighs before he rose to his feet again, “are divine.”

Before Tav could respond, he cupped her face in both hands and pushed his lips to hers, sharing with her a little taste of the divinity she’d granted him. She wrapped her arms around his neck and he broke the kiss, seizing the opportunity to tuck a limb under her knees and pick her up, into his arms.

Astarion carried her to the bed, laying her down carefully and climbing on top of her; she looked so lovely, so perfectly messy with her hair sprawled across the pillow after looking so pristine in its updo. She reached up to remove his jabot as he shrugged off the jacket and quickly worked at the buttons of his shirt, tossing it aside in a hurry; tasting her wasn’t enough, he had to have more, needed to love her in every way he could—it was their wedding night!

He could hardly believe that this day had come at last, that he was married, after centuries of serving his master and being taught how unworthy he was of any sort of kindness, let alone love, something he’d long lost belief in…

The wedding had been her idea from the start, but over time she started to think, though she’d never vocalize it, that he wanted it more than she ever had. It showed, in his excitement when they looked for places to host it, in the countless hours he spent perfecting her dress—he tailored his own attire as well of course, and it came out wonderfully, but he seemed to get through it far sooner and paid more attention to the dress, not a single stitch out of place.

Tav sat up and reached behind her to undo the clasps at the back of the dress, but Astarion grabbed the sides and pulled violently, ripping it at the back and guiding it down, down her stomach and legs and sending it to the floor with his shirt.

“Have you lost your mind? I love that dress! And you spent so much time on it!”

“Darling, every minute I spent working on that dress, I thought of how you’d look on it on this day and how much I’d love tearing it from your body. It suited you perfectly, my love,” he replied, lifting her leg over his shoulder. He showered her with featherlight pecks at her ankle, and continued down, ending with a bruising kiss on her inner thigh that made her squirm. “I could’ve died the moment I saw you in it and lived a happy, satisfied life—it served its purpose, I promise you.”

A few months into their life as newlyweds, after a couple nights tucked away in his study working on another project, Astarion found Tav brushing her hair at the vanity and set a neatly wrapped pink-and-white gift box in front of her.

“Oh? What’s the occasion?” she asked.

“Just open it dear, you’ll see.”

He sat behind her on the stool, legs around hers and pressing his body to her back. As she tugged at the ribbon and unwrapped the box, he wrapped his arms around her and nestled his head into her shoulder, looking ahead to the mirror and attentively watching for her reaction. Tav opened it to find a nightgown, white with familiar embroidery around the edges, short and tight around the waist.

“Is this my wedding dress?”

“Of course it is.”

“You kept it all this time?”

Astarion saw her eyes light up as she held it and turned it over in her hands, admiring how perfectly he’d recreated every thread—the gown looked brand new, as if he’d gotten all new fabric and thread or spent a fortune at a luxury attire shop in the Upper City.

“Much as I enjoyed ripping it apart to unwrap you, I did put a lot of work into it,” he said.

“It’s beautiful, Astarion, just like the first time I saw it.”

Tav sounded like she had to hold back tears just from seeing it, like she’d expected it to be lost forever; he found delight in her surprise, as if he’d gotten away with a crime with how she somehow never noticed or suspected what he was working on in his study.

“Get changed,” he ordered quietly, lips to her ear. “I’ll tear it off you again and again, starting with tonight.”

His hands lingered on her body as she stood and stepped aside, then his gaze remained set on her as she undressed and pulled the gown over her head. He studied how it draped over her breasts and hugged her waist and fuck, he didn’t want to wait another fucking moment; he reached out and pulled her right back, into his lap and into hungry kisses on her neck.

“Astarion,” she murmured, already succumbing to his touch, “you didn’t even allow me a minute to see myself in it…”

“One minute then, love,” he said, and he meant it—one minute.

He lifted her by the waist, standing and pushing her forward until her palms rested on the vanity and she could see her reflection, unseen fingers raising the gown’s hem at her thighs. Tav rotated what little she could in his grasp, carefully pulling at it and observing how well it complemented her figure.

Astarion ran his hands softly along the sides of her hips, her waist, then leaned forward, pressing his hardening length to her backside. In the mirror, he saw how her face flushed, how the thin fabric appeared to magically rise from her body from his hand cupping her breast, how her head tilted back to where his would be as his other clenched around her throat.

“Look at you, I’ve hardly even touched you yet,” he teased, her swallow budging against his grip.

“I thought about this all day,” she choked out, an alluring confession that made it difficult for him to keep what little patience he had left.

“Did you?”

His hand to her neck loosened and let her free as he unbuttoned his shirt and tossed it aside, his feet shuffling and then deftly slipping off his shoes and socks, too. Every sound and every movement, the rustling of fabric and his cock pushing into her all taunted her as arousal grew from within and yearned for what she’d been fantasizing of, now barely out of reach—

“I was waiting for you,” she said quietly, pushing her ass back into him, desperate to feel all his cock against her skin, bare, frustrated at the paltry pieces of fabric still separating them. “For you to be done in your study.”

“Did you see me between your legs?” Astarion whispered, nipping at her ear. “Or did you think of us like this—me bending you over this vanity, fucking you so well that you can’t walk tomorrow?”

Gods, she couldn’t fucking take it anymore, how he dragged it out until she could think of nothing else—then, he lowered the straps and kissed her from shoulder to shoulder before grabbing at the neckline and pulling, throwing the gown down to her feet in one violent motion; a demand, a fervent need to have her.

“Astarion! Be kinder to it this time,” she warned, but her threats carried little weight as he knew he held her in his hand, wound tightly around his slender fingers for him to contort.

“Absolutely not,” he argued. “My dear, you forget I’ve mastered this craft. I’ll fix it right up, every time.”

Tav whimpered, grieving the presence of his cock when he stepped back and began unfastening his pants. She turned to face him, guiding him backwards until he met the bed and sat, her following and hovering over him, easing him further back. She finished undressing him, fingers dipping under the waistband of his pants and underwear and sliding them over each limb before crawling forward and taking her seat in his lap.

“Good,” Astarion said as Tav ground her hips against his and slid her cunt along his aching cock, drowning it in the slick dripping between her thighs, and drawing a low growl from his mouth amid his words. “I want to see your face.”

Her palms on his shoulders tensed, nails prodding at his skin and threatening to break it as she adjusted, aligning her body with his and, in disciplined motions made to boil his blood with the rising heat of his impatience, taking in only the head of his cock. The tension among them almost caught flame—each provoking the other until someone broke.

Astarion slid his arms behind her back and covered her mouth with his in a ravenous, needy kiss, tongue laving over the outline of her upper lip—and when she finally lowered and sat, impaling herself on his terribly hard cock that throbbed for her attention, he groaned and bit at her lip just enough to draw blood and coax a hushed yelp from her throat.

“Ah, you—”

“I know,” he acknowledged, tongue swiping across her bloodied lip. “Mm. Saccharine, sweet like honey. Move, my love, let me watch your pretty face come undone for me.”

He kept his arms on her back, tenderly running up and down with a soothing touch that encouraged her as she gathered her strength and rose, hitting a steady rhythm; he kissed her lips, her cheek, the edges of her jaw, anywhere he could—little marks of encouragement, physical expressions of his love, how well she was doing, how good she was for him.

Tav’s thighs tensed as she fucked herself on him, bouncing on his cock with all she had to give while he watched it disappear inside her, transfixed by the sight. He kissed along her collarbone, down her breast, fangs grazing her supple skin. She gasped and braced herself for his bite, but it never came; he garnished her with harsher kisses, promises of bruises in the morning—little blemishes that marked her as his.

He was wholly enveloped by her, body and mind; her tight, wet heat consuming his cock, the view of her parted mouth and half-shut eyes even more ambrosian than he imagined, and he needed more of it, more of her—Gods, just holding back slightly and allowing her control was testing his limits, he wanted to take her and fucking ruin her.

When her movements slowed and breaths strained, stamina running dry, Astarion trailed his fingers down with a feathery touch down her back, along the curve of her ass, then settled on her hips. His languid movements that of admiration, like she admired the dress—the little dimples in her back, her hip bones poking out, a scar she’d earned from battle that he vividly remembers tending to.

“Give me all of you,” he said, holding tightly and guiding her up to hover at the tip of his cock, eager and beyond pleased to take the lead and fuck her until she couldn’t walk as he vowed earlier. “Your body, your mind—all mine.”

“Astarion, please…”

“Please,” he started, a moan escaping as he harshly brought her body down to his, the slap of her ass on his thighs ringing through his ears, “what, love? Use your words.”

But she threw her head and voiced filthy cries for him instead, incapable of using her words, reduced to a sweaty, whimpering mess from what he was giving her—just his hands on her hips wasn’t enough; he bent his knees for leverage and pushed into her with rough, starving thrusts chasing release. The heavy pants mixed with lascivious moans pouring from her mouth and the scent of their sex and sweat in the air antagonized him, made him thrust into her harder until he couldn’t go any faster or deeper and—

“Don’t—don’t stop,” Tav whined, wet walls of her cunt devouring his cock as she neared the precipice and pulled at his hair and finished, “please, take me, come with me.”

Astarion sank his teeth deep into her neck the instant she said it and drank—she yanked hard on his hair and dug into his skin, her other hand scratching desperately at his back. He was close, so fucking close, he could feel it in her too as her cunt swallowed his cock and he could almost taste it in them both, sucking at her wounds and drawing out more and more blood, rich and thick and rushing past his tongue, then hot and sweet down his famished, dry throat.

He had to force himself to pull away from her neck, exhaling heavily, mourning it; he thrusted up into her once, twice before he broke, release rippling through him—overwhelming every sense, wringing him tight as he held her hips to him and filled her past the brim with come. Tav took his face and tilted upward, smothering him with messy, feral kisses as she came, too, her body writhing over his and constricting around his cock, drawing out all he had until it overflowed and seeped from her slit, dampening the bed below.

“Shit,” she cursed, pushing Astarion—weak and light-headed, as if all the blood he’d taken had simply evaporated—back to the bed and lying on top of him, his spend trickling down her thighs as they uncoupled.

Pale arms wrapped around her and he ran his fingers through her hair with delicate, adoring strokes, kissing the tip of her nose.

As promised, he mended her nightgown the very next day.

After years of blissful domestic living, the pair packed light and set off to travel; see new sights, adventure, reminisce on the journey that brought them together in the first place. The intent was to spend a few years on the road, but outside of the rare trips back home for a short stay, they traveled for decades, caught up in beautiful scenery, mercenary work, and the hope that they might find a cure for the sun or Astarion’s vampirism altogether.

On one visit home, Tav saw herself in the mirror and decided to stay longer than their typical few days or week long breaks. Surrounded by their things and memories of their younger years, her reflection was a harsh confrontation with the reality of her own mortality.

“I miss home,” she said. “And I love seeing the world with you, I do, but I want to stay here for a while.”

Astarion agreed, and they decided to spend a few years in their home in the city before heading back on the road for a final trip. He returned to tailoring in the evenings and she picked up new hobbies: painting, sketching, gardening, whatever she could get her antsy hands on.

A few years turned into more years and then another decade, and Tav no longer craved adventure again, so they remained at home, back to blissful domestic living. Astarion and Tav both missed the thrills and the pretty views many people would never have the chance to behold, but that time had passed.

“I’m too old for that now,” she said.

She grew vegetables and fruit to cook and bake with and took pride in it, and Astarion wished he could sit with her at the table with a full plate of her handmade food in front of him, too. He started cooking more, asking for her help and seizing these small moments of time together that he’d lose one day.

Tav started to leave the house less and spent more time sitting in the living room sketching, or tucked away in a little corner of Astarion’s study she’d made her own with an easel and paints. She drew and painted his face so many times over that he stopped looking in mirrors hoping that would be the time he finally saw his face; he saw it already, and he saw it through her eyes—he couldn’t ask for more.

Mirrors aren’t much use, but being reflected in someone else’s eyes? Well, I could do worse.

No matter how hard he tried, Astarion couldn’t escape the truth of her mortality. He constantly attempted to push the signs, the symptoms away, and convinced himself they’d find a way.

It was easy to brush off, at first. They started following a more humanlike schedule, awake during the day and asleep during the night. He found himself surprisingly accepting of house confinement; by then, the idea of outings were long forgone—the decades they spent out were enough to satiate his own wanderlust, though if Tav were capable and interested in traveling again, he would’ve done it in an instant.

He would’ve done anything she wanted, without question.

At nights, she made herself tea before bed to help her sleep. When she started to retire to their room early without tea, citing exhaustion too fierce to want to stand at the stove beside the kettle for so long, Astarion started making it for her.

And he knew something was very, very wrong.

“Love, you’ve been in that bath for hours, I swear,” he said on one rainy evening after returning home and finding her right where he’d left her.

The dark clouds and early sunset permitted him safety beyond the curtains, and he took advantage, walking a few streets over to pick up a hot meal from her favorite restaurant. Tav turned over in the bath to look at him in the doorway; she smiled and lifted her hands from the water, observing her wrinkly, pruned fingers and giggling.

“I was feeling a bit sore, is all,” she answered. “Don’t you want to get in with me?”

He knelt beside the tub and folded his arms over the rim, meeting her eyes and taking in the sight of her. Tired eyes, tired body, an expression that tried to look happy but something was so clearly missing from it.

“I’m soaked enough from the rain, dear,” he answered. “I brought you dinner, so let’s get you up and dressed, alright? I can bring it to you in bed.”

Astarion helped her out, dressed her and led her to their bed and she looked at him with melancholic eyes that he had to pretend didn’t rend at his heart and soul. After that night, he spent every night helping her with her bath, cooking her dinner (on occasion, picking up dinner from her favorite place again), making her tea, and delivering it all to her in bed on a tray.

He waited on her hand and foot, in every way he knew how. Tav hated asking for help, always trying to do things on her own, and Astarion had to learn how to offer his aid without troubling her—observe silently and learn what she struggled with or what could grant her another stretch of relaxation.

What hurt most was how much she wanted to spend time in the garden on the sunniest days and he felt useless, unable to help. He took her out when possible, when the clouds covered the sun or sunset started and he could don a heavy, dark cloak, but he was never able to take her out on the brightest, happiest days. As an unspoken rule, Tav never went outside when he couldn’t, at least not farther than a few steps—the few that he could take, if need be.

As her condition worsened, Astarion looked for doctors, healers, anyone; he sought out Halsin and Shadowheart and wrote to Gale all for naught. Nothing helped, and she started to fight him on it.

“Please just stay home,” she requested one time, when he’d come to see her in the study with her journal, telling her he’d found yet another healer only a few days travel away that might be able to help. “I’m done with this. I’ve accepted it, and you should, too.”

Accept this? It was awful enough to accept that she wouldn’t live in immortality with him—but to accept that she’d be gone even earlier than he ever anticipated?

The first time Tav stayed in bed a full day was the most harrowing experience of them all. She hadn’t budged; the fatigue piled on more and more each passing day and those feelings of self-loathing and worthlessness bubbled up until she couldn’t feign the happiness anymore and felt like nothing more than a massive, life-sucking burden.

Astarion came to their room with her nightly tea and when she heard him walk in, she yelled at him to stay out.

“I don’t want you to see me like this,” she said.

“Don’t say that. Please,” he begged. “I can’t miss a single moment with you.”

He stayed home at her request; he stopped seeking out help and any hope of a cure, and the tradeoff for that was spending every possible fucking second beside her whether she liked it or not.

Tav said nothing, but her face said enough; she refused to look at him, lips quivering and eyes fluttering holding back tears, and it only made it hurt all the more how she despised him seeing her tired and weak.

Astarion knew this day would come, of course he did, but he didn’t expect it to happen so fast. It all happened so fast! They spent decades on the road and even through all the trials and discomforts of mercenary work and harsh nights sleeping in the cold in forests and fields, wherever they could find, she didn’t seem to age a day.

After they returned home for that short stay that turned into an indefinite stay, the years started to feel like days. He didn’t have to look in a mirror to see and feel how he’d not aged—he felt just as young and spry as he did when they met, but every single fucking day, he looked at her and saw how the time wore on her. She was still beautiful, perfect to him, but he saw the light slowly fade from her and it hurt.

Tav resented that it was her choice to come and remain at home. The shame ate at her, constantly creeping on the edge of her mind, telling her that it was her fault they were trapped here in this little house in the city, that maybe if they’d not come back things would be different, or they could have settled somewhere else, somewhere new, or perhaps, if nothing else, she could’ve died more valiantly.

Astarion laid down with her despite her protests, cradling her and brushing off the tears she finally cried until she had none left to cry, and he thought about how she wept as she read her vows on their wedding night.

“I love you,” he swore. “Now and forever.”

with you,

The little house in the city was always their home, even during the decades they spent abroad adventuring, but after she was gone, he couldn’t stand to live in it anymore. He wouldn’t sell it, either; he couldn’t imagine never again having the option to walk in and envision her cooking in the kitchen or painting in her corner of the study. He simply abandoned it and decided to travel the lands once more, alone.

He went to places they’d already been, remembering things they’d done at each stop—the days they spent huddled in inns or camp, the nights out exploring or heading to their next destination, the battles that almost incited a strange nostalgia for their tadpoled days. Tav adapted to life in the darkness; they still did what they could during the daytime, though options were limited. A cloak worked once sunset was near, but still too dangerous midday. They searched far and wide for remedies, temporary or permanent, and nothing proved fruitful. Even Gale researched when he could.

Astarion visited him first at his tower in Waterdeep.

Seeing him was a sharp punch in the gut. Of course Tav had aged, but it was gradual, it happened so slowly and yet so quickly; her sickness was the true brutal awakening. But Gale—he hadn’t seen Gale in decades and it was almost a shock, even though he knew better, to see the wizard so… old, so wrinkled.

“Gods, you’ve seen better days,” he said.

“And you’re still seeing your best ones,” Gale replied, but he had it wrong.

Astarion was seeing his worst days, and he questioned whether it was the right time to leave, whether he should’ve stayed behind and waited in their home until he’d worked through it all. But he wasn’t sure when that would be, and he couldn’t tolerate living there anymore with her things on the wall, on the shelves, in their room, all constant little reminders of how he’d never see her again.

It was an endless torment that trailed close behind him on his travels, because as much as Astarion hated seeing all these pieces of her, he didn’t want to let go, either. He left behind much of his own stuff, but carried around that nightgown he’d sewn from her wedding dress.

Gale kept him for a couple weeks until he was ready to move on. It was nice to see a familiar face. That first night, they sat at the table and reminisced of old times for hours and the sweet outweighed the bitter.

Gale didn’t ask about Tav, not until Astarion mentioned her. Perhaps he already knew.

“I buried her,” Astarion said unprompted. “A few weeks ago.”

“She was good for you.”

“Too good, in fact. I never deserved—”

“Stop right there,” Gale interrupted, raising his palm. “She loved you more than anything.”

There was a long pause, a heavy silence in the air as Astarion carefully considered what to say next, as images of their life together ran through his mind like a slideshow. Gods, would he ever escape them?

“I don’t know how to move on.”

“You’ll learn, I assure you. You must. For her sake and yours.”

Months later, he settled at an inn and when he unpacked and came across her nightgown again, he looked it over in his hands and something about it this time was different. Instead of the pain, he saw her wearing the dress at their wedding under the flowered arch and then splayed across their bed in the gown, watching him closely and waiting for him to join her.

He hardly tranced and spent sunrise to sunset tearing at the seams and separating the fabric. The next day, he drew up new patterns. For the next week, he spent the days in a chair by the fireplace sewing it back together. He pulled extra fabric and thread he saved from when he transformed it into a nightgown, having held on to every single piece of it from the start, and he used nothing new at all, yet the resulting clothing didn’t resemble the dress or the gown one bit, except in color.

Astarion held it up in the air once he’d finished stitching and to anyone else it must’ve looked like a simple, white shirt—albeit a bit eccentric—but when he held it close to his face, he swore he could smell her again.

For months, he’d searched far and wide for the perfect fabric for the dress, and for more months, he sat in his study and cut and sewed, dreaming of the day he’d finally see her wear it and Gods, when he saw her walk that aisle it was even more beautiful than he ever anticipated.

He was proud of it. More proud than he’d ever been of anything, possibly.

He thought of how he tore it off her body that night, literally tore it apart at the seams—and then, he remembered the time he pieced it back together into a nightgown and she chastised him for ripping it yet again, but he sewed it back together the next day; he tore it from her countless times and fixed it in the mornings every time, all because she loved it so much.

He wore the shirt everyday. He continued traveling with it and washed it far more carefully than he ever handled any other garment, and eventually, when he was no longer sure where he’d like to go next, he stopped by Gale’s again to stay a few weeks, knowing it might be the last time they met.

When he told Gale the history of the shirt and received a warm smile of understanding in return, Astarion thought he might be ready to go back home.

always.

Astarion finds their home how he left it, though with a thick layer of dust coating their furniture and possessions. He heads to their room first to unpack his bags. On her nightstand lies an old, dusty book; her journal. He avoided it for so long.

He wipes off the cover and turns the pages. Scribbles, notes, even quick sketches—of animals, of scenes from the city, of him. He flips through the book until his eyes settle on a page covered in her writing.

I’m scared. Any healer we speak to says it can’t be cured. That I’ll

He stops reading and skips to the end, the last page. Shaky, imperfect writing that’s a harsh contrast to the page he just read, but unmistakably hers. Written in her final days, when she became too weak to keep drawing and filling pages with her thoughts and spent the majority of her days in bed.

Love lasts forever, even if the body does not. I’ll always be here, my love.

#baldur's gate 3 #bg3 #bg3 astarion #astarion #astarion x tav #tav x astarion #astarion fanfic #bg3 fanfiction #my fanfic #bg3 smut #astarion x f!tav

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introverted-scribblings · 10 months

Text

The RFA w/ MC who loves sewing

What? A post? From me? You're crazy, there's no way that's happening.

I'm trying to get back into writing for this blog and recently started replaying Mystic Messenger because I want poor sleep 💕 Basically I'm letting my fixation fuel my writing because... the sentence ends there.

Enjoy these headcanons! I thought they turned out really cute~

(FYI: I used fem!MC for these headcanons; girlfriend/wife/etc.)

Yoosung:

He found out in the RFA chatroom when the two of you were talking about games and hobbies.

Yoosung had been excitedly telling you about the armor set he had gotten in his latest LOLOL binge, sending a picture and saying how he wishes he could wear cool armor in real life.

“I can make it for you”

“MC… what???”

And this is where he discovered your passion for sewing and your side-hobby of cosplay

He had a little experience with sewing, he could sew on a button and fix small tears thanks to his high school “home ec” classes, but you’re talking about making entire outfits and costumes from scratch.

THAT’S. SO. COOL.

He is amazed and thoroughly impressed by your talents, even moreso after you send some pictures of your completed works.

It’s amazing that you can make your own clothes, but he’s definitely super impressed with your cosplays. They’re insanely detailed, matching perfectly with the source material. He often says that your cosplays look better than the source material. They’re true works of art in his eyes.

Praises your talents nonstop.

Talks about it all the time to everyone. Every one of his friends knows how skilled his girlfriend is. And the other RFA members know tenfold.

After hearing you talk about your projects, Yoosung decided to join the sewing club at school in the hopes that he could help you with your amazing work! (Not that you need help, he really just wants to participate in something you love)

What ends up happening though is him sitting beside you at the sewing machine and getting lost in your working rhythm. (“Yoosung, are you paying attention? I thought you wanted me to give you tips?” “S-sorry, MC!! You’re just… really good at this… Like magic!”)

There’s no way he’ll be able to catch up with your skill anytime soon, so you compromise with him. You’ll make the costumes, but he has to cosplay with you~

(I have a short fic continuation of this! You can read it here)

Zen:

He found out just before one of his performances.

The costume he was wearing was a bit snug but worked fine in all the dress rehearsals, so he didn’t think much of it at the time.

You were backstage with him before opening night, ready to tell him to break a leg and give the audience a show to remember, when you saw the rip in his jacket.

It was a seam rip behind his left shoulder. Not the worst, but clearly noticeable.

Curtain was in ten minutes.

“Hyun, take off your costume.”

“Jagyia, I know I’m irresistible, but can you wait until after the show?”

“Not like that!!!” >////<

You pulled a flat black case from your purse and opened it, revealing a small sewing kit. You had everything you needed for a sewing emergency. Pins, buttons, snaps, scissors, an assortment of colored thread. And needles, of course.

You fixed the rip and strengthened the seam with four minutes to spare.

Zen asks you about it after the show (which went perfectly, thanks to you) and you explain your sewing hobby to him. Mentioning that you always have your little sewing kit with you for emergencies like tonight.

You show him pictures of the projects you’ve made and entire outfits you’ve designed and created from scratch. A good chunk of your wardrobe are pieces you’ve made yourself.

Of course he supports you! He’s so impressed and is constantly gushing about how talented you are in the chatroom.

Though nothing could prepare him for the moment you said you wanted to make something for him. Looking up at him with big hopeful eyes as you asked if he’d let you design him an outfit. His heart nearly burst.

You poured hours of time and effort into these pieces for him, determined to make this your best project yet. Your magnum opus. (You also sent concept sketches and fabric swatches to Jaehee for her “professional fan opinion”)

When he put it on for the first time, he was speechless. Everything fit perfectly, there wasn’t a part of the outfit that was uncomfortable in the slightest.

And he may be a bit of a narcissist, but he swore that the clothes you crafted made him more handsome than he thought possible. He looked good but never this good.

Your heart was filled with sunshine and warmth when he decided to wear it to an interview.

“My outfit? It’s custom-made. My girlfriend is a very talented seamstress and this was a gift from her~”

Jaehee:

She found out when she called you to complain about the c-fur she was still cleaning up around her apartment.

“Ugh, I’m sorry, Jaehee. I know how bad that can get. I took care of my friend’s cat for a weekend once and I spent an entire month cleaning fur off all my fabric.”

Your fabric?? “What fabric, MC?”

The fabric for your projects of course! Once she got you started, you happily explained your passion to her and how you’ve been making your own clothes for a while now too.

She is also very impressed with your skill and also impressed with how handy it is. You very generously offered to mend her favorite blazer when one of the seams split. You also fixed the two loose buttons you found.

When you two open up the cafe together, you made Jaehee a custom apron to wear. Even going so far as to embroider her name on it along with some decorative coffee beans.

It’s her favorite apron and the one she wears the most while working. (until it has to be cleaned, but then it’s right back in the cafe for her to use)

It gets a lot of compliments too and you’ve actually had a few customers commission you from Jaehee’s (unintentional) promoting.

You since made more clothes for her, even an entire sundress similar to one she had been looking at while you both were out shopping. (You didn’t think the one sold was her color, so you made one yourself that would highlight her best~)

The only issue is the thread and fabric scraps that tend to scatter just as bad as the c-fur… but hey, at lease the end result is more useful! And she can always count on you to tidy your mess when you’re finished~

Jumin:

You mentioned it offhand. Simply mentioning the stitching quality on one of his ties and how you hadn’t made a tie before.

He followed up asking why you would want to make a tie, to which you explained that you often made your own clothes but would love to give yourself a little challenge with something you hadn’t done before.

Initially, he didn’t quite understand. He could easily have any outfit you desired tailored specifically for you, there wasn’t the need to go through all the hassle of making it.

You had to explain that it was your hobby. That, while time consuming and occasionally tedious, you truly enjoyed making your own clothes, and showed him some examples from your closet.

“I’m quite impressed, MC. I’ve only seen this kind of quality come out of trained professionals.”

“I’ll take that compliment. Thank you, love~”

He gives you an entire studio for your projects. While you insist that he doesn’t need to give you so many elaborate gifts, you have to admit that the space is very nice. Much better than working in cramped conditions or on the floor.

While Jumin doesn’t have an interest in joining your craftiness, your husband is more than willing to encourage your hobby monetarily with machine repairs and high quality materials.

Whatever you want, you can have. You’re his darling wife after all.

He even gifted you an antique sewing machine, a vintage 1902 Singer Treadle. You don’t “use” it, but you learned how to just for fun. It’s a lovely decoration of your hobby at the least.

And, yes, you did make a tie for him. Two actually, but you only gave him the second one, insisting that the first was practice only.

It quickly becomes his favorite and he always wears it to important meetings. It’s like having you right there with him for support.

It also becomes quite the talking piece at one of the RFA parties when a member of the Cultured Citizens asks about the brand and price.

“This tie was handmade by my wife and is certainly priceless.”

707:

He already knew because of course he did.

He would often send you (jokingly) ridiculous “orders” with impossible time frames, including:

An iridescent “Statue of Liberty” costume - 3 days

Twenty-seven onesies for ducks - 4 days

A prom dress made of pasta - 3 days

An overnight yeti costume

The two of you would banter about it in the chatroom until someone told you guys to knock it off, it was never not fun.

Whenever you finished a new piece or outfit for yourself, you would try it on and call him while standing in front of the camera in the apartment, asking for his opinion.

The cat-themed overall skirt was the one that broke him. You were just so cute with all the decorated pockets~! And the buttons looked like little cats too! You’re just too precious~

After the dust of the first party settled and Saeyoung had his brother back, you took it upon yourself to make Saeran some new clothes. He was going to be your brother-in-law, after all, you wanted to make him feel welcome.

Of course, it then turned into making both boys some new clothes as you kept thinking of new ideas. Not that you minded, this was your passion after all.

I think Saeyoung would also give you your own room/studio in the bunker. A place where you could spread out without worry. (Vanderwood was just grateful he didn’t have to keep cleaning up thread)

Saeyoung was also happy to help with any repairs your sewing machine needed, or he’d just make you a new one… or three… with some—interesting—added features.

“Saeyoung, dear, I don’t think my machine needs a Ph.D Pepper dispenser.”

“But what if my honey gets thirsty while she works?!”

“...But won’t the sewing shake up all the carbonation? It would explode on my pretty clothes T^T”

“OMG! I’m so sorry!! I’ll take it out right away!!”

This kind of conversation happens regularly.

Eventually, there was one top-secret project that you were working on… one that you made Saeyoung swear not to snoop through. Even going so far as to have Saeran keep an eye out to make sure his brother stayed true to his word. (He did but he whined about it)

The project took a long time and you had to have Saeran help you order the materials in secret.

Saeyoung didn’t like being kept in the dark, it made him uneasy. You assured him it was okay and that you just didn’t want the surprise to be ruined.

He was still uneasy, but he trusted you.

And it was all worth it in the end…

When you walked down the aisle in your handmade wedding dress, glittering and shining like stars in the night sky you both loved so much.

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whiteskullofroses · 10 months

Note

Hi! I saw that you accept request for Baldwin IV. If you do still accept, could you pls write one where y/n and Baldwin would stay up too late talking to each other until one falls asleeps? Thanks 💕

Hi there thank you for the request! And to clarify, you can always request any characters you want❤️ Enjoy!

LATE NIGHT TALK

Baldwin Iv x reader

It was a cold night in Jerusalem. You were walking around the palace gazing up at the stars and thinking about life when all of a sudden, a familiar voice grabbed your attention: "Y/N!" He called out to you from his room. It was all lit up with candles so you could see his shape clearly: "Care to join me?" The young king's voice sounded so energetic, even though it was already midnight. You answered: "With pleasure!" And happily headed out to his quarters.

Once you reached the hallway that led to his room, you noticed that the door was already opened for you but still, you knocked on the wood to make your presence known.

He turned from his desk to look at you. His mask shone from the candles around him and made his blue eyes sparkle.

"Care for a round?" Baldwin gestured towards the chess set and sat down at the table. "Y/n" Sitting down and listening to his words "I've missed you tonight. I rarely see you these days."

You smiled and replied: "Work has been incredibly tiring," taking a sip of some wine a servant poured: "I've hardly found any time for friends."

Baldwin leaned closer to you: "Well now it's the time. Relax."

You started the chess game and asked: "How come weren't you at the banquet last Monday?"

The King moved a pawn and sighed: "I had an unexpected meeting which I couldn't miss."

Nodding, you moved on since you didn't want to trouble him with hard topics so late in the night.

"Have you read any new poetry lately?" Asking him like you always do, you always loved to listen to him talk about the things he was passionate about, one of them being literature.

Whether it be myths from across Europe containing dragons and other mystical beings or poetry that many saw as simple, however from a trained eye's perspective it was true art projected onto paper.

"Yes, I've read this wonder piece from a book from France Preseren called 'Poezije'" Grabbing the book from a nearby chair and flipping through it, Baldwin proclaimed: "Would you like to hear it?"

"I'd love to, Baldwin." You supported your head with your elbow on the table, as the late hours of the night cut into your brains. "Where did you get it from?"

"I believe I got this book as a gift from my sister when she visited Carniola."

Finally, he started reading, his voice soft as ever:

Fresh flowers will spread fragrance far and near,

Like roses when the winter's passed away.

Your eyelids became heavier and heavier with every word he spoke:

And spring displays its marvelous array,

While through the trees white scattered blossoms peer

Your breathing became deeper, with waves of relaxation washing through your body. All of a sudden you felt like you were 10 years old again, when your mother used to read you books to help you fall asleep.

All this time away from your parents and away from your childhood made you forget how soothing it was and how much you enjoyed it.

Baldwin continued reading the poem whilst you were drifting off into peaceful sleep, right there on his 'chess table'.

He hardly noticed you falling asleep right opposite to him as he was focusing on the text he was reading. But when he finished reading the poem and looked up from the book, he realized you slept through half of it.

He chuckled to himself. Baldwin wasn't mad or annoyed with you, rather he felt a sort of fulfillment that he managed to get you to fall asleep.

For a moment he just sat there, staring at you. You didn't know it at the time but he admired you deeply. For your intelligence and your beauty. He found that this was one of the times he could truly silently look at you and not feel bad about it.

Whenever he would catch himself gazing upon you he would get this guilt deep in his chest. He felt as though it was appropriate for him to look at you when the two of you were just colleagues.

So he slowly walked up to you and carefully picked you up. Walking up to his bed and laying you down in the middle, he knew he couldn't sleep there that night, that would be simply too much.

He decided to go and spend the night in the guest room. Just as he was about to leave your side, you woke up and grabbed him by the wrist, gently but enough so he could feel it.

"Baldwin, stay."

THE END.

#baldwin iv #baldwin iv x reader #kingdom of heaven

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a-d-nox · 8 months

Note

Hi I read your post about vertex persona chart and the part you said to save it and check the astroclick travel map to see where we are meant to travel and why or where can we feel at home

So I'd like to ask how can we do that? Can you make a post of how to read the lines please? Thanks

how to convert your vertex persona to an astromap and some observations for when you read this astromap

first get the persona chart

on astro.com go to the "extended chart selection" page, for "chart type" use the "persona chart" option, click the big green "show the chart" button, the vertex is already preloaded in the options so use the drop down to select "vertex", finally click the "go!" button next to your name.

now convert the chart into a map

click the "save" button, two options will appear - click "add to 'my astro'", a pop-up message will say it is added to your collection - use the "click here" hyperlink to bring you the vertex persona's "extended chart selection" page, click on the plus button in the "horoscope for" box, two options will appear - click the "edit" button, select any gender aside from the preselected "event/other" so the astromap can be formed (because it requires a gender to become a map), click the green "continue" button, click on the three lines in the upper right corner for the side menu to appear, click the "locational astrology" section, two options will appear - click "astroclick travel", and you are there!!

on to the observations!

☆ sun/dc line can make you feel like you where bound to meet people who give you genuine attention

☆ sun/mc line can show you where you feel the most yourself and/or will help you realize who you are / who you want to be

☆ moon/ac line will show you where you want to settle down and make a house a home

☆ moon/ic line can show where you reconnect with your mother and/or make you feel vulnerable like a child

☆ moon/mc and/or the vertex persona's 4h ruler / mc line will show you where you are meant feel right at home - you are likely to adjust well to the change of scenery too

☆ when you visit a mercury line you feel like it is fate that brought you there - things might weirdly line up, you might have important conversations, and/or meet important people

☆ mars/ic lines are where you tend to make a lot of impulsive decisions that lead you towards your fate

☆ mars/mc is where you can really get to work on a passion project of yours

☆ mars zenith is where your passions can become your career - your ambition will serve you well

☆ jupiter lines tend to make you feel happy, fulfilled, and lucky

☆ uranus/asc and/or uranus/mc lines are where your fan base is majorly from and/or where you can amass a lot of followers

☆ uranus/ic lines are where you can be your most free and authentic self

☆ uranus/dc lines are where unexpected huge life changes occur

☆ neptune/dc is where your dreams can come true

☆ neptune/mc is where you will transcend this lifetime

☆ pluto/dc lines are where a lot of people are obsessed with you

like what you read? leave a tip and state what post it is for! please use my "suggest a post topic" button if you want to see a specific post or mythical asteroid next!

click here for the masterlist

click here for more related to planetary & object persona chart information

want a personal reading? click here to check out my reading options and prices!

#astrology #astro community #astro placements #astro chart #asteroid astrology #natal chart #persona chart #astrology tumblr #astrology chart #natal astrology #astrology readings #astrology blog #astrocartography #astro notes #astro observations #astroblr #vertex persona chart #vertex

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wildflower-otome · 2 months

Text

[Translation] Shuuen no Virche - Creator Interview: Misa Yoshida

Shuuen no Virche -ErroR:salvation- Official Visual Fanbook Creator Interview

Director | Misa Yoshida

About the project

—First, please tell us how the idea for this project began.

My previous work “Tlicolity Eyes” was undeniably a bright and happy title with no bad ends, but thinking to myself, ‘I wonder what would happen if I did something the complete opposite?’ was the inspiration for this one. I wanted to make something that was thoroughly tragic with bad ends. I also had the thought that I wanted to make a title with “grim reaper” as the motif, and the image of the game grew from there.

—Now that the game has been released, were there any big changes from the initial plan?

Before creating the project plan, I always make rough notes, but it really did change quite a lot from my initial concept (that didn’t even make it into the project plan). It had a strong science fiction vibe and was set in a technologically advanced near future world where people continued to live on via ‘memory download.’ The main character was a real grim reaper, and held the power of life and death over ‘men whose existence was inconvenient to this world’.....that was the story. After I wrote it into my notes, I had second thoughts, thinking, ‘No no, this is getting overly complicated!’ and eventually settled on the storyline we have now.

Another thing was that I had definitely wanted Yomi-san for the original art from the beginning, so when I thought of ‘What kind of art did I want to see from Yomi-san?’, I imagined a Western fantasy, that was also a primary factor that caused changes from the initial idea.

—What did you want to place most importance on when creating the game?

What I most wanted to place importance on was how the keywords for this work, “despair” and “salvation” applied to the characters. It must be hard for the players as they see these characters feel pain, joy and sorrow, laugh, despair and experience salvation.....that said, I believe we have brought across the greatest possible despair and salvation they could arrive at from their personalities and situations.

Apart from that, the other thing I wanted to do was to absolutely not use the word ‘happy end.’ When each end is presented, it was done so the words ‘despair end’ and ‘salvation end’ were used in place of ‘bad end’ and ‘good end.’ There is no such thing as an all-out happy ending, that was something I couldn’t compromise on.

—Please tell us if you experienced any difficulties that you can talk about now.

More so than it being difficult, there was a lot of pressure since it was the first time Yomi-san was creating original art for Otomate, but right now as I think about it looking back, 90% of the development period was a tough time. However, back then I was full of adrenaline so I didn’t really realise it myself. It was a sad state of affairs that I realised only when those around me said, ‘You sure went through a lot!’ (laughs). It must have been that the fun I was having was greater than the hardship.

About the visuals

—How was Yomi-san chosen for the role of character design?

From the beginning of planning this project, I felt that I “didn’t want to make the characters feel fictional.” When I saw other works that Yomi-san had created the original art for, from the expressions to their fingertips, they all looked so ‘real’ and unexaggerated I was captivated. Even since then I kept thinking I would like to have Yomi-san work on some original art someday.....I suppose I can say now I did the planning with the feeling of a passionate one-sided love (laughs). After that, my wish miraculously came true when I was coincidentally blessed with the opportunity to get in touch with her.

—Please tell us about how the characters were created.

For the most part, all I did was tell Yomi-san the character’s basic information, their circumstances and situation up until the beginning of the story, along with the essential elements for the character (for example, for Yves it is his mask, Mathis, having a pale complexion from spending all his time inside, and clothes that were easy to move in for Adolphe) and then leaving the rest to her. The characters were mostly exactly as I imagined right from the first draft, so I think now in that respect I was fairly spoiled. What I remember even now is that at the very first meeting I was asked, ‘If possible, I’d like a chronological table’ and that it made me feel even more determined to make these characters feel life-like.

-Is there anything that changed from your initial plans for the story because of ideas that came about during the character design stage?

There were quite a few, but the one who had an especially important addition was Lucas. The weapon for Bourreau was originally to be only a short sword, but the first design Yomi-san submitted, which had him carrying a spear, looked so very cool we ended up having it become a halberd. I asked that it be designed so that it could fold up much like a three sectioned staff so it wouldn’t be a problem when it came to running around and sneaking into the mansions of Shudie.

—I think one of the standout points for this game is how the fashion suits the setting’s worldview. How did you decide on things like what accessories the characters wore?

When it came to characters that were close to the research institute and the center of Arpéchéle, I requested that there be a strong cyber influence. Scien and Mathis’s outfits would be the ones where this is most obvious. Because Arpéchéle is a closed country, I asked for a gothic design for characters who aren’t close to the center. Therefore, for that reason, Ceres, Yves, Lucas and Adolphe, the characters that live in the common district, don’t have a single cyber element. Mathis is in the middle point as far as the ratio between cyber and gothic go, so for him Yomi-san and I compared and contrasted the designs together and used that as a base thereafter. The cyber feel for this game uses electronic circuits as the image, so I had her use that as part of the designs.

—Please tell us if there was anything you paid particular attention to when it came to the general flow and direction of the event CG’s.

There were many times where I would hand over some truly rough notes along with the scenario and mood to Yomi-san and entrust the rest to her. Basically, the same as with the character designs.... Whenever there were any points she was unclear on, she would always ask questions, so production progressed without any worries on my end. She would draw everything as I wanted right down to the finer details so most of the CG’s were done in one go, without any need for retakes.

—Are there any CG’s that you are particularly fond of?

I am fond of all of them so it’s hard to choose. The first salvation end in the third act in which Ankou gives Ceres the flower bouquet, or the one with Adolphe and Ceres smiling at each other in the field of white lycoris....after much thought, if I absolutely had to pick one, perhaps it would be Mathis’s smile at the end of his salvation end. As per the title, the game is quite serious with many dark scenes, however I feel like this bright CG with its white and yellow colours most suits the words ‘beneath the light of the sun.’ It felt as if it was expressing a single ray of light shining down on their future, no matter how many troubles were to await them from there on, so I remember not being able to help breathing a sigh because I was so moved the first time I saw it.

—What points regarding character settings did you not want to compromise on?

I am repeating myself, but it would be that they are “living humans.” Although it is a story with the unique set up of ‘memory downloads’ and ‘relivers’, for better or worse, the characters of Arpéchéle, including the ones without sprites, are all human-like existences who fall in love, hate others, want to protect the ones important to them, make compromises, and fear and loathe the things that they cannot understand. “Life” is one of its most important themes, so when it came to portraying humans who are its vessels, I was conscious of the fact it was something I couldn’t treat as unimportant.

—Please tell us if there were any particular aims and themes you had when it came to character settings, interesting inside stories during production or ideas that were rejected partway through.

Ceres

The line “Dear God, I have killed many people” that was used in the first promotional video was what I came up with for her at the beginning and is where her image grew from, making her development process perhaps a little different from the other characters. Ceres’s image flower is the immortelle, small yellow flowers which mean ‘undying love’ and ‘immortality’ in flower language, and that was how I decided her character.....but it came to me later that yellow certainly has a cheerful image.

Her original personality is that of a bright normal girl who smiles often, but she grows melancholy after she starts being called a grim reaper, I would be happy if she could become the kind of main character you would want to cheer on as she regains her original self through her interactions with the other characters.

Yves

Speaking from a variety of different points, his image was that of a ‘traditional knight.’ Due to his burns, Yves lost the ability to feel pain, was abandoned by his parents and treated as a monster. So that those around him would love him, he had no choice but to become a ‘knight-like existence whom everyone would seek out and depend on.’ That said, even knights are human too, so course I think he would still have his own worries and trials. Because there is no such thing as a perfect knight like in the stories, one is all the more human and beautiful for being imperfect. Yves’s burns are also the result of the human-like emotion of ‘wanting to save a single girl from a fire.’ I believe that such scars are a symbol of beauty, not ugliness. Speaking of behind-the-scenes stories, the first design image that Yomi-san came up with is now the vigilante corps uniform. The inner shirts and trousers are the members’ personal clothes.

Lucas Proust

I received various opinions regarding his salvation end, but a person who took away so many lives must be punished…..that was the point I absolutely could not concede on. Lucas dislikes when things are not done the proper way, so the rule I decided on was that he would not use casual abbreviated verb forms in his speech. The only time he purposely deviates from that rule is when he says, ‘I love you too,’ just before credits roll for the salvation end. Completely abandoning the version of himself that those around him had wanted, and the rules he had decided for himself, we see that he is finally able to face Ceres head on as his true self, I think that this was a scene with a lot of impact. By the way, the daggers he stabbed into the hearts he extracted were modelled after crosses (they are also shaped like them too!).

Mathis Claude

For me, he was the first character whose setting I had firmly decided on. Because he is an irregular existence who is neither human nor a reliver, I believe we were able to write a story that displayed Arpéchéle’s twisted way of life and view on romance from a different perspective. We weren’t able to have it come up in the game, but the idea was because he keeps his knife hidden behind his right thigh, he has rather bad manners when sitting on chairs, sitting with his arms up around raised knees like a gym student. That said, if we had included it, it would mean having to keep writing scenes where Jean or one of the other characters tell him off each time, so it was with a heavy heart I decided not to. His character tagline is ‘The man spurning his fate to forgive’, but the hidden story behind that becomes pure humans ‘do ○○’ and the character who wasn’t ‘did ○○.’ I thought that it would be nice if people were able to notice this after finding out Mathis’s true identity as a homunculus.

Scien Brofiise

I spoke about this on the official blog, but initially he was a character that spoke politely in front of his subordinates. But as he is now, he is certainly not the kind of man to worry about appearances (laughs). He is said to be someone that can resolve almost anything, but it must be remembered that is only in cases where a cause has been established, and it is something that has caught Scien’s interest, in the game those conditions just so happened to come together. He does not involve himself at all in things he isn’t interested in, or that go against his personal principles.

By the way, as he is the only character that fights barehanded, I imagined his fighting style to be similar to savate (TL note: french kickboxing). Seen from the point of view that it is something he started doing and learnt on his own initiative, it’s sort of like he just so happened to pick up the skill as he trained in self-defence from being targeted so often. Speaking of which, although he is a short sleeper and rarely sleeps in front of others, once you have his trust, he will sleep while leaning on your shoulder.

Adolphe

Truth be told, right up until the end Adolphe was the character whose setting I had most trouble deciding on. It is mentioned in the story, but since he is the only one amongst the characters who is able to live longer than 23 years, he is the character most similar to the viewers. As I pondered on how to make sure such a character held his own amongst the others, I thought there was no other choice but to turn the tables and make him “normal.” If you think about it, dying at the age of 23 in and of itself isn’t normal, and so once I arrived at the conclusion that the existence of such a person in that situation would become special, the rest of his characterization followed on very smoothly.

People were rather surprised with regards to Adolphe’s intonation, but the reason for it was because I wanted it to be one point in common for ‘Adolphe = Ankou.’ Incidentally, as he has spent such a long time living at the institution and on his own, he is the most able cook amongst all the main characters.

Ankou

I believe there are people who may have realized this, but the origin of his name is that of the grim reaper spoken of in the Brittany region of France, which is why I had him appear in the prologue scenes of the first and second acts wearing the wide brimmed hat and cloak from the legends. Even now when it comes to Ankou, I feel an indescribable emotion. Actually, the original plan for his setting was even more beyond saving. He had continued to fight for the sake of Ceres’s smile, but after spending so long despairing he grows twisted and his greatest wish instead becomes for him and Ceres to die together. In order for that wish to come true he tries to have her make the wrong answer when it comes to Arpéchéle’s curse…..that was the plan, but it was too dark so we changed a lot of things partway through. The title ‘Shuuen’ (eternal demise) bears various meanings, but one of them is in reference to Ankou. When I was directing Ankou’s final scene in the third act, even now I have a strong memory of praying all the while that he would rest peacefully.

Salome

I received a lot of comments saying, ‘Even just her name is scary!’ (laughs) I believe the Salome everyone is thinking of is the one who was written as a villainess in the play (TL note: Oscar Wilde’s play ‘Salome’), but actually it is the one from the Bible that I had in mind. In the play, she is the one to ask for Jokanaan’s head herself, but in the Bible she asks for it because her mother, who holds a grudge against Jokanaan, commands her to, she is being used by those around her. I borrowed her name thinking that it was similar to the way [Salome from the game] is betrayed by her own relatives, the royal family. No matter what kind of life one lived, it may become something different in posterity depending on other people’s interpretations and hearsay, I think she became a character with that kind of story.

Perhaps getting off topic, but the one to douse Bourreau with sulphuric acid in the fifth chapter of the common route was Salome. She had been following them with the thought of helping Ceres and the others should anything happen, and took action once she realised Bourreau was still able to move. The words, ‘You let your guard down too easily’ were directed towards Ceres and Adolphe.

Hugo

The one person who clearly hates Ceres for being Death. In a different way from Adolphe, he is a man with normal emotions who is afraid to have the girl said to bring death next to the people he is close with, but because he seems to have lived for a long time it is not easy for him to say so openly. I think once you become an adult it gets difficult to tell the person you hate to their face that you hate them. I really did receive a lot of feedback on the emotions that he holds, and there were many things I was made to rethink.

Speaking of background information, he talks about having younger sisters in the game, but he actually has an older brother, making for four siblings in total. His reliver mark is on his back, with the meaning of bearing a household, his older brother also has his in the same spot.

Dahut

As an existence who would not even have been born in a world in a country with a lifespan of 18 years, because of his appearances throughout the second act, to Ankou he could be called an ‘error.’ He is the mastermind behind everything but if not for Dahut, Arpéchéle’s citizens would likely have continued to live closed off from the world, not realising its abnormality as a nation until the day they were invaded by other countries.

His background is that he has a younger appearance than his peers due to the stress he endured when he was younger, but Dahut doesn’t see this as a bad thing and instead uses it as a tool so that those around him will dote on him (let their guard down).

Nadia Proust

‘How could such a thing happen to such a good girl…..’, I received a lot of comments such as these and truth be told, I also agree. To the point that I was racking my brains when coming up with the plot trying to think of a way she could be saved. However, making up my mind that it wouldn’t be ShuuViru if I wrote something so convenient, I decided on that ending.

The scene where Nadia is set free in Lucas’s salvation ending was revised to be as it is at a truly late stage towards the end of development. I believe that it perhaps expresses the scene title ‘Blade of Release’ in the fullest possible way.

It is a regret of mine that we were not able to have a sprite of an older Nadia in the third act.

Capucine

Being the founder of the Exorcist religious organisation while also holding the position of a doctor, nowadays I think he really was a troublesome character. Because he deals with patients out of goodwill on the surface, wanting the fact that he is actually after money to not be too obvious, Capucine is the single character who had his design completely changed from the first draft. Although he has the role of being the villain who is most beyond saving in the game, as his motivations are firmly set it was very easy to move him around in the story.

The background that was most fun to come up with was actually his research lab.

Jean

Despite only ever being written from Mathis’s POV in the game, I had readied a personal history for both his false identity as Jean and his true one as Camille. Not only is it important when creating a story, I believe it shows just how serious “Camille’s feelings about reviving Rosalie” were, that he would go to the lengths of coming up with a history as Jean. It also adds to the feeling of a meticulous plan being put into place.

I also included various small details such as the words ‘Ma cherie Rosalie’ being written in blood on the wall of the underground research lab at Claude Manor along with engravings of the number of victims that wasn’t revealed in the game.

—Please tell us if there were any points that you were particular about when establishing the relationships between characters.

Perhaps it was that they wouldn’t only have positive feelings towards one another. That goes for the other characters towards Ceres, and also the other way around as well. Humans are not made up of only beautiful emotions, because it is not possible to be loved by everyone, I took care so that could be clearly seen, whether as individuals or as groups.

Also, there were actually relationships that came to light after we began writing the scenario! Unexpected chemical reactions occur when different characters come together, and that was especially true for the drinking party scene in the common route. That scene became the decisive blow for Adolphe’s becoming the long-suffering character in the group (laughs).

—Speaking of which, were there any scrapped characters that didn’t end up appearing?

In my first draft notes there was a con-man who had the tagline “The man who celebrates the fate of deceiving others”. His story was that he swindled people in order to save money to treat his sick sister, but once we had decided on Arpéchéle as the setting, thinking that, ‘If you continuously ran scams in a such a small country, you’d soon be found out’, the character was scrapped. The sick sister storyline was inherited by Lucas.

About the story

—Please tell us if there were any specific considerations you had in mind or things you were particular about in the process of writing the story.

It would be the point about, as much possible, not having everything turn out conveniently. In ‘ShuuViru’, an ending where all characters including the sub characters survive does not exist. You could say that it is realistic for happiness to be built on the sacrifice of others, I personally think that it is not possible for everyone to become happy. Nevertheless, when it came to the salvation routes, so that the characters who lost their lives in the events leading up to the ending wouldn’t become mere sacrificial pawns, I always kept it in mind to make all the lives and deaths feel meaningful.

And also, as it is an otome game, no matter the route, I took care not to neglect the “love” aspect.

—Please tell us if there were any troubles you experienced while writing the plot and scenario, or any interesting episodes that occurred during the writing process.

The foreshadowed reveals were really difficult…..the main writer Satomi Nakayama and I brought everything together after a lot of groaning and intensive discussion. There was also quite a bit of fine tuning on where to draw the line when it came to the despair. Going this far might be too much for an otome game, but at the same time since we’re talking about despair, we didn’t want to take a half-hearted approach to it.

As for an inside story, the truth is Adolphe was alive in the first draft of Scien’s route, but thinking that there wasn’t enough despair, and also so that Ankou would be able to talk about the truth after the end, we ended up changing it. Nowadays I think that perhaps might be one of the main reasons people who have played the game often tell me, ‘You’re heartless.’

—Please tell us if there was anything you were particular about in regards to the game system.

That the other salvation ends wouldn’t unlock until the third act’s salvation end was cleared was something that was decided on from the first. I’m sure it must have caused the players a lot of distress [doing it this way] but Ankou being the first one to be saved was a point I couldn’t compromise on. My thought was ‘Who on earth would I save first while leaving behind Ankou, who has continued to fight for the sake of Ceres’s smile for so long?’ Also, another reason was that I wouldn’t be able to write all that I wanted for each of the character’s salvation ends without all of the truths being revealed first.

This isn’t related to the system, but I took as much care with how things were arranged in the game as time would allow me. From facial expressions, to the timing of changes in the BGM, the movements of the sprites…..I was very conscious of creating a display screen that allows players to immerse themselves in the story without losing interest. By including a lot of sprite cut-ins, not just in the everyday scenes, but in the fight ones as well, I hope that I was able to create a feeling of actually being at the scene.

—Please tell us if there was anything you were particular about when it came to romantic scenes.

Romance is but one aspect of human emotion, so I took care that the flow of the story up until that point wouldn’t feel unnatural. The aim wasn’t to create romantic scenes, but ones that expressed love.

My thought was that as [it is a game with] an overall brutal atmosphere, if I were to forcefully make it romantic, it might cause the kind of heartburn one gets from adding an absurdly large amount of sugar into bitter coffee (laughs).

I also took a lot of care that each of the characters would express their love in a way that was unique to them.

—Please tell us about a love scene and ending that you were particularly fond of.

I am fond of all of them, but [for love scenes] it would be the proposal amongst the flames in Yves’s salvation route. The reason Yves is able to have the determination to accept everything, both good and bad, is because he is the type of person who has continuously accepted both kinds of emotions. Ceres’s responding with, ‘…..Idiot’ to Yves’s confession, is something I am particularly fond of as it is a response appropriate for a girl her age, in contrast to her usually constrained manner up until that point.

When it comes to endings, it would likely be Lucas’s despair end. Although it is a bad end seen objectively, from Lucas’s point of view it is a happy end in which he is able to become family with the person he loved and live out his last days together with them, as we had the BMG match up with that, I believe it became a scene which left an impression. Also, a ring on a white bony finger is a scenario that I have always wanted to do, I was glad I was able to make it happen.

—Apart from the love scenes and endings, were there any other scenes that you would like people to play close attention to?

It would be the scene where Ankou and Ceres meet, and he smears her lips with blood. It was something I had wanted to do right from the beginning of planning, and when we did, it really stood out visually, so it is a favourite of mine. I think it became a scene with two facets, on your first playthrough, it gives the impression of Ankou as someone suspicious, but when you look back on it after finding out the truth, you are able to feel his emotions and love [for Ceres].

—Finally, were there any scenes or routes that ended differently to what you had originally planned?

The same goes for each of the routes, but particularly for the third act, the number of scenarios became much more than we had envisioned. When it came to writing Adolphe and Ankou’s story it ended up becoming longer by necessity, both Nakayama—san and I sobbed over it together (laughs).

When it comes to something I can talk about now, there was actually one more pattern that we came up with for Lucas’s despair end. Roughly explained, it was that Lucas would decide Ceres was a ‘bad girl’ for trying to kill him and cut her down instead. He would raise a baby that was born at the moment of her death as Ceres’s reincarnation, and then when he was near the end of his lifespan, take her along with him in death saying, ‘Next time, let’s be reborn together’…..but it really wasn’t the kind of material that should appear in an otome game so I refrained.

About the sound

—Please tell us if there was anything you were particular about in regards to the BGM production.

The fairly challenging discussion we had was to create a synthesis of ‘classical compositions that use string instruments and the like’ with ‘cyber techno style noise.’ I had the main theme ‘Shuuen no Virche -ErroR:salvation-’ created first, and even now remembering getting goosebumps hearing the part where the techno noise comes in just before the climax thinking, ‘This is it!’ Just like with the character’s clothing, the techno noise was used as the main music for things with a strong connection to the research lab and relivers, while the classical sound was used for the Drifter legend and everyday life scenes.

Parts of the BGM also feature arrangements from the main theme, which I think is most obvious in tracks like ‘Kaihou no Katsuro -Break-.’

For this game, we asked Ichikawa Jun-san, who has created a lot of BGMs for anime and dramas [to be the composer], his work further expands on the imagery of the scenes for which it is used, there were truly many compositions that went beyond my expectations. There were very few retakes, most were given the OK from the get-go!

-Please tell us if there were any incidents that occurred during the voice recording stage that left an impression.

The voices we heard during the tests were pretty much as I had imagined them to be, so there wasn’t much by way of finetuning. Everyone had thoroughly read through the scenarios and materials, so it felt as if it wasn’t necessary. It was very reassuring when Yoshimasa Hosoya, who voiced Scien suggested, ‘I think this kind of atmosphere would be good for this scene.’

Another event that left an impression was the commotion caused in the booth by how overly realistic Lucas’s voice actor Daisuke Hirakawa’s acting was in the scene where he vomits blood. We were all on edge saying, ‘He isn’t really vomiting blood, is he?!’ (laughs)

—Is there a scene that became more impactful once the voice acting was added?

It would be the scene in Mathis’s route where different memories are downloaded into him one after the other. Along with Kouhei Amasaki’s blood curdling performance, it becomes more obvious that, ‘Mathis’s personality is being replaced’, increasing the atmosphere of despair.

Another is the scene in the third act with Ankou’s line, ‘I want to see Ceres, I can't see Ceres.’ Because of Kazuyuki Okitsu’s performance, I think the amount of pain he went through for centuries feels all the more real. …..If I were to speak about everything in detail, I could go on for quite a while, truth be told, everything became more impactful (laughs).

—Please tell us if you had any special thoughts in regards to the main theme songs, or if you have any anecdotes regarding their production.

OP: Lycoris no Ai (Lycoris Love)

I had a number of detailed requests when it came to the lyrics, so I ended up causing a lot of trouble for LOVERIN TAMBURIN-san…..

I think people who have played the game must have noticed, but the lyrics have a small trick to them, the first time you hear them it is from Ceres’s POV, and then once all has been revealed, become lyrics from Ankou’s POV. I would be happy if my aim to have everyone enjoy even the lyrics was at least slightly achieved. ‘The flowers of demise are an illusion coloured by death’ and ‘I will love you forevermore’ are phrases I am particularly fond of.

Despair ED: Shuuen no Yume (Dreams of Demise)

From the image of being bound hand and foot, rendered immobile by a fate of death, the discussion was to make a song with a tempo and rhythm that was difficult to take up and hard to sing. Fundamentally speaking, the despair ends are situations in which [the characters] have lost to Arpéchéle’s twisted technology and way of life, so it is noisier and has more of a cyber feel than the OP…..it was that sort of atmosphere I asked them to emphasise.

Salvation ED: Junpaku no Kyuuzai (Pure White Salvation)

The keywords for the song were without a doubt ‘salvation’ and ‘normality.’ For this one, with the meaning of being released from a twisted way of life, I asked that there be none of the [electronic] noisy feel from the OP and despair ED. Also, in the OP there is a line, ‘Taken away by errors, I lost my emotions (heart)’, but in the salvation ED there is, ‘I will live tomorrow following my emotions (heart)’ ….. I am particularly fond of the fact it feels as if part of the phrases in it are in opposition to the OP.

—What was the response like after the game released?

Since I challenged myself with this title in creating different kinds of themes and endings, character relationships and behaviours, I had steeled myself to receive all types of feedback. However, after receiving passionate messages and comments of support, I was honestly as much surprised as I was happy as I hadn’t expected that so many people would end up playing the game. We have received many comments from those who are looking forward to new developments, so as staff we feel blessed to be in such a position.

—Were there any reactions or requests from fans that particularly left an impression?

It would be [comments about] liking not just one of the characters but all of them. There are many who say they are ‘hako oshi’ (TL Note: people who are fans of all of the characters) when it comes to ShuuViru….I am conscious that is something to feel very gratified about.

Another thing is that there were many comments about wanting to know the origins of the characters’s names as well as their birthdays. It would take a very long time to talk about the origins of all of them, as each of the characters has a meaningful name. If I am blessed with another opportunity at some point, please allow me to take the time to talk about them properly.

In this book I am also introducing the birthdays for the sub characters for the first time as well. Since it has still been only slightly less than a year since this title was released and making them official would constitute spoilers for the third act, we haven’t yet been able to celebrate them, but please allow me to leave behind my ambition of celebrating all the characters someday here.

—[The fanbook] this time includes Yomi-san’s omake comics and illustrations, how did the creation of those come about?

Yomi-san kindly sent them to me saying, ‘So I’ve drawn these as a bit of fun.....’ However, each time I look at them I tilt my head in puzzlement, ‘She did these “for fun”.....? Aren’t these beyond the level of mere doodles?’ During the busy development period I kept them on my PC desktop as a source of encouragement.

There weren’t any back sketches of Yves, Adolphe and Ankou at the time of design, so once it was decided this book would be created, I had her grant my selfish wish to have some drawn.

—Please tell us if there is anything you have planned for the future, or anything else you would like to do.

In September, [Virche] is in the lineup for Otomate Party 2022, so speaking of the near future that would be one of them.

When it comes to something I would like to see, it would be the characters moving around on stage in a play or musical. Because the clothing designs are very showy and splendid, I think the fight scenes would really stand out!

No matter what form it may be in, I would be happy to be able to show the world of ShuuViru once more. I am striving forward with it firmly in my mind that no matter what kind of new developments there are, it must be something that is able to answer the expectations of everyone who has shown their support.

—Lastly, please give us a message for the fans.

To those holding this book, and those who have played ‘Shuuen no Virche’, I am truly grateful. The reason I have been able to work on these various developments is solely due to everyone’s support. Let me take this opportunity to thank you all once more.

Going through material from the first stage of development in the process of creating this book, thinking, ‘How nostalgic, there used to be these kinds of scenes, I would liked to have written this,’ has been very emotional. I am happy from the bottom of my heart to have been granted this opportunity.

It is my earnest wish that you will love this work, and the salvation and despair that they arrived at, here on and into the future.

#shuuen no virche #virche evermore #virche #otome game #creator interview #translation #virche spoilers

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moeitsu · 5 months

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♡The Tie Which Linked My Soul To Thee♡

(Arthur Morgan x OC) Masterlist

Hey cowboys!

Below is where you'll find all the chapters to my Red Dead Redemption fanfic, I will keep it updated as I continue to post more chapters. But in the meantime, I wanted to make things a little more organized and easier for you to navigate.

Whether you just started reading, or if you've been keeping up with the story since the beginning. I want to thank you! This started as a little side project to keep me busy during my down time at work, but it's turned into something I'm really passionate and proud of! So thank you for all the support <3

!!Please be aware this fic is explicit. As it contains blood/violence, as well as other adult themes!!

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->-> Ao3

->-> Wattpad

Summary: Kate McCanon, a young widow from the north, meets outlaw Arthur Morgan. When the two cross paths she discovers a complex man wrestling with his own sense of right and wrong. As their unlikely bond deepens, Kate becomes determined to guide Arthur towards a brighter path, even as tensions rise within his gang led by the enigmatic Dutch van der Linde. With danger lurking at every turn, Kate must navigate treacherous territory to protect those she holds dear, all while finding love in the most unexpected of places.

Story Tags: Widowed, Original Character(s), High-Honor!Arthur Morgan, Arthur Morgan Does Not Have Tuberculosis, Arthur Morgan Deserves Happiness, Chubby!Arthur Morgan, Canon Divergence, Mutual Pining, Slow Build, Eventual Smut, Eventual Sex, Eventual Romance, Emotional Sex, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Touch-Starved, Sexual Tension, Friends to Lovers, Child Loss, Infant Death, Trauma, Canon-Typical Violence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Slow Burn, Torture, Blood and Violence, Survivor Guilt, Aftermath of Torture, Caretaking, Injury Recovery, Period-Typical Racism, Anxiety, Self-Hatred, Night Terrors, Emotional Constipation, Self-Doubt, Men Crying, Bathing/Washing, Sweet/Hot, Romantic Angst, Romantic Fluff

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Ch 1 - The Years Creep Slowly By Kate becomes entangled in a heist with two strangers, Hosea and Arthur, forging an unexpected bond amidst their criminal endeavor. Ch 2 - The Snow Is On The Grass Again A fisher of men and A strange encounter. Ch 3 - The Suns Low Down The Sky Welcome to Horseshoe Overlook Ch 4 - The Frost Gleams Where The Flowers Have Been It's time to collect a debt. Ch 5 - My Heart Beats On As Warmly Now A well deserved hunt with Charles, met with an unexpected surprise back at camp... Ch 6 - As When The Summer Days Were Nigh The battle begins, and the past is revealed. Ch 7 - The Sun Can Never Dip So Low Kate is not immune to the dangers of the land. No matter how much she loved it, the land will never love her back. Ch 8 - Or Down Affections Cloudless Sky A blissful sunny day after a long hard night. Ch 9 - A Hundred Months Have Passed Kate and Arthur share a tender moment in the quiet of the night. Ch 10 - Since Last I Held That Hand In Mine The Course of True Love and other Revelations Ch 11 - And Felt The Pulse Beat Fast Arthur and Hosea share meaningful conversation after a night of advertising some moonshine. Meanwhile Kate finds herself involved in a dubious mission with John and the boys. She patches up Arthur as the day ends with an air of unspoken desire. Ch 12 - Though Mine Beat Faster Far Than Thine - Part 1 Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God in a world that is ugly with violence and hate. Ch 13 - Though Mine Beat Faster Far Than Thine - Part 2 Arthur’s life is ebbing out like the tide. Kate must work quickly and diligently to reverse the cruel hands of fate. She is aided by the help of an unexpected ally. Ch 14 - A Hundred Months ‘Twas Flowery May As Kate navigates Arthur’s recovery, she discovers that true strength lies within her trusted companions, finding relief in their unwavering support during the trials of his healing journey. Ch 15 - When Up The Hilly Slope We Climbed Arthur struggles to adjust to his new disabilities. Meanwhile Kate finds a job outside of camp for them, providing a few days respite and some much needed alone time. Arthur finally reveals his feelings. Ch 16 - The Past Is The Eternal Past Kate and Arthur welcome a new life into the world. The scene brings back tender memories of Arthur's past, he finally finds the courage to open up to her about his family. Ch 17 - To Watch The Dying of The Day Say, isn't it strange? I am still me, and you are still you. In this place. Isn't it strange how people can change? From strangers to friends, friends into lovers. To strangers again. Ch 18 - To Hear the Distant Church Bells Chime The gang finds a new hideout at Shady Belle, just outside the heart of the new modern America. With Jack still missing, Kate and Arthur must work together to find him. Amidst the tension, Arthur confides in Kate about his deepest regrets.

━━━━━༻❁༺━━━━━ If you're interested in reading about my OC, I linked the Kate McCanon Lore here :) As well as her Face and Voice Claim here <3 About me!

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welcomehomediscordserver · 1 year

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(joking) CW: AGGRESSIVE SUPPORT AND LOVE FOR CLOWN FROM THE MOD TEAM AND MEMBERS OVER AT OUR DISCORD SERVER !!

I have found joy in your little show that I rarely find in things. The overwhelming love and care I have not just for these specific characters but for your art and talent as a whole is astounding. I want you to know that your community, the good parts of it, support you in any endeavor you choose to take. Although this project may have blasted your popularity you are 3-dimensional, you are much more than the creator of welcome home. You are a multi-medial, skilled, talented, and strong artistic being. Throughout all of this I have had nothing but the utmost respect for you. I will continue to no matter what. Just know we over at The Welcome Home discord server have been following your art closely and appreciating every detail! Do what is best for you clown, and continue to do so! -Reggie

It's been a while since something has grabbed me like this... Welcome Home is one of the most precious things I have ever seen, the creation has and will it always have a place in my heart. Thank You creator for sharing this piece of you heart with us. But your safety is more important, I hope that you'll be safe. -Jax

"dear clown, from the heart of one fan to many others, i find so much comfort in your project that i hope that even when things just like now are awful, you know that there's people simultaneously supporting you in every step of the way! We can wait however long you believe is necessary, you deserve to feel respected with your own passion project! And with that to a close, i wish you well! Thank you for giving us a grand welcome home!" -gremints

dear clown, you don't know me. i don't know you either. but everything you've been working on? it's changed my life. and i know that sounds cliche and silly, but it's true. you've inspired me to keep working on my own passion projects, to keep going. because of you, i have found a little community to call home. because of you, i have rekindled my love of silliness and color and creativity. i cannot thank you enough. without you, i would not have found the friends i have now. whatever you do, i want you to know that we're here to support it. and i hope that wherever you go, you also find home. - moth

Hi you dont know me but im Bug, one of the mods^^, I just want to start my message with this, Before I found welcome home, everything for me was going downhill, I had lost so much that was important to me in less than 2 weeks, I couldn't get out of bed and I wasn't doing my favorite things anymore. I couldn't even smile, My eyes were tired and heavy from crying. But thanks to you, Clown. Wonderful you..and your beautiful vibrant creation. With characters I saw and adored right away. I've smiled, danced, sang my favorite songs again, met new and amazing friends & began to draw again. I felt happiness faster than I thought I would again. A peace from your life helped heal some of mine and I'm grateful. Your creations bring me and so many others joy, But even then it as not as important as you. Yes It brings many smiles to people and i hope that doesn't sound to overwhelming.. But although we can't fix the issue people have caused you, we can't apologize for those who don't respect the boundaries you've set and we can't take back what others have done we want you to know that no matter what, the good of the community will always Have what's best for you in mind, in our server we make sure all rules are followed and you're privacy and mental health is respected. Take as much time as you need to take it all in, relax, do what's best for clown. 💚 take care of yourself before aything else. We thank you for all you've done already. -Boogerbug

EVERYTHING BELOW WAS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS !!

Hi Clown! Just another rando passing through! While I have known about your artwork for a few years now, I never dove into it until Welcome Home became popular, and I genuinely love the vision you have. Your other artwork is also phenominal and genuinely inspires me, and it always has, even before I discovered the Welcome Home website. Your character designs are impeccable, the way you portray the muppets is genuinely awesome and brings back a lot of good memories, as I grew up watching puppet shows. Explains one reason I enjoy your work doesn't it?Despite making godly artwork, people forget that you are a human like the rest of us. Most people who become famous or popular because of something they have done experience this and it is unfortunate, but there are some of us that know you have a life and are already struggling. Take the time you need to rejuvinate yourself and try not to let these people get to you, as hard as it is to do, as even I still struggle with this daily. These are your creations, and you deserve to have control over what happens with them, and the disrespect this slowly growing fanbase has for your requests is terrible. Hoping that things eventually improve on your end, especially since you already aren't in a safe environment, something I also understand. I've already planned on throwing some bucks at you through Ko-Fi once I open my new bank account, and even if I cant, I still want to help prove that you are worthy and deserve better than this. You are incredibly talented and I hope to see Welcome Home and all of your other works of art flourish over time! - Sunnie/Mizo

Now onto the big reveal....

Our server members as well as a few mods all banded to together to create a collage showing our appreciation and support for Clown during these rough times. I hope this can serve as a reminder that despite the shitty people out there, there is a large community who still very much respects and enjoys every aspect of Clowns artwork.

An art collage put together by the moderators with art submitted by members.

Below are more signages as well as the usernames of everyone who participated:

Micah

Maximus

Beans

Wynn

Avery

Global

Vinnzhe

- and lastly, the rest of the welcome home discord server 🩷

@partycoffin

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skinnypaleangryperson · 8 months

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Feeling strange because I'm pretty sure that the next time I sit down to write and work on my stories tomorrow I'm officially going to be done with my 20 million plus or narrative of the BoJack Horseman fanfiction I started writing I think 3 years ago and worked on everyday since, which has been the biggest and most complex spiritual profound in a journey that I think I've ever gone on in my entire life, and I've never discovered so much about myself neither as a creative or as a person until I started writing it after the experience BoJack has a character gave me.

It's strange because an American society if you're just a nobody that's creating things, especially fanfiction, people will either ignore you or insult you, and that goes for literally every platform in existence with no relief from it. I know that the story that I've created will never receive anything but apathy from every person and every community that will ever exist have best, and it deranged morbid insults at worst as has been the case with the entirety of the journey of writing this.

But I'm so happy, and I'm more content and more confident and fulfilled within myself and I've ever been in my entire life, despite the fact that I also feel like I've completely lost my mind from the individuality that I've learned and from the experiences I've had solely from my creativity and the extensions of the worlds I've created.

I know I'm not the only person on here that's creating entire worlds and emotions and feelings only to be completely ignored. It's just the way that things are. I feel like I'm living a completely split identity, one for the people around me (both for real life and online communities), and one for the person that I actually am going the person that I wish that I could be if people cared about it or if people were wired to care about something other than what they've been molded to only care about within the superficiality of the way that people think and are. This goes for both real life and online life, there's no difference, and I'm literally forced to put on a performance between the person that I actually am, a profoundly passionate storyteller, and the person that realizes that those things don't matter to literally anyone on this earth, and having to be able to accept putting on the performance of person people will ever respond to.

It's a profoundly lonely existence, to be a genuine creative person and to write and to create every single day, to have profoundly complex interimagined experiences that cannot be found in officially published consumption. But as lonely and as disorienting as it is I wouldn't trade the experience for anything. Not a single thing. Finding my own inner voice as a creative has changed everything about the way that I view the world and how I navigate the day-to-day life of myself and the people around me. The blackest part about it is that I've developed a disdain for 99% of people because I've realized that they were never care about the true genuine imagination in of who I actually am and I will be forced to put on a mask if I ever want a relationship or a sense of community with anyone, and I'm looking at a very dull disorienting performance of an existence to appease my need for human connection even if it's only fake tolerance at best.

But I can't change the way that people think. I certainly can't change the way that the only respond to things that are officially published for them to consume that they are assumed the only things that are worth paying attention to. If my own family cares more about celebrities and TV shows more than they care about their own daughter's projects, of course I can ever expect a partner, friends, or a community to ever care.

I'll always have my muses themselves, and the profound in our life in and of itself of an experienced, and I will continue to live an entire world that is apparently only for me, that will only exist, as the entirety of my existence has really only been experienced by me in all of its resounding complexity, and magic, and experience and will continue to be so. I will continue to see what nobody else sees, and I will continue to have a rich life for it.

Congratulations to Bojack And His Wife being completed, a 20 million word romantic fantasy philosophical narrative.

#bojack #living in my own personal version of Hollywood here

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nutty1005 · 1 month

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Xiao Zhan | The simpler is more complex

Original Article: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/Zkps0vHvP89ZrMWQIUZ3NA Original Author: JIAWEI This article was originally published on 10 August 2024 on ELLE’s Weixin Official Account 世界时装之苑ELLE.

Xiao Zhan believed that truth brings simplicity. But in performance, he is starting to like multi-sided and complex characters more, or rather, this is the true and real state of human existence. At a time when everything is being simplified, to be willing to admit the difference between people, to seek the possibility of communication, to be sensitive and defend complexity, this definitely requires passion, as well as courage.

ELLE September Issue Vintage Denim Jacket Acne Studios Quatre Classique ring Quatre Classique series bracelet All are Boucheron

ELLE September Issue Black Sleeveless Vest, Black Shorts All are Gucci 2025 Spring/Summer Men’s Collection

Two black curtains reached the top of the studio ridge, neatly separating the shooting area from the surroundings, there was a need to go through a maze of them to enter the small core space. Pure white, plenty of air conditioning, and the camera shutter sound was high-frequency and continuous.

Xiao Zhan wore black clothes and rarely made any unnecessary movements. For a while, the lights broke down and photography was suspended, so he maintained standing in the dark with one foot on the wooden box; when the staff and the photographer were discussing the photographs, adjusting the styling, he stood alone in front of the display screen, and the weak screen light enveloped his body. Very occasionally, he swayed slightly to the background music, his legs lean but muscular.

youtube

#01 I’m afraid of becoming dull

After entering the entertainment industry, these things quickly became part of his daily life – cameras, spotlights, monitors, and barriers. Because of his career and popularity, he had fissioned into countless “Xiao Zhans”, such as giant portraits on the facades of high-end shopping malls, the projections of an astonishing number of fans, or the appearance of characters in successive movies and TV series.

White Tie Printed Vest Balmain Quatre Double White Series Rings, Diamond Ring Quatre Black Series Rings, Diamond Ring All are Boucheron

Currently, in the dressing room after the shooting, Xiao Zhan was carrying his box of whole grain salad, vividly imitating the scene of meeting director Zheng Xiaolong.

“I was a little bit hesitant, so I asked the director if he wanted me to be thinner or stronger? He said, thin, of course thinner, so good looking, sharp.” After a while, Zheng Xiaolong saw him again while taking final costuming photographs, “He said, hey, you’ve done well.” From then till now, he has lost more than five kilograms.

Xiao Zhan, the source of all of this fission, was presentable and relaxed, to him the glamor seen by the outside world was a supplementary value. Sometimes he even forgot about it and said, “No one really cares about you.” Then he continued to talk about his work.

Recently completed was the 5-month filming of “The Legend of Zang Hai” in Hengdian. The previous film, also shot for 5 months, was the film “The Legend of the Condor Heroes: The Great Hero” directed by Tsui Hark. This was often the case for large-scale movies and long-running television dramas, it took four or five months once you joined the group. In 2022, his filming work was mainly “Where Dreams Begin / The Youth Memories” and “Sunshine By My Side”, in 2021 it was “The Longest Promise”, in 2020 it was “Ace Troops”, in 2019 it was “Douluo Continent” and “The Oath of Love”.

Endless filming appointments. Hence, it was sometimes impossible to decide whether the interval between filming should be lengthened or shortened.

Black Sleeveless Vest, Black Shorts All are Gucci 2025 Spring/Summer Men’s Collection

In the second half of 2019, during the filming of “The Oath of Love”, Xiao Zhan was filming during the day and recording the variety show “Our Song” at night. Both sides were very challenging. The former was his first time playing the male lead in an urban drama, so he had little experience and was under great pressure; the difficulty of the latter lies in the harmonizing, “I had to memorize all the harmonizing that were different from the song’s tone, and not to be led astray. “

“Then, I thought it didn’t matter. I slept for an hour or two and woke up a good man again. But now, while my mind says it doesn’t matter, my body will make some protests.”

This year he was filming in Hengdian. Later, one day, he discovered that his tonsils were inflamed and it was painful to swallow, but he went to work as usual. Until the director came over and asked him, what happened to your eyes? Only then did he see his own swollen eyes in the mirror, held on until the afternoon, “completely like a frog.”

He had to go to the hospital, the symptoms themselves were very common and could be stopped by taking medicine. What can’t be done was exactly what doctors advised the most: you need to rest.

More importantly, “Perception will become dull. I am really afraid of this, afraid of becoming very mechanical and formulaic.” When saying this, the emphasis was on the word “really”. When he chatted with seniors, “They also said that you have to live life, you need to experience life.”

Black Sequined Shirt CFCL Black Knitted Turtleneck JIL SANDER

The fact is that the life in the limelight is somewhat contrary to the life of ordinary people, but the profession of an actor requires him to be in touch with as many folds of life as possible.

A while ago, he watched a one-man show on a variety show, describing the current workplace situation of contemporary young people. Xiao Zhan had opened a studio and worked before entering the entertainment industry. He could understand the gloom caused by going to work, but the new vocabulary and tools that appeared in the workplace made his sense of resonance weaken. He found himself gradually uncoupling to a certain extent.

#02 The flavor of life lies in the details

In early June, Xiao Zhan took a short vacation and returned to his hometown of Chongqing. He loved walking very much, and one night he walked for several hours, visiting old streets, People’s Liberation Monument, and even around the place where he used to work.

In 2014, the 23-year-old Xiao Zhan graduated from university and worked as a designer in a design studio. Every weekday morning, he transferred from Line 2 to Line 3 at Niujiaituo Station, pushing through the crowds and squeezing onto the light rail, and several times he had been squeezed so hard that his face was pressed against the glass windows.

He simply stuck against the glass and looked at the Jialing River below, seeing the strange rocks exposed in the dry season and various people, including winter swimmers, joggers and fishermen, with a rather optimistic spirit.

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He still loved to observe the people around him——

“Why are you still here so late?”

“People walking in a hurry must be people who have just gotten off work and are rushing back, their behavior is just like when I was trying to catch the subway, when it’s the last train and you want to run, in a panic. Some food delivery guys are rush forward undauntedly. There are also some very leisurely people, sitting there drinking beer, then going home and starting a new day.”

“Everyone has an exciting story happening, and it is everyone’s life that makes up our society. So it is wondrous, everyone is the protagonist, we are all filming our own biographies, how will tomorrow’s story develop?”

At that moment, mixed in, he was like all those who have been busy working in a foreign land for a long time and finally had the time to go home, and discovered that “it had been a long time since I came here, and there had been quite a lot of changes.” “Actually, I’m not particularly happy or have any other feelings. I’m living, that’s all.”

Two and a half days later, Xiao Zhan left Chongqing and returned to Beijing due to work, then rushed to Shanghai, and then in turn to France. This time he brought his parents too. This was a long in coming family trip, within a week, they traveled from France to Switzerland and back to France. Every detail of the trip was magnified, they were happy, bickering, or just walking for a while, “it was all very vivid.”

On the day they parted, they had dinner at a restaurant in the south of France, the car to pick him up arrived and he had to leave first. Before leaving, his mother hugged him and told him to take care of himself. In a rare move, his father also hugged him awkwardly.

Retro Denim Jacket, Jeans All are Acne Studios Quatre Classique Series Necklace (as a belt) Quatre Classique Series Ring Quatre Classique Series Bracelet All are Boucheron

The flavor of life lies in the details.

“I used to think that work was everything and life was not that important, it was nothing more than having a place to sleep, then getting up, going to work, finishing work, and resting. But now, when my parents have grown older, and I have not been with them for a long time, you will feel as if each other’s lives, even your family’s, would become further and further apart. “He especially did not want this to happen.

The way to avoid suspension and regain the real sense of life is not difficult. “When you have time, go out and see more. The important thing is to feel life and feel the world. Even if some of the things are bad and cruel, they are all life, and will burst out with energy when you need it.”

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#03 Stay innocent, stay complex

Halfway through the interview, Xiao Zhan suddenly said that he was ambivalent about long interviews. On the one hand, he was worried that he had not grown up enough and would show ignorance in the conversation, but on the other hand, he wanted to explore some subtle feelings through the conversation because he felt that he was not good at using words to record them.

Observation, feeling, understanding and expression are the essentials of why actors can bring creativity.

“Dialogue is also muscle memory.” Xiao Zhan said, “Although I am very introverted, I am not antisocial. Because I think actors need to learn to express, express your inner thoughts, and digest the content conveyed to you by the other party.”

Before the filming of “Sunshine By My Side” started, he met with the main creators and held several script meetings to deepen his understanding of one another and the characters. In the early stages of “The Legend of Zang Hai”, the producer also mentioned that he would discuss the script in detail and talk about a scene with a lot of his own understanding.

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Xiao Zhan is not an actor with a professional background, when he first entered the industry and filmed “Battle Through the Heavens” and “The Wolf”, he had strong doubts and asked himself, am I suitable? The constant negativity and self-refuting made him lose self-confidence.

Sometimes he would be asked what he would be doing now if he had not participated in the talent show, debuted, or entered the entertainment industry at the age of 23. He had thought about it, but did not look back.

If he was not good at acting, then he needed to spend extra time taking acting classes, review more in the monitors, and ask more advice from his seniors. He put his head down stubbornly, and with hard work, he slowly found the knack.

Later the filming of “Where Dreams Being / The Youth Memories” started, Xiao Zhan played Xiao Chunsheng, a young man from the military courtyard in Beijing, who was completely different from him, and even his accent was completely distinct. He felt insecure. Before filming started for many scenes, director Fu Ning would run over and whisper to him, “Don’t be afraid Zhanzhan, just speak bravely, if you feel it, just say it, the audience actually can feel your emotions and what you want to express.” .

He also gradually gained more self-awareness: “Techniques may not be my area of expertise, I rely more on feelings. Only when I feel it myself then I can have the confidence to interpret it. If I rely solely on some techniques, I don’t think it is sufficiently moving.”

It had been 8 years since Xiao Zhan first acted, and his resume included leading male roles in films and television dramas of various themes. But he still felt that he is a newcomer and hopes to cooperate with more experienced production teams if there is an opportunity in the future.

Retro Denim Jacket, Jeans All are Acne Studios Quatre Classique Series Necklace (as a belt) Quatre Classique Series Ring Quatre Classique Series Bracelet All are Boucheron

He would not think too much, he actually did not know his work plan divided by year. He only cared about the work arrangements for the next stage, rather than “asking about things that are too far away.”

“I still feel like a child now, but in fact I am not anymore. It seems like I am still in high school, but in fact I have grown up.” The nature of a child means curiosity, desire to explore, and power of imagination.

He placed the curiosity and desire to explore into his characters, “I mean, for myself, when I dig into the character’s background and past, I explore the complexity and contradiction of the character as a person, and present it. Only in this way can some of his choices and motivations be understood by the audience, and the work may then be good, and only then can you have the audience you have now, right?”

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#(Q&A)

ELLE: During the break, will you think about anything on the set? Xiao Zhan: Of course, I remember that just a few days after filming was completed, I was still dreaming that I was still filming, and the director and I were still discussing how to say that phrase on set? How to handle that scene?

ELLE: Do you actually miss the atmosphere on the set? Xiao Zhan: I like it very much, because I like the feeling of everyone creating together and working together to get something done.

ELLE: When you first entered the entertainment industry and your popularity grew very quickly, you said you felt it was a bit unreal and magical, but now you seem to be quite relaxed. How did this change occur? Xiao Zhan: Rather than being unreal or magical, after so many years, I feel that I hadn’t had time to adapt to such a fast pace at that time, so when I woke up from sleep, I was like where am I today? What am I doing? I think it is a process, just like when you first enter the workplace, you will be very excited, “Work here I come, please take good care of me”, “My highness is here, everyone get out of the way”, “I can do it, I will do it”. (Laughs) But after experiencing a lot of things, you will feel that it seems that everything needs to be considered in the long term.

White Jumpsuit Gucci 2025 Spring/Summer Men’s Collection Quatre Jean Concept Ring Quatre Cofalit Concept Ring Puissance Quatre Concept Ring All are Boucheron

ELLE: In several interviews, you mentioned that you like to play roles that “can convey energy.” Why do you have such a preference? Xiao Zhan: Because I think this is the life of the character. The kind of energy I’m talking about is not just a single, generally understood positive energy, I’m talking about nourishment that can subtly influence and moisturize. I believe that every character has a complete storyline inside, this is what I like very much, and as long as you dig deep, you can move people. I don’t really like to call the villain a “villain”, as it seems to be a bad character from the beginning, but in fact it is not, he may have his own difficulties.

ELLE: It sounds like “transmitting energy” is just a general term, but is it actually about understanding different people through performance? Xiao Zhan: Yes, if you break it down to each character, what they convey is different. But if you want to talk about “good people” and “bad people”, then I don’t think it’s interesting.

ELLE: So do you think performance is a form of communication? Xiao Zhan: Yes, you can say that, I think it’s great to say that, (performance) is a bridge to communicate with the audience. Just like when a drama is broadcasting, I will read some of the audience’s comments and impressions after watching it, and I feel that they have a very rich feelings about the work. When I see some comments that are exactly the same as my thoughts during the filming, I will feel very amazed, as if the bridge is really connected, we don’t know each other in life and have never communicated with each other, but he suddenly understands my thoughts then, I’ll just feel that, oh, acting is a beautiful and magical thing.

ELLE: Do you watch some science fiction movies, TV series, and literary works? Xiao Zhan: Yes, I used to like watching “The Three-Body Problem”, I have actually watched some science fiction movies recently, the American drama “Constellation”, and recently I am watching “Dark Matter”, which is about infinite flow and parallel time and space. Because I think maybe there really is a parallel time and space. Every choice you make will split out a different parallel time and space.

ELLE: Then will you imagine Xiao Zhan in parallel time and space? Xiao Zhan: I will really wonder, for example, is he still an actor? Maybe yes, but is he still filming now? Is he still singing now? Or is he also a designer? Is he an employee or is he his own boss? (Laughs) Really, I will.

ELLE: As for the future, what do you think it will be like? Xiao Zhan: Wow, I feel that the world may return to its original nature when the time comes instead, maybe the world will become a better place, and people will return to very essential communication.

ELLE: This is very interesting. Why do you think so? Xiao Zhan: Anyway, at least now I have a little aversion with this kind of ubiquitous Internet, when we were young, there were no mobile phones, everyone just chatted during meals, my friends would all come downstairs to play, hide and seek, and play various games, I feel that that time was very precious instead.

ELLE: Will there still be an actor career by then? Xiao Zhan: I think there will be. I believe that as long as life goes on, drama will continue. Because everyone needs an outlet, emotional resonance and sustenance, be it images or sounds. So I feel that even if the world is destroyed, as long as there are still people, drama will definitely exist.

youtube

#xiao zhan #xiaozhan #肖战 #sean xiao

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dronebiscuitbat · 2 months

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Give me a Reason: Chapter 6 - "Mask"

N hoisted Cyn off the bed by spinning her around, causing the young girl to squeal in delight as for a moment she felt as if she was flying. He chuckled with her until he sat her back down on the now unfolded wheelchair. He knelt down and adjusted her legs so that they lay flat, being as gentle as possible.

Cyn had a condition that weakened the bones in her body, something about calcium not processing correctly in the body… he wasn't quite sure, everything the doctors had said went a little bit over his head. But he did know that her bones broke extremely easily, especially the ones in her legs, though every bone was fragile, it also effected her heart, making it weaker as well.

“Comfy?” He asked, cocking his head as Cyn rapidly nodded, before reaching over to her bed and putting the grey, felt blanket over her legs. N smiled up at her.

“Good! Off we go!” He spun around to grab at the handles before speeding off out the door and through the halls, causing his little sister to laugh uproariously. Despite his speed, he was being careful… extremely so, going quick, but no so quick he couldn't stop on a dime safely.

He strapped her in to the little elevator on the stairs and sent her down as he walked along side her, cracking a goofy joke or two to keep her laughing and keeping a smile on her face, Cyn’s little smile always seemed to reach her eyes when she was truly happy, making those amber eyes sparkle warmly at him.

When they reached the bottom they were off again, N running at speed through the halls, making several servants turn to look at them weirdly, but he didn't care, he was making his little sister happy.

Then they reached the door to the garden, and he stopped, a little out of breath, Cyn was too, out of breath from laughing too hard. Then she coughed, struggling hard to catch her breath, and N patted her back gently.

“Sorry… too much?”

“No! No! I'm-” she was interrupted by flurry of coughs, and a wheezing intake of breath that had N looking even more worried then before, his look softened until the coughing fit was over.

She leaned back for a moment the energy and wind knocked out of her before she turned to look at N and smiled, putting her small hand over his.

“M’Okay big brother.”

He nodded, opening the door and pushing her into the garden. Cyn smiled as the cool evening air hit her face, taking a deep breath, N pushed her down the ramp leading down to the fountain, reflecting the sun as it went down over the hills of the valley.

“Did Tessa do your hair this morning?” N asked as he pushed her past the neatly trimmed hedges and near where the rosebushes were, Cyn leaned forward and touched one of the healthy red flowers, her delicate fingers ghosting over the petals as she brought it up to her face to sniff.

“Did you know that red roses are known to represent true love, passion, and commitment? It's why people always give them out on dates.” She hummed speaking in the way she always did when she was repeating things she'd learned; Slightly robotic.

“You read that today?”

“Vanessa lent me one of her books.” Cyn snickered, putting a hand over her mouth. “She is a hopeless romantic.”

Cyn always had an extensive vocabulary, likely due in part to how much time she spent reading, she was intelligent, probably more so then N himself if he was being honest.

“Maybe don't tell her that to her face?” N suggested, laughing a little as he leaned over her shoulder, causing them both to laugh quietly. The moment was quiet, peaceful and she continued to look over the flowers intranced.

Until there was a shrill noise behind them and they both flinched, so much so that Cyn accidently snapped one of the flowers off it's stem and the beautiful head came to rest on her lap.

“My roses! What on earth do you two think you're doing?!” N whipped around, coming face to face with one Louisa Elliot, lady of the manor and N’s as well as the rest of the platinum headed siblings, adoptive parent.

“I-I'm sorry Mrs. Elliot- Ma’am, Cynthia hadn't been out of her room all day, and I wanted to show her around the garden.” His smile faltered before being forced back on his face by the woman's peircing brown eyes and dark, raven hair spun up in the world's tightest bun. Cyn remained turned towards the rose bush, N almost body blocking the wheelchair.

“And tear up my rose bush?!” Her voice was shrill, coated in aristocracy and grated even N's ears, but he didn't dare make a move or say a word.

“Uhm, n-no of course not, that's never the intent- ah!” In a split second, Louisa's hand reared back and caught him across the face. Hard. Tears pricked on the sides of his vision and Cyn herself winced, she didn't see it, but hearing it was enough.

“Don't talk back to me!” She huffed, and N stood stock still, his cheek red and already swelling, his hands balled into fists and stuck to his sides.

“A-apolgies, Mrs. Elliot.” He choked out, barely holding back his tears, mostly out of shock then anything else. Entire body trembling but still not making a move to go anywhere.

“Inside! Get away from my flowers!” She huffed before she walked off, her heals clicking on the cobblestones as she went back inside.

There was a tense silence, N's breath was coming out shaky as he slowly turned back to grip the handles, Cyn started to turn back to look at him, but he stopped her. “I'm alright, it didn't hurt.”

He lied, her nails had caught the flesh of his cheek and it was starting to bleed, but he didn't want Cyn to see that.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah! I'm a hundred percent okay!” He kept his normal tone, pushing Cyn past the fountain and inside, he moved quickly, strapping her into the elevator without turning his cheek to her, she tried to lean forward to look, but he was too fast.

He got her back into her room in record time, flashing her a smiled before setting her on the bed and quickly rushing to the bathroom to assess the damage to his face in the mirror.

He hissed as he looked at himself, two shallow cuts on his cheeks which were seeping out his life essence, the redness making it look a lot worse then it was, when he touched them he winced, looking at the smear of blood on his hand with apprehension. He'd really hoped he'd done a decent job in hiding the worst of it from Cyn.

It wasn't the first time he'd been hit. Far from it, it was a common thing, not enough to write home about, and certainly not the worst one he'd indured the six years he'd been adopted. There was no reason to cry over it.

But he did anyway, the shock of it happening with very little warning and the fact he was currently cracking into the medicine cabinet to disinfect the cuts with isopropyl alcohol made the tears come easily. He wasn't loud about it, they fell silently with the occasional drip of blood and runoff from the bottle. The only thing that gave him away was the shuddering intakes of breath that he was doing his best to be quiet about.

He worked on the wound, wiping the blood away as best as he could while his other hand rooted around the medicine cabinet for the bandaids, he'd found himself lucky enough that the scratches were close enough together to hide under a single thick bandage, so he stuck it on his cheek and looked at himself.

Hair disheveled, tears still forcing themselves down his face and slouching over the sink to steady his trembling frame.

He looked miserable, and he looked pathetic. Neither of which would do. He would have to see the rest of the family soon, if just to bring Cyn her dinner. And he'd rather not worry them… plus he had school tomorrow, he couldn't go looking like this.

He wiped his face, and took several calming breaths, even as his fist tightened slightly as the anger he was ignoring lashed out and hit him in the chest, causing him to growl slightly before continuing his breathing technique. The anger was temporary…

Until he opened his eyes, sorted out his hair with a brush and then cracked a smile in the mirror, it was sunshine, blinding, just like before. The illusion that everything was fine.

That was better…

Next ->

#murder drones #serial designation n #uzi doorman #nuzi #biscuitbites #give me a reason #murder drones cyn #sibling bonding time #Louisa is here #n never catches a break in my fics...

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familyvideostevie · 6 months

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hey.

okay. hello! i'm back. :)

maybe you noticed, maybe not, but i have been away for a while.

i wish i could say i've been out living my life, so caught up in happiness and joy and loving each day that i've just not had time for tumblr. but....that is not true. i have been having a tough time! being away has been good, as i've had time to do other things that i like and to put energy into my own well-being, but it hasn't been the best time, I'll tell you that.

i peeked on the dash every now and then to keep my queue full and reblogged soothing things to my main blog and tried my best not to feel guilty about it all (i was also booping on April 1 lol). i just...I really needed a break. i've really enjoyed being here the last six or so months as i've changed my blog and entered the pedro/tlou space but i've also felt so, so alone.

and i know that it doesn't really matter!! like, we should all take breaks and go outside and all that stuff. and I know plenty of people are not very active, but this blog has been such a vital part of my life and happiness since I started it almost two years ago, so any lapse in activity feels like a loss. I've met lifelong friends and flexed my writing muscles and learned a hell of a lot. the fact that I have started to feel isolated and alone on here is a sort of personal betrayal, and there is no one to blame but myself.

So, I’m pulling back.

it means a few things — i don’t know how much writing I’ll be doing from now on. For Joel, especially — it’s been wonderful to meet folks in that community but it has also been really detrimental to my passion for both the game and writing. I’d like to return to some other characters on my masterlist, but we’ll see. I’ve got endless personal projects away from tumblr that I want to pour love and time into (my non-reader fics, my newsletter, a romance novel, a sci-fi novel, poetry, etc). I need to fall in love with my own work again.

it's a me problem, I want to stress that. i'm working on it! irl stuff has been kicking my ass. I've had a really, really hard winter and my mental health has suffered probably more than ever before. i let things I love -- like this blog -- fester and become negative and no longer being me joy. writing became stressful and difficult and I was focused on notes and interaction and looking around me and seeing success and then looking at myself and only seeing lack.

but that's why I took a break! i am getting help and support irl, i am putting in the time and effort to feel better about being alive and to be a better friend and person all around. And I want to tell you all about it because I am so grateful for your time and attention and support, even if we’re just strangers on the internet. i know this probably seems silly -- who cares about a fanfic blog? well, i care! i care a lot! it matters to me and therefore it matters!

anyway. on to the important stuff. here I am! and here's what's going to happen on this blog:

I am working on replying to asks and reblogs and comments I missed. Thank you for being patient with me! I don't know if I'll get to them all but know I see them and I am honored every single time.

I made a totally separate ao3 account with this blog url. I'm working on uploading everything I've posted here onto there and hopefully will continue to crosspost. It is going to take a long, long time, so please be patient! (you can follow my other ao3 here for my non x-reader fanfic).

I posted this fic! Jackson!Joel pulled me back into his world. It’s the first thing I’ve written in ages, so let me know what you think. as of now it's the last planned fic for that series, but who knows!

I hit a milestone while i was away that I am absolutely blown away by. I'm planning a celebration around it sometime this spring (hopefully) and I’d love to see you participate :)

lastly, thank you so much to my friends for letting me complain, whine, winge, etc. I am so sorry for missing all of your work, your celebrations, your bright energies, and all the rest. i am so sorry if it seemed like i was ignoring you. you are my guiding lights, my silver linings, my touchstones. you make me want to be here. i will try to make it up to you!

I want to be online less but make sure I’m connecting more in the moments that i am here. I want to pressure myself to write less and not feel bad that I’m not engaged all the time. I want this blog to once again feel like a place that nourishes me and not sucks me dry. i want to stop feeling like shit about all of it!!!!

so. come hang out in my inbox, my dms, let me know what you've been up to. I am really sorry for missing so much. thank you for sticking around. <3

#personal #this is very long but please read it maybe?#emma rambles #I will reblog it a few times probably

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radvimes · 6 months

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My Phinabella Headcanon -or- Why Phinabella Wouldn't Drift Apart Before Getting Together

(edit: as a neurodivergent person, I'm probably going to just keep adding to this post, like, forever...)

I know I'm, like, almost a decade late to the party, so I don't know who's left around here to read this, but after watching most of Phineas and Ferb, including AYA, hearing other people's analysis of Phinabella, particularly in light of Isabella's bday episode, the picnic episode, the haunted house episode, NOTLP, and Summer Belongs to You, binging a large amount of Phinabella fanfics and art over the last week, and pondering on all of that, I just really feel the need to write out how I see those 2 crazy kids' relationship progressing through their preteen/teen years and into adulthood.

First off, as a technically inclined male (I'm a software engineer, and always loved tech as a kid) with ADHD/the neurodivergent grab bag who had to train himself to pick up on social cues, particularly cues from the girls in my life, I identify so strongly with Phineas. He is, in many ways, the kid I would have wanted to be growing up. Smart, capable, charismatic, with a good friend group, and best friends with the amazing girl next door. It really sounds like a dream life for an ADHD kid like me.

I bring this up to say that, speaking from experience, those relationships, particularly the ones with Ferb and Isabella, would be everything to Phineas. We see this with how he wants to include as many of his friends as he can in his adventures. We see this in the fact that his adventures and inventions almost always have to do with helping a friend/family member or are inspired by them. And, as the show progresses, we see that this is never more true than with him and Isabella. Yes, it would likely take him a few years to pick up on what Isabella's crush meant, but we can see that, even from a young age, he absolutely recognizes that she is a close friend, wants to spend time with her and do things with/for her more than he does the rest of his friends, and is frequently and regularly attentive to her needs as he perceives them. He recognizes that she is important to him, even if romance isn't consciously a part of that for him when they are younger, which is fine, because he's just a kid. He'll get there. To say it a different way, the kid is neurodivergent, and has his passion projects. Once it registers that she's important to him, that fact becomes a bedrock of his existence, of how he experiences the world. That's just how his brain works. It then becomes a permanent passion project to demonstrate how she is important to him. The important thing is that their foundation of friendship is firmly established, and he will spend the rest of his life building on it if she lets him.

On the other side of that, I think we see, through moments like during Isabella's bday, the picnic, NOTLP, and on the desert island at the end of Summer Belongs to You, that Isabella is beginning to recognize this dynamic. She's learning to accept that he's not there yet romantically, and that the things she's loves about him don't require him to be there yet. She loves his dedication, his attention, and how he brings out the best in her. He always says and does things to build her up and show that she is important to him. He depends on her in many ways, and they always have each other's back and their best interests in heart. She can meet him halfway, accept the good in their relationship as it is, and let it progress naturally. I particularly see this in the desert island moment, when Phineas, who isn't used to things going wrong pretty much ever, finally sputters out and sits down. He could have had a breakdown or an explosive fit that things weren't going his way, could have continued to frantically brainstorm with Ferb, but he didn't. He sat down and quietly sought solace in a peaceful moment alone with Isabella. You can see the mix of emotions she felt as she processed what that moment meant, and then realized that she needed to meet him halfway and inspire him to get back up and keep moving, even though she had just said that she so wanted that quiet moment alone with him. And in so doing, as he leapt back up and gave her a big hug in thanks, that really cemented their relationship all the more. While part of her would love him to reciprocate her crush in similar fashion to how she wants to express her feelings, ultimately, she just wants him to show her she's special to him via preferential treatment, quality one on one time, and words of affirmation, and he can and does do those things all the time. She is learning she can wait for the rest. Also, let's not forget that she's been to the future. She knows that she gets to be Aunt Isabella eventually! Between that and the care that she sees him give her as kids, while it might be hard to wait sometimes, I have to believe that she would stick with her best friend.

The other piece I would throw in here is that, while society often puts a big wall between being friends and being lovers, my experience is that the best romantic relationships are founded on strong friendships first, before infatuation and physical attraction ever enter into the equation in a meaningful way. As such, I think it's really reasonable to assume that their path forward is what I recently saw described as the "friends to idiots to lovers" trope. They would absolutely continue to be best friends, having each other's back and confiding in one another, for years. Isabella would continue to try to profess her feelings from time to time as we saw her do in the show, and Phineas would probably assure her that he likes and appreciates her, too. If she felt down about things from time to time, he would absolutely sense that, even if he didn't understand the complete significance of it, and he would reach out, probably with an invention or adventure or ice cream date or 2, because those things always helped her out of her funks before, and she would appreciate his attentiveness and attention.

Then, somewhere along the line, I imagine that their friendship would naturally begin to evolve into something a bit more tender, though they would both be in denial about it. Isabella would have spent so long telling herself to keep expectations low that she would have conditioned herself not to consciously read too much into anything Phineas says or does, and Phineas would be all "we're just really close friends, this is just how we've always acted". Meanwhile, they, like, eat lunch together every day, work their schedules to have a bunch of the same classes, walk/drive to school together every day, etc. They have a standing weekly movie/dinner night where, over the course of years, they now pretty much always end up snuggling on the couch while Phineas tries out fancy new massage tools and techniques he's developed because he knows Isabella gets sore muscles from sports and Fireside Girl-related activities. They stay over at each other's houses until all hours of the night, and regularly sleep on each other's couches when it gets too late. He gives her lots of hugs when she does something he really appreciates or when she's down. She gives him little chaste kisses on the cheek when he does something particularly thoughtful (the first time she did it, she thought she was pushing the boundaries a little. It quickly became habit). Lots of unconscious hand holding. Of course, regular trips to the ice cream parlor to celebrate or just for a change of scenery. Along the way, he's just always making thoughtful things for her, new sports/outdoor equipment, a custom bike/scooter/car, accessories and stationary with butterflies on them because he noticed that she often makes comments about him giving her butterflies, and he thinks it's some sort of cute inside joke. She starts regularly baking treats for him (and Ferb), and before long, it seems like there's always something she made on the Flynn-Fletcher kitchen counter/in the shed. They work together to decorate the tree in each of their back yards, and probably also each other's tree houses. Pictures of them together are everywhere, and they kind of just roll their eyes and blush a little about it. No angst is needed, because their love isn't unrequited, it's just not fully recognized. Isabella wouldn't pull away, because as soon as she did, he would notice and reach out to try to understand what's wrong, and to comfort her and raise her spirits, and I truly believe that she would respond positively to that. Love comes in many forms, after all, and they would ensure that they both felt loved. In a lot of ways, they would fairly quickly get to the point where they are a single good DTR away from officially dating, with a lot of momentum in the way of making time for that DTR. On the other hand, as soon as that DTR starts, it's gonna go for hours, because they would both have plenty to say on the topic of their relationship, and I get the sense that both of them would exhibit the neurodivergent trait that this would be a topic of particular interest for them, so they would naturally be inclined to discuss it indefinitely.

As they get older, they both vehemently push back whenever someone makes a reference to their boyfriend/girlfriend, but neither one ever ends up going on a date with anyone else. They either don't go to dances because they have other plans, or they go in a group with, like Ferb, Baljeet, Ginger, and whoever Ferb has asked out that time. Then something happens. Either there's a dance where the rest of the group conveniently goes separately, or someone new makes a comment about them dating, or Ferb or Buford or Candace or someone finally gets tired of it and starts pointing out to Phineas all things they do that are totally the sort of thing you do with a girlfriend. Phineas' immediate reaction is to deny it like always, but then something kind of clicks in his head. It's not that the kid is totally oblivious to romance and dating, he's just never really thought seriously about how it applies to him and Isabella, because they've just always been them, and it's been great. Now, though, as he thinks back, things start to recontextualize in his mind, and he starts to wonder. Some time later, maybe a while as he ruminates on it for a bit, maybe the next time he sees her, he brings it up, mentions that people keep saying they're dating, or that it might look like they are dating, and are they? Should they? What would that change? He's trying to make some sense of the social cues and the intricacies of their relationship, you see. Or maybe this conversation gets triggered by emotions running unusually high and tender at one of their movie nights or something, and maybe they were suddenly looking at each other in a new light, maybe they even kissed. At this, Isabella is shocked and delighted, and asks if he is saying that he wants to define their relationship, if he's asking her to be his girlfriend. She sees it as him actually asking her directly about their relationship for once. He probably responds "well, yeah, kinda, maybe?" She might respond that, really, nothing much has to change, they would get to keep doing what they're doing, just as boyfriend and girlfriend, except that if she's his girlfriend, she can do stuff like this: and then she leans in for a kiss and/or an intentional snuggle, etc.

After that, they are truly insufferable/inseparable. They've been unofficially together for years at that point, after all. Now, it's just open and official and mutually understood how much they really mean to each other, forever. They probably spend a fair bit of time, at least at first, reminiscing about past moments where one or both were oblivious or in denial, thinking about how long they really have loved each other. Again, no angst in these conversations, just some wistfulness about missed opportunities, and joy in their shared history and future.

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Don't get me wrong, I've read many fanfics that I've loved, including "Can't Help Falling In Love", "Is This About a Girl", "Sugar Rush", and "In Two Weeks", that deal with them realizing their feelings and/or confessing to each other after some time pining/growing apart, and what it means/how wholesome it is once they are together. The thing I love most about each of those stories, though, is the way each of them taps into how important their friendship and commitment to each other is to their relationship, and how, no matter the stage of their relationship, Phineas has a singleminded determination to consistently, matter-of-factly, thoughtfully show Isabella how much she means to him through everything he does. I would love to see more stories that explored the "idiots" phase I described above, though, since most of the ones that I have come across that do explore a similar theme do so assuming that separation/pining/unrequited feelings/obliviousness must be part of it, and I don't think it has to be. Speaking as a neurodivergent person, I can say with certainty that he wouldn't be oblivious forever, and the instant he noticed a cue or emotion or comment from her that he didn't understand, or started trying to figure out his own feelings, he would be talking to absolutely everyone about it, trying to get people who understand these things to clue him in on what he's trying to understand, and venting at them about the same. People would clue him in for sure. He'd be relentless in bugging them until they did.

As such, at the end of the day, I just have a hard time seeing them drifting apart in the first place. They are far too committed to each other for either one to bear letting it happen. They embody the sentiment shared by Harry at the end of "When Harry Met Sally": "When you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with someone, you want the rest of your life to start right now!" That, to me, is Phinabella. I welcome your thoughts on this topic.

#phineas and ferb #phineas flynn #isabella garcia shapiro #phinabella #phinbella #pnf #phineas x isabella #dwampyverse #phineabella #headcanon #AYA #act your age #rant #thanks for coming to my TED talk

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