#i know i have posted one of these video things before with a previous portrait BUT!!!! ooh it's been so exciting on my private twitter this

[stormblessed95]

I have a question

Like Crazy is probably the most queercoded in Jimins songs, right after Filter.

But the song also begins with the pronoun "She's saying Baby come and follow me"

Some fans on Twitter are saying this is a reference to a gf or something.

Whats your take on this?

Hi! Thanks for your ask. Sorry for the delay in replying! And to start, I think it's fairly clear that I don't think Jimin is straight, in my opinion, based off my views. But in that same vein, I think he also likes women. I mean, he has shared previous school crushes on a girl with us. So a "she" in the lyrics of a love song, wouldn't ever really throw me off personally. But that's just me. On top of that, Jimin did share his notes of his lyric writing process for his songs on FACE. And we can see for Like Crazy, his original planned lyrics said "baby" in place of "she." So that probably got changed for a better flow, either he did that himself, or it was suggested to him by RM, Pdogg or one of the other people who helped and gave input to the song. Either way, I don't think it's indicative of a girlfriend or an ex girlfriend in anything factual. But everyone can think what they will and have their own opinions of it for sure.

Now, for me, honestly there is a lot of queer coding through this whole MV and through subsequent performances/choreo/promotions for this song as well. Lyric breakdown can be found here before we go further:

Music Video:

And my first post about Like Crazy, where I talk about the song as a whole, what I think it's about AND touch on the queerness of Jimins gender expression throughout the MV:

To expand upon that, the choreo is a huge part of that and this person did a pretty good job breaking that down and sharing their theory over the dance too.

On top of in the extra content for FACE, similar references get lowkey pointed out in the FACE Playlist video, both in the LC MV and the Playlist video. Which you can watch here

During the Set Me Free portion, things line up very similarly to Freddie's "I want to break free" video, where he cross dresses. And for those who don't know, he fairly openly queer as an artist. He was involved with both men and women regardless of never openly stating or confirming his sexuality (that I know of). In the video, we also see Jimin looking through vinyls, including Queen and Nirvana. AND in the LC MV set, we see on the wall writing that says "Set Me Free" "Moon" "Wake" among others AND a Queen sticker too.

I want to break free video:

He talks and makes references to accepting both sides of himself a lot. It's in his stylistic choices, his art, how he expresses himself. And it's been a repeated theme for AWHILE now and if you aren't seeing it... it's because you don't want to

To get deeper into it, some of the historic queer imagery and iconography Jimin used in this MV specifically and just in FACE promotions in general... would include Philip Johnson, the architect of the Glass House, openly gay and where the term "the glass closet" was coined from. A photo of his is once again in the FACE Playlist video.

Robert Mapplethorpe, his portrait on the jeans Jimin wore through the MV and several images in his photobook I believe too. A photographer specializing in male and female nude works, among other things. Including his most controversial work being his documentation of the gay male BDSM subculture scene.

In the photobook, he is pictured several times in an outfit where he is wearing Jean Paul Gaultier y/series Bodymorph jeans. Specifically he is wearing the "woman" set. The designer Specifically described this series as exploring and playing with the concepts of gender, he liked the idea of there being a mens set, and a womens set and them being able to overlap each other. The bodymorph clothing sets have naked human body prints on them. So!Yoon who recently worked with and is friends with RM (if not friendly with the other members too) also recently wore these in her album release as well. You can interpret him wearing these as you choose of course. I personally think it's speaks fairly clearly to the same things I was talking about above, with him referencing all things gender and how he is leaning into the more typical feminine iconography here with these pants for his softer side of the photoshoot for his album.

I think looking at the designs for both sets also makes it more clear which ahem, set, Jimin is wearing too. Lol and how some of the models are mixing the sets (including So!Yoon wearing the women's set as well in a diff color)

And lastly, while it might not have to do with the album directly, it does involve Jimin and is worth mentioning here as it was lowkey part of album promotions. During the first ever performance aired of Like Crazy on the Jimin Fallon show, Jimin worked with 8 backup dancers and one of them was nonbinary and shared their experience and how comfortable, welcoming, non judged and appreciated Jimin and staff made them feel the whole time. How they got to just be who they were the whole time. It speaks the type of environment Jimin cultivates around himself all the time.

Performance video:

And during the teaser that was shared of Jimin working on his album with Pdogg and others. They talked about how for 10 months, Jimin basically lived in Pdoggs house. They all just lived together and ate, slept, breathed this album. Lol and in the hallway of Pdogg's house, we see that he has a Stonewall rainbow art piece. Which if that is what that is, is very special to have the education over Stonewall and the support of for that in your home in Korea. I won't speak to it either way, if that is what it is, great. If it's not. I'm just going to enjoy a rainbow in the same shot as Jimin regardless. Lol

Teaser video:

At this point, there is deep references to historic queer iconography in so much of Jimins art, it's fair to say we aren't guessing anymore. He is as out as he can be without explicitly saying anything. For me personally at least. And no one is owed an explicit coming out from anyone for any reason. If you listen to what he says, what he sings about, what he photographs, what he dances, what he shares with us? It's all right there too see. So plainly. Queer people have always had to talk and listen between the lines. It's there if you want to see it. And it's fair for queer armys and queer people to react and talk about the continuous use of queer icons and imagery Jimin has used over the years. It's not assuming anything. It's just listening to what he is telling us and sharing.

Thank you for the ask. And thanks to anyone who read the whole thing. 💜

#Jimin FACE #JM Like Crazy #JM rainbow moments

[gaygryffindorgal]

A Christmas Prince; The Royal Wedding

Chapter 5: The Breaking Point

Summary: Dawn investigates the situation in Alderly, leading to unexpected consequences.

Words: 5k

Characters:

Dawn Harvelle and Evander Alderly by @potionboy3

Quincey and Olympia Alderly, Tess Brandon

Rocky Weasley by @magicallymalted

Pandora Lovelace by @gcldensnitch

Also featuring:

Evan Harvelle by @potionboy3

Beginning| Previous Chapter | Next Chapter

Want to read the first fic in the series, A Christmas Prince? Click here!

Chapter 5: The Breaking Point

Dawn was on a video call with Rocky and Pandora, while Rosa and The Queen argued about flower arrangements.

“We're on our way to the airport,” Pandora was saying. “See you in just a few hours!”

“It’s arse o’clock in the morning, try and get some sleep on the plane, okay?”

“I'm on vacation,” announced Rocky. “I'll sleep after New Year's.”

“You’re insane.”

“Your blog is what’s insane,” Pandora said. “It got like a billion hits in under ten hours but why did you take down all the photos?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Everything you put up is like, gone,” Pandora explained. Dawn minimized the call window and pulled out his blog.

“Vanished about an hour ago,” said Rocky.

“I didn't take it down,” Dawn said, confused.

“Someone did,” Rocky observed.

“I bet I know who…”

~

Pince’s new office was on the same floor as Dawn’s wedding hell, so it didn’t take long for him to storm there. The culprit in question was talking one of the palace aides, a man by the name of Mr. Gorski.

“May I suggest a little damage control?” said Pince.

“I shall have a word with my friends in the press,” said Gorski.

“Much appreciated.”

The aide left and gave Dawn a funny look at the door.

Dawn stepped inside. “Did you censor my blog?”

“With all due respect, I thought we had talked about this, and agreed that…”

“I never agreed to my work being censored!”

Pince sighed and turned her computer screen to face Dawn, with all the pictures he had taken on full display. Another tab was open on the background, something about a company called Meadowlark but Dawn didn’t get a good look, before Pince maximized one of the pictures. The one showing Olympia and Gaia goofing off.

“Do you really think that this is the sort of image the royal family should portray?”

“I saw that it's trending!” Dawn argued. “It had tons of positive comments.”

“It's also a breach of protocol.”

“I seriously doubt,” said Dawn and took a deep breath. “…that traditional protocols were set up for viral social media.”

“Times change, protocol does not.”

“Well, in this case–,” Dawn started but Pince simply said: “Your photographs belong to us now. It's just the way that it is.”

Dawn couldn’t think of a single thing to say. Maybe he should have cleared a permission to post the images. He’d have to have a word with Quincey about this.

“Now, shall we turn our attention to the royal portrait?” asked Pince. “It is to be rendered at 4:30 promptly.”

~

“I can tell something's bothering you,” Quincey whispered. They were posed for the royal portrait, which Dawn had to admit, was not the best position to have a conversation in.

“Can we talk about it?” Quincey asked.

“I don't know, can we?” he hissed back. “It seems like we need a royal decree to go to the loo.”

“Who's ruffled your feathers now?”

“I had a rather unpleasant conversation with Miss Pince today,” Dawn explained. “I don't appreciate being controlled.”

“It's a balancing act,” said Quincey. “At the end of a day, they work for us, but we need to play by the rules.”

“She deleted posts from my blog, without informing me.”

“Please, be quiet Your Majesty, Your Royal Highness,” said Rosa.

“Once we get through the wedding and you're officially Prince Consort, we'll be at a better place to pick our battles,” Quincey added quickly.

“’Once we get through it.’ Sounds like you're talking about a medical procedure…”

“Let's just go with the flow. Keep calm and carry on, for now. Okay?”

The photographer cleared his throat, and both Dawn and Quincey assumed their poses.

“Chin up, King Quentin, give me some regality.”

Flash.

“Watch the smiling. This image must exude solemnity and control.”

Flash.

They were ordered to turn this way and that, change hand positions, change sides, and Dawn was getting annoyed. He knew this to be a part of life as a member of the royal family but Pince censoring his blog had already burned away much of his already short fuse.

“How much longer will this take?” he asked after twenty minutes.

“The sooner we get it right, the sooner we can go,” said the photographer.

“It’s the necklace,” said Miss Pince. “Who approved this? You, Miss Yaxley?”

Dawn realized they were talking about Tess’s necklace, and he grabbed it protectively.

“I…” Rosa started. “I thought it had been agreed upon.”

“I chose it,” said Dawn.

“Well, it's absolutely wrong! Take it off.”

“I want to wear it.”

“It's inappropriate,” said Pince and snapped her fingers for Rosa to take the necklace. Rosa walked over to Dawn apologetically.

“I really want to keep this,” said Dawn.

“This isn’t about you,” said Pince. “It’s about the royal portrait.”

“Quincey?” Dawn attempted, turning to his husband-to-be.

“Miss Pince, is there really no way he could…”

“This is the official portrait, Your Majesty, I’m afraid I must insist on the removal of the necklace.”

“I don’t see–,”

Pince stepped closer. “You two don’t want to insult the crown now, when we’ve come so far. It’s crucial we do everything by the books.”

Quincey sighed and Dawn could see the fight draining out of him. “Alright.”

“What?” Dawn asked.

“It’s just a necklace, Dawn.”

Dawn felt like he’d been dumped into cold water. Silently he took the necklace off but instead of giving it to Rosa’s expectant hand, he carefully put it in his pocket. Then he got back into his pose, and it certainly wasn’t hard not to smile anymore.

~

The atmosphere was not quite merry, when the family gathered together in front of a fireplace to read Christmas cards sent by the Alderlian people.

“It makes us proud to have you as our royal family. May you be blessed with the happiest of Christmases. Love, the Potters,” Queen Isabella read from her big, throne-like armchair. “All the cards from well-wishers have to be my favourite part of the season.”

“I love hanging Christmas cards from my partners and customers on my office wall back home,” said Tess.

“Would you like some coffee with that whiskey, Evander?” asked Quincey when Evander sat next to him on the couch. Evander made a face at him. Dawn could suddenly see them as kids, bickering over toys or the front seat of a car.

“Dear Royals, while I'm sure you're having a dandy Christmas at the palace, the real working people of Alderly are suffering…” the queen stopped short and cleared her throat. “This one isn't very festive.”

“Keep reading, mother,” said Quincey.

Isabella hesitated, but went on: “I've lost my job, as the business I owned and worked at my whole life, but which was put out of business by your New Alderly disaster. Thanks for nothing but a big lump of coal in my stocking this year.”

Isabella lowered the card and looked distraught. “We are doing everything we can, aren't we? That man has no idea how hard we're working for the long-term well-being of the kingdom.”

Evan nodded encouragingly. “Some people just like to complain. It's like I always say: can't let the naysayers bring you down. Right, peanut?”

“Dad…” muttered Dawn.

“All hail, Prince Peanut!” said Evander, raising his glass.

“All hail, the village idiot,” said Olympia.

“Mr. Harvelle has a valid point,” said the queen. “Mustn't let a malcontent disrupt the season.”

“Read another one, mother,” said Quincey.

“Dearest royal family, sending you warmest wishes this holiday... and hoping for the best. Merry Christmas…”

~

Olympia came with Dawn to wait for the arrival of Rocky and Pandora. Quincey had sent a car to fetch them from the airport. They were coming together, since Jimmy couldn’t get away until the wedding due to his father’s magazine going out of business. Nymeria was also working until Christmas Eve, so Maxim had postponed his arrival, too.

“I think there’s more to these New Alderly problems than meets the eye, but I've been too caught up thinking about the wedding protocols,” Dawn told the princess.

“What do you mean more?” Olympia inquired.

“Call it journalistic instinct.”

Just then the car pulled up and Dawn’s friends filed out.

“Dawn!” said Pandora excitably and came to give him a hug. Rocky followed suit.

“Hi guys,” said Dawn. He was very happy to see the two of them, especially after the insane stuff that had been going on in Alderly.

“You must be Princess Olympia,” said Pandora and curtsied. Dawn felt proud.

Rocky bowed and said: “It's an honour to be a guest of the realm.”

“Uh, excuse Rocky, this is his first royal wedding.”

Olympia laughed. “The realm welcomes you both. Abide, and you will avoid the dungeon.”

Pandora and Rocky exchanged glances.

~

Dawn showed his friends around. Their reactions were pretty much in line with Dawn’s own.

“Oh, my gosh, can you believe this place?” said Pandora. “It's amazing.”

“You think if we just moved in, they'd even notice?” Rocky asked.

“Let's give it a try.”

“Where are the knights in shining armour?” Rocky continued. “When's jousting? I want to joust.”

“I want wenches serving mead,” Pandora announced.

“There are no wenches in my kingdom,” said Quincey, who had appeared at the end of the hall. He walked up to them, smiling. He’d spent more time with all of Dawn’s friends throughout their engagement and they got along nicely. Dawn was willing to wager that Pandora and Rocky had more goodwill for the king than he did, at the minute.

“Quincey,” said Dawn. He was still pissed off about the necklace, but he didn’t want to start an argument when his friends had just arrived.

“My King!” said Rocky.

“Good to see you both again,” said Quincey.

“Good to see you, too,” said Pandora.  “You have a beautiful country.”

“So many dignitaries about, too,” said Rocky. “I never get to meet dignitaries at the Noodle Chalet.”

“I wish I could come have some fun with you three today, but sadly, my day is far from over. mother has the new accounts for us.”

Of course she did.

“Well, I’d love to stay and help but…” Dawn started.

“Are you sure we shouldn’t postpone our celebrations?” asked Pandora, looking between Dawn and Quincey. Dawn, however, had other plans in store.

“It’s quite alright, you should show your friends the sights of Alderly. But think of me when you're having fun.” His tone was a little off, so maybe he wasn’t completely unaware of Dawn’s hurt feelings.

“You heard the King, it's party time,” said Pandora.

“It's your bachelor night!” said Rocky. “We're gonna get it going!”

Quincey rolled his eyes at them in amusement and left. Dawn turned to his friends, half a plan formed in his mind.

 “Actually, there's something I was hoping you two could help me with.”

“What kind of something?” asked Rocky.

“A lead I want to follow up on.”

“A lead?”

“More of a hunch. Potentially a source.”

“Wait,” said Pandora “A lead for what? A scoop?”

“Discrepancies in the kingdom's finances,” Dawn explained.

“That sounds way more fun than a bachelor party,” said Rocky, sarcastically.

“Should've seen this coming. It's just days to your wedding, your best friends just flew in to celebrate, and you want to work?” asked Pandora.

“Yes. There's something going on in Alderly that doesn't make sense.”

“What does Quincey say?” asked Rocky.

Dawn scoffed, annoyed at the mere thought. “He's too busy going with the flow. Please, I need your help. There's someone we need to find tonight.”

~

Dawn’s plan involved finding the Christmas card sent by the displeased subject. It was from a man by the name of Aberforth Dumbledore. Tess agreed to help, too so they had four people combing through the cards instead of three.

“Let us search the realm for one Mr. Dumbledore,” announced Pandora.

“We should at least bring our sunglasses,” Tess said as a clear dig at Dawn for his disguise at the airport. “Having the Prince-Consort-to-be spotted roaming the city without any security might be a bit risky.”

“I’m security,” said Pandora but Tess was not convinced so they all dressed up as incognito as possible. Dawn put on a hat for good measure. He was aware of the risky nature of his plan, but he had started to seriously doubt the court’s ability to handle this situation.

~

The four of them went to the most popular pub in town to start with. The Three Broomsticks it was called, and they had it on good authority that it might be a place to find this Mr. Dumbledore.

“If this Aberforth guy isn't here,” said Pandora. “Can we please do something fun?

“Yes, something that resembles a bachelor party,” agreed Rocky.

“I spoke to Mr. Flitwick, and he said that Mr. Dumbledore’s been here almost every day since he lost his job.”

“Notice how he didn't answer my question,” grumbled Pandora to Rocky.

“Well, at least it's a bar…”

~

The bartender was an older lady with magnificent, light brown curls. Her name was Rosmerta and Tess went to ask her about their mystery man so as to protect Dawn’s identity. While he waited, a man walked up to him, clearly well into god knew how many pints.

“Why are you wearing sunglasses inside?” he demanded. “It’s dark as a dungeon in here.”

Dawn, not wanting to cause any kind of a scene but being well aware of how drunk people were capable of causing a fight from nothing, just said: “I have a light sensitivity disorder.”

The man did a double take and squinted his eyes at Dawn. “Do I know your voice from somewhere?”

“I gotta go, sorry,” said Dawn and joined Tess at the bar. He very much did not want to be discovered here.

Rosmerta pointed them to one of the corner tables, where an elderly chap was sitting, nursing a pint of ale.

Dawn approached, his companions behind him.

“Aberforth Dumbledore?”

“Who wants to know?”

“I’d like to ask you some questions.”

Aberforth did not seem particularly forthcoming when he asked: “What kind of questions?”

“About your work situation.”

“You some kind of reporter?”

“Well, sort of,” said Dawn and removed his sunglasses.

“Merlin’s beard,” said Aberforth, obviously recognizing Dawn. “What the devil are you doing here?”

“I want to help,” Dawn said. “The situation is getting out of hand, and I think I might be able to do something about it. Not that King Quentin isn’t trying his best, he’s barely slept since I got here.”

“And I'm supposed to feel sorry for him?” asked Aberforth. “How much sleep you think I've been getting?”

“I'm sorry, Mr. Dumbledore, that's not what I meant,” said Dawn, backpedalling. “It's just that they... that we are all trying to find the best solution.”

Aberforth scoffed. “But you're one of them. Why should I trust you?”

To be fair, Dawn probably hadn’t thought this thing through. He wasn’t used to not being the underdog himself so having it thrown to his face made him hesitate. Still, he pressed on: “Why else would I be here? I want to understand what's going on, too.”

Aberforth sighed and motioned for them all to sit down. Maybe because he actually believed Dawn or maybe because he figured if he cooperated, they’d all leave him alone sooner.

“This whole New Alderly initiative, it's a fraud. It was supposed to be a way to get the country to invest more money back into itself. That be the case, the money should actually stay in Alderly.”

Dawn took out a tiny notebook and a pen. He wasn’t going to fumble what might very well be his last chance of doing some actual investigative journalism.

“I owned a pub called Hog’s Head Inn for 45 years before we were shut down.”

“If local businesses like yours aren't getting a piece of the pie, then who is?” asked Dawn.

“Well, a new company, Meadowlark. They bought out many local businesses and there simply weren’t enough customers to stay afloat. They could afford lower prices.”

Meadowlark grabbed Dawn’s attention. It was the name he’d seen on Pince’s computer this very morning. This, however, was the first time he was hearing anything about a big corporation buying out local businesses.

“An Alderlian company?”

“Well, on paper, maybe. But them and another couple of companies formed at the start of the initiative. All a bit fishy, if you ask me.”

Dawn wrote down everything he thought relevant as fast as he could. Aberforth eyed him and then asked: “What are you planning on doing anyway?”

“Getting to the bottom of this.” Dawn said determinedly. “Thank you for your help, Mr. Dumbledore. It's a good start.”

Aberforth nodded. “I never did like being called Mr. Dumbledore. Aberforth will do if you happen on these parts again, Your Highness.”

“Alright, Aberforth–,” Dawn started, when suddenly someone yelled across the room: “There he is! With the hat!”

“I think we got trouble,” said Rocky, standing up quickly.

“Dawn! Dawn Harvelle!”

“For cock’s sake,” Dawn swore and slipped his notebook back into his pocket.

The four of them retreated to the very back of the pub but paparazzies had already been alerted to their presence. Suddenly someone grabbed Dawn by the arm, and he jumped.

“Follow me,” said Evander of all people. “I know a way out.”

“What the hell?” asked Dawn.

“Or you can stay here and be picked clean by the vultures,” Evander said urgently.

“What… You tipped these people off, didn't you?”

“If I tipped them off,” Evander demanded. “Why would I be trying to help you escape? Let's go.”

“I don’t see any other way out of here,” said Tess.

“Fine,” Dawn relented, and they all followed Evander out from a side exit.

~

Once outside and away from the earshot of any paparazzi, Dawn asked: “Did you follow us here?”

“We're fighting on the same side here,” said Evander.

“I don't know what angle you're playing, but I know you're playing one.”

“This is my car, come on,” he said, ignoring Dawn’s comment. It was tiny and old, and Dawn couldn’t place its model. All he could do was ask: “What happened to the Lamborghini?”

“It was a Ferrari and I told you I had to sell it,” Evander said. “Now get in unless you want those people to catch up with us.”

They filed in, Dawn stubbornly in the back while Tess took the front seat. He didn’t appreciate having to be rescued by Evander.

“Thank you,” said Tess.

“Why on Earth did you think it was a good idea to go snooping to town?” Evander asked and he was clearly talking to Tess, made more evident when he added: “Dawn’s the most famous person in the country right now.”

“In my defence,” said Rocky from the right side of Dawn. “I didn’t think it was a good idea.”

“We wanted to help,” said Tess. “And I think we might have found something worthwhile.”

~

“Not much on Meadowlark Enterprises…” Dawn said later back at the palace. He’d pulled out his laptop and was trying to find out any information he could about the mysterious company. “Just a public web site with no physical address. It's like someone's scrubbed the records. There's no footprint.”

“Is that the best you can do?” asked Evander.

“Remind me again why you're here?”

“I rescued your asses from the paparazzi,” said Evander. “And I know more about the economic situation than you.”

“Really?” asked Dawn. “Here I thought you were just a waste of space.”

“You have such a way with words,” said Evander.

“Well, I am a writer.”

Rocky drew Dawn’s attention back to the computer screen.

“Hey, check that out,” he said. “Looks like Meadowlark is getting the lion's share of the contracts with these two other firms: Geller Inc., and Houghton Alexis.”

“Those must be the others that Aberforth was talking about,” Dawn mused, examining the screen.

“Do you know anything about those companies?” Tess asked Evander who looked slightly surprised at being asked a direct question.

“No, but I do know that any company involved in public works projects has to register their financial information with the Hall of Records database.”

“How do we get in there?” asked Dawn.

“You're the one with the King for a fiancé,” said Evander.

“I don't want to ask Quincey about this. Not unless I really have to.”

“Why not?” asked Evander, smugly. “Do I detect trouble in paradise?”

“Wipe that stupid look off your face,” said Dawn.

“Guys,” said Pandora. “Can we stay on subject.”

“Right,” continued Evander. “We could break into the Hall of Records. Or kidnap the records keeper, toss him in a dungeon, and hope he gives up the passcode.”

This solicited a few chuckles from everyone around the table but Dawn.

“Or we could hack it,” said someone by the door. Olympia walked in; arms crossed.

“How long have you been out there?” asked Dawn.

“Long enough to get the gist,” Olympia replied. “Chances are Alderly's public firewalls aren't exactly state of the art.”

“Are you saying you could do it?” asked Dawn.

“No, she’s not,” said Evander, looking at Olympia in equal parts surprise and suspicion. “Remember how I said I went to Oxford for Economics?”

“Vaguely.”

“I minored in computer science.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” asked Dawn.

“No, he isn’t,” said Olympia. She didn’t seem at all happy about having spoken this idea out loud but if there was a chance they could get to the bottom of things this way then Dawn had to admit that it wasn’t entirely bad.

“If I can create a network interface that catches the traffic to the legitimate server, I can backdoor the access.”

Everyone looked at Evander like he’d just spoken a completely different language.

“An interfacing server-traffic-catcher,” he said. “Never heard of it?”

“Of course,” said Dawn, sarcastically. “So obvious.”

“Do you think you can crack this?” Tess asked Evander.

“Yes, but it's going take some time,” he said as Dawn handed his laptop to him. “Perhaps all night.”

“No problem,” said Pandora and then turned to Rocky. “Are you thinking what I'm thinking?”

“Bachelor party?” asked Rocky.

“No,” said Dawn.

“I would appreciate it if you let me work in peace so by all means, go have your little party,” said Evander.

“I do not feel comfortable leaving him alone with this,” said Dawn. “He has my computer, after all.”

“I’ll keep an eye on him,” said Tess. Dawn squinted his eyes at her. He wasn’t sure why Tess was suddenly so nice about Evander.

“Alright, fine, but no partying” he said. At least he knew he could trust Tess.

~

Olympia led Dawn, Rocky, and Pandora upstairs.

“Alright,” said Olympia. “The coast is clear. Now.”

“Where exactly are we going?” asked Dawn.

The princess reached a door and tried the handle. It was locked, so she produced a key from her cardigan pocket. “Since we’re not throwing a party, we might as well do something fun.”

Olympia let them in. It was a standard palace bedroom and Dawn couldn’t immediately tell to whom it belonged.

“Olympia, whose room is this?” he asked and then noticed a framed photograph of Evander on one of the nightstands. Had they entered the lair of some secret Evander fan-club or did this man seriously have his own picture on his nightstand?

“Evie’s, of course,” said Olympia as innocently as she could muster.

Dawn walked over to the bed and picked up the picture frame. “I would’ve guessed his mother.”

Olympia chuckled and began to search around the room for something.

“What are we looking for?” asked Pandora.

“I happen to know that Evander has a collection of quality sheet masks somewhere in here,” Olympia explained, opening drawers and cabinets. “We’re going to… borrow a few.”

“Sheet masks?” asked Rocky, as if he hadn’t heard Olympia correctly.

“Yes!” the princess said. “It’ll be fun, trust me!”

Dawn got to looking and soon enough discovered a stash in one of the drawers of Evander’s closet. “Oh, wow, these are like… posh posh.”

“I know right,” said Olympia. “Everyone, take your pick.”

Pandora and Olympia chose masks for themselves, but Dawn was still stuck on the price tag.

“He had to sell his car but he’s still sticking to these…”

“Priorities,” muttered Pandora and examined her mask’s package.

“He does have a very soft-looking skin,” said Rocky, grabbing one for himself.

“That’s so true,” Pandora said.

“Is there anything else we could nick?” asked Dawn. He was definitely interested in mildly inconveniencing Evander in any way he could.

“I mean,” started Pandora. She looked around the room. “He’s basically poor, now, right?”

“He’s still a count,” said Olympia. “He might be exaggerating his struggles a little.”

“His car did truly suck, though.”

Rocky cleared his throat. “He is currently trying to help the country… Maybe. Just a friendly reminder.”

“Let’s just grab the masks and go,” suggested Pandora.

Olympia looked at Dawn. “Hmm, what do you think? Has Evie deserved our mercy?”

“Well, with a quick glance we didn’t find anything particularly evil…” Dawn said.

“Yeah, alright,” said Olympia. “Masks it is.”

“Actually,” said Dawn, still holding Evander’s picture. “I’m taking this. It’s a good Christmas present for Quincey.”

Olympia laughed. “I’m sure he’ll love it.”

“I’ll place it in our bedroom… His bedroom…? Do we have to sleep in separate bedrooms?”

“Not once you’re married,” said Olympia. “Propriety rules, and all.”

“In The Crown they have separate rooms,” said Rocky.

“They used to have those here too,” said Olympia. “And I’m sure you could get one if you wanted to.”

“Do you think he wants that…?” asked Dawn, carefully.

Olympia looked at him quizzically. “Quincey? I very much doubt it.”

Dawn shrugged. Quincey was always so busy that Dawn thought he might’ve even wanted some privacy.

“Let’s go, then,” said Olympia. They all filed out of the room, stolen masks in hand. Dawn felt a bit good about it, even though he was well aware of the good works Evander was currently performing.

~

They went to Dawn’s bridal suite and put the masks on. Olympia also insisted upon mani-pedis, so that’s what they did. She had some glühwein brought up and they passed a pleasant evening. Rocky was very much looking forward to waking up with the world’s softest skin the next morning and Dawn didn’t think about his wedding drama all that much. But this, much like a lot of things in Alderly, wasn’t the night Dawn would have planned for himself, and if it had been Jimmy, Maxim, Rocky, and him, the night would have gone very differently. Probably something along the lines of beer-pong. However, all things considered; it was still pretty fun.

~

Dawn was woken up way too early by someone calling his name.

“Mr. Harvelle. Mr. Harvelle!”

“Rosa, go away…”

“I am not Rosa,” said the distinct voice of Miss Pince. “Now, get up, get dressed, and follow me to my office.”

Dawn sat up. Pince’s face did not promise good news. She left the room so Dawn could get dressed in peace but was waiting right outside the door. When they arrived at the office, Quincey was already there, looking slightly dishevelled. Pince had probably woken him up, too.

“Quince?”

“Dawn, what are you doing here?”

“I have no idea,” admitted Dawn “You don't know?”

“Not a clue. Miss Pince asked me here…”

“Your Majesty, thank you for coming,” said Pince and took a seat.

“What can we do for you?” Quincey asked. Dawn was starting to feel like his actions from last night were going to come back to bite him in the arse.

“I hate to be the bearer of bad news,” said Pince and opened her computer so Quincey and Dawn could see the article displayed on it. “But we have been hit by a rather severe public relations snafu. This is exactly what we don't want.”

It was a front-page article proclaiming: The Prince Consort goes barhopping! Complete with several pictures taken at The Three Broomsticks.

“That's Dawn's bachelor party,” said Quincey but then he stopped and looked at the pictures more closely. “Is that Evander?” His tone was more that of surprise than disapproval though. Still, Pince didn’t look happy.

Dawn cleared his throat, he had better tell the truth than let Quiney think Dawn had invited Evander to his party. “It wasn't a party, we were investigating.”

“Investigating?” asked Quincey.

“Investigating what?” Miss Pince echoed the king.

“The discrepancies in the royal finances.”

“Excuse me?” asked Pince.

“What?” said Quincey.

Pince took a deep breath and said, more to Quincey than to Dawn: “I'm afraid that Mr. Harvelle does not understand his role within the royal family.”

Dawn, pissed off that he was spoken of as if he was a child or not in the room, said: “Oh, no, I get it. I'm supposed to smile, and nod, and do as I'm told. I understand, I just... I don't agree.”

“Well, I suggest that you cease from any further investigation and any activity pertaining to your blog immediately.”

“No way,” said Dawn.

“Your Majesty?” Pince implored.

“I…” Quincey started. “Look, Dawn, I think Miss Pince might be right about this. The approval ratings for the royal family are in the gutter and I–,”

“Really, Quincey?”

He couldn’t even say that he was surprised by Quincey not taking his side and that was probably the most disappointing thing about the entire situation.

“Just for a while.”

Dawn got up from his seat. He’d had enough of this entire bloody farce. He was beginning to think that maybe he wasn’t really cut out for this role and that maybe he had fucked up when he agreed to it in the first place. He stormed out of the room and could hear Quincey calling after him and Pince saying: “Sir! Give him some space. Let him calm down. And meanwhile, The Queen Mother has sent some notes for tonight's speech…”

tag list: @lifeofkaze, @gcldensnitch, @endlessly-cursed, @cursed-herbalist, @magicallymalted

(ask if you want to be included or removed)

#not a single thought has occured in my brain throughout writing this entire thing i promise u that #fic: the royal wedding #a christmas prince au #dawn harvelle #dawncey #the plot thickens #quincey has been kind of girlfailing in this one #but we'll get a chapter from his pov so maybe he can justify his actions himself (or not we'll see) #*my writing #quincey alderly

[drdtlover]

WHY I THINK HU IS THE KILLER.

This contains spoilers for the new mv and chapter two so you have been warned

Ok let me get this straight before starting, i came up with this theory very quickly whilst me and my friend were rewatching ch2. Nothing here is fact but this is just what i think happened.

Motive:

What would her motive be? Well this theory became a thing because of the secrets. I think Arei had Hu’s secret. Now this may seem crazy for you to hear but hu seems like the kind of person to kill someone and hold no remorse especially if it’s to protect someone.

I think it’s safe to say that hu is a very protective person. Especially around people she cares about and quite a few people may depend on her too. So who did eden run to when arei made her cry. Her bestie hu jing. Obviously i have no proof of this but it seems plausible. I believe a lot of the class( nico, eden etc) seek comfort in hu and see her as a mother figure of some sort

Now hu has gotten mad at arei before and making eden cry must’ve been her last straw.

I think eden is lying to us. I think she knows about hu being the killer but isn’t saying anything because she did it to protect eden. Also just pointing out what eden said before the body was discovered ‘no teruko wait’ almost like she knew what was in there.

I know what you’re thinking,”the murderer had to know about eden and arei becoming friends so if hu did it to protect eden why would she still kill her?” Well, i don’t know. It could be that since arei has hu’s secret she still wanted to kill her. Or maybe eden told hu about her and arei becoming friends and she had a little cute platonic yandere moment. Maybe she was there listening and heard the entire thing. Those are some options.

Now i know what else you’re thinking. “Hu can’t be the killer! Her and eden were doing the dishes at 7pm” (from what i remember them saying) well on the note it wasn’t specified 7 am or pm and i think charles’ “ teruko we fucked up” is what he’ll be talking about. And obviously arei was seen alive at 7pm with David and ace.

Now on my previous post i mentioned hu being credited as supporting cast in the new mv and how that was weird because the people credited as supporting cast are teruko, arei, hu, crossed out mai and a name cut of that seems to be ms/mr naegi (so like komaru or makoto)

Like i said on the previous post hu has nothing to do with the music video unlike the others: arei died this chapter and there is a rope in the background, teruko and mai’s portraits in the background.

So what does hu have to do with it? It could be that she was the one most hurt by David’s reveal or maybe she’s the killer. Her and Arei’s names are next to eachother as well.

How she did it:

Obviously there’s a lot of evidence this chapter so I’m going to go through what i can remember.

The minnows and water(well the water dried up)

I think arei was waterboarded. Granted this is the only reason i could come up with for the water being there. Obviously hu would need a large source of water and where better to get it from than a pond. This could also mean she didn’t die from hanging and instead died from asphyxiation but it’s pretty unlikely to have a fake cause of death two chapters in a row. So let’s say she passes out from lack of oxygen due to the waterboarding

Skid marks

We can’t really tell how strong hu is due to the fact she lost to rose in the arm wrestling comp in ch1. But with her line “ oh dear I’m a bit disappointed in myself” or so it goes. We can tell she thinks highly of her strength and was disappointed she lost to rose. Now the skid marks. The playground floor scuffs easily especially by dragging your feet, hu herself is the one to point this out. So i think hu took the unconscious Arei and the longer rope (the one found under the roundabout) and hung arei from one of the bars on the roof, generating enough force to break her neck. I think this because in the investigation veronika mentions how hanging from the swing set wouldn’t generate enough force to kill and break arei’s neck.

Arei’s wrists

Being tied to a board is a common theme(?) in waterboarding, to stop the victim from moving. So arei’s wrists being tied isn’t that big of a surprise. And we obviously find the crumpled tape that seems to be the lne that bound arei’s wrists together in the bin alongside the note

Tape on roundabout/merry go round

I don’t yet have an explanation for this one soooo.

That’s all the evidence and in conclusion hu killed arei to protect and eden knows this

but isn’t going to say anything. 🤪

#drdt theory #arei nageishi #hu jing #david chiem #danganronpa despair time #drdt spoilers #drdt #drdt chapter 2

[proudfreakmetarusonniku]

i made a fake aita post for the immortal primeboys animal crossing joke help

AITA for helping my little brother with his Animal Crossing island?

Okay, so I (21M) have this little brother T (16M) and I adore him beyond anything else in the world. We're immortal and have been for centuries at least (I used our ages at the time we became immortal for simplicities sake), and he’s been the one constant in my life, and I the one constant in his.

Now, T's a good kid, but he's also… troubled. He's got issues with false memories, and this really elaborate story in his head where I did the harm his prior family did to him. He's often uncontrollably emotional, or entirely emotionless. Sometimes he has periods of extreme anger and violence, or being entirely comatose, and at the worst times these can last weeks.

I don’t blame him, of course. He came from a traumatic background before I took him in, and that’s something he cannot help. It’s heartbreaking to see, honestly, and if I could take the pain onto myself I could, but I try my best to help. He needs a lot of structure, and a lot of love and support, and I adore giving both to him. It makes me so honoured I’m the one he relies on.

Now, T's picked up a lot of hobbies over the years to keep himself busy. Safe ones, where he doesn’t have to interact with other people or anything haha, he’s got really bad social anxiety and if I’m gonna be honest I don’t really trust others to understand and empathise with him like I do, people used to find him annoying and treat him cruelly before I took him in. He enjoys gardening, sewing, cooking, cleaning, lots of things, really! He's such a clever kid- a genius, I’d say, honestly, even if he’s a bit silly compared to me.

One of his favourite, though, is Animal Crossing. It’s been something he’s used as a coping mechanism in the dark times even before I was able to save him, and sometimes he'll spend days at a time just… walking around his villages. Of course, I've made sure to get every game in the series just for him, and of course he’s very grateful.

Now, I like to watch him play- any time spent apart from him is excruciating agony in general, and I think it’s adorable seeing what he does in a game with so much freedom. He names all his towns BIG MAN!! for one, which I think is the funniest thing ever, he’s so entertaining. I would be so bored without him.

A few days ago, I saw him playing New Horizons, and I noticed how much of a cluttered mess his island was. It was so unoptimally designed, with wayyyyyyy too much flowers everywhere and everything in annoying, hard to reach spots, and it was a patchwork mess of conflicting, chaotic styles. I felt really bad- my brother deserves a pretty, easy to play island, doesn’t he? So, of course, I offered to help clean it up!

Now, and I don’t know why this is, T defied me. He said his island was fine as it was- when it clearly wasn’t- and he didn't want my help. Obviously, this frustrated me, so I told him off, and gave him a little tap to remind him of his place (not even hard enough to bruise!!!), and he came around, and so I presumed this was just another one of his episodes.

I spent days with him, making his island the most beautiful but most fun island even possible to make in New Horizons, and I made sure to keep as much stuff from his previous island as I could, and made everything new something I knew he’d loved, and I even made a little portrait of me and him to hang in his house which was his favourite thing! He seemed so happy with the whole thing, so I was sure I did something good.

But over the past few days, I’ve noticed T has been trying to avoid me when doing his hobbies now. Previously, he'd love to sew or play video games in the room with me, and we'd chat for hours or even days without a break, but now he tries to hide in our room whenever he does anything.

Being the loving and understanding big brother I am, instead of immediately punishing him for his avoidant tendencies I asked him what’s wrong, and he said he was scared he wouldn’t be able to get a choice in what he made anymore, and I’d make decision for him. Now, I don’t understand the issue there- I’m clearly far better at making decisions than T, he's a mentally I’ll child while I am a stable adult who wants what’s best for him- but I really don’t want to spend a second without him in my life, and I’m willing to consider maybe we're both in the wrong here. So, AITA?

#immortal primeboys #tw abuse #tw possessive behaviour #tw codependency

[katyspersonal]

Would that be possible one day to share more of your thoughts and headcanons about Annalise and the King ? 

I only know a handful of people with ideas on them (a shame because there’s so much potential !) And recently it made me think about that post you made about them some time ago.  It might have influence me a bit to much as well.

Hey! Thank you for the ask! I believe you are referring to this ( x ) post, in which I focused specifically on the dynamic between the two, but yes I do have more stuff to say! I believe that since I talked about relationship itself in previous post, this time it will be fair to share ideas on each individually, however before I also want to notice that whereas I am woefully bad at having 'OTPs' as I jiggle too many timelines and ideas in my head all the time, this ship is my next closest thing to an OTP so far <:3 Even if Annaliese somehow was to find new love and was happy, the king would still remain 'the one' in her eyes. And, yes, NO cursed ritual marriages ever again! Only normal one, if at all.

The last time I talked about him, I was yet to pick a name for him besides just Cain-number-noone's-counting, but you can see it is sorta fixed now! I am doodling face references like this for myself to have faster time drawing faces, and had him drawn already, but it took me some time to find higher resolution of the portrait I am basing Elias' appearance of! So I've noticed he seems to have asymmetrical eyebrows, his right eye semi-closed and scratches on his forehead! Not saying eye thing can't be just resolution issue, and not saying scratches can't be picture ITSELF cracking from ages, but my general rule as an artist is - if I can pass something as 'imperfection' of appearance then I will! As I like having more things to draw, heh. I do not have an idea about how he got scars on his forehead yet however, but maybe the trauma is connected to what hurt his eye? In either case, on portraits he probably always shows his left side as a result.

Also, interesting thing is that clothes on his portrait resemble those of a cut enemy known as King Ghost Low-class! There is a similar enemy known as King in Blue, and he has different model! I learned about the difference from fanon wikia, that has page for King Ghost here ( x ) and for King in Blue here ( x ), and also from Lance McDonald in this ( x ) video where King Ghost is shown in the 4:24 - 6:33 frame and King in Blue is shown in the 6:34 - 8:49 frame! I thrown some references for how I will draw Elias in this pile below (also featuring picture from that super long model showcase video from Sinclair Lore ( x ) and detailed picture from this ( x ) tweet)

I headcanon that after unholy marriage ritual with Annalise that ultimately helps to conceive the blood child, Elias would sort of burst from his previous body into new form and look much more resembling this silver haired man impression cut content had! You can also notice that this enemy has three variants - with short sword and a shield, with a lance and a shield, and with short sword and a sphere! I headcanon that past the ritual, Elias has 'phantoms', kinda like Brador, except three instead of four and they'd attack with different weapons just like these variants! And like how Brador's phantoms look like his former self (when he is younger and with one horn on the hyde isn't broken), Elias' phantoms likewise look like his previous self and wear his former clothes! Meanwhile, real Elias now has what King in Blue wears:

Elias is one of like, two historically known crowned 'kings of blood' (not JUST kings of this line) that didn't turn into screeching tortured mess and died shortly after the ritual was complete! In fact, he remained ALMOST sane - however, the curse now tangled with him is very intense. The many colorful beads he wears later are charms that if removed will subject him for being tormented by Frenzy coming from within, as opposed to some Kin biting him or peering into a giant brain! If Bloodborne was an anime, in the final stage of battling Rogeriusz (Logarius), he would tear these charms off and jump from the tall roof of Cainhurst - only to fly back with Frenzy spears forming from his back and working like wings! Real vampire king moment, haha. And, he could use them as arrows to shoot from a bow conjured from blood magic! I should draw this scene someday..

There is another interesting bit, by the way.

You might notice that the statue that GOTTA be that of Rogeriusz has more or less typical Executioner outfit (if only heavier, more wizard-like than hunter-like)! That doesn't line up with what he is wearing when we find him, now does it? Besides he uses some 'cursed' magic, that whereas he indeed gotta be a Pthumerian himself, doesn't really fit a fanatical servant of the Healing Church? That made me think he didn't just sit on the throne for like 30 years but had to interact with Cainhurst more or less!

I decided that by murdering Elias/Cain, he became more like an 'amalgam' with his wrathful spirit. Elias' dying wills (blood echoes) are too strong to just perish, as not only he is carrying a link to a powerful "curse" but is a high ranking vileblood that must have immortal conscious like Annalise (and like Queen Yharnam)! Will of Rogeriusz is somewhat stronger and hence this person is still identified as just himself, but ghost of Elias lives in and tortured him from within, and things have changed. He has to wear the charms of colorful gems now too, as you can see! However, the amalgam fights more or less in harmony when the paleblood hunter approaches the throne. Rogeriusz wants to guard the secret he discovered (aka festered animosity between Church and Cainhurst having political advantage underneath and massacre being a ploy to obtain Great One's cord AND Laurence himself having arrived from Cainhurst), but Elias has reason to fear hunter is in to harm Annalise.

In other times, however…..

I believe had it been anyone else to kill Rogeriusz - they'd undoubtedly inherit the cursed spirit of Elias, and would probably lack blind fanatism of Rogeriusz that allowed him to persist, too! But I have means to headcanon that the paleblood moon effect repels the 'cursed' magic of Cainhurst and Pthumeru Ihyll likevice, so he would not be able to do anything to a paleblood hunter! In general, this line and the Kin of Moon are antagonistic by design; blood children are Amygdalas, opposites of celestial larvae and Ebrietas! Like demons and angels. After all, their connection with the 'moon' is something Annalise recognises as well:

I described the theory in this ( x ) post before, but TLDR; Annalise's hair lost all melanin as result of (almost) birthing a Great One, like what happened with Arianna, and the cord used to create Hunter's Dream was from her aborted baby, that was very close to being born though. Her face underneath this mask is distorted now - I headcanon that for the same reason Flora has her face the way it is, as her child was ripped from her guts before it was born! But it is not just that Annalise now looks 'scary'.

Since her own mask strongly resembles what her guardians wear, I presume the mask additionally serves to connect her with the guards telepathically more (or rather, see through their eyes and 'help' them). Like how Choir can still see even in their blindfold caps but only where 'stars' guide them, and like how Executioners can still see even through Gold Ardeo (and bag that keeps it) guided by ingrained quest for 'purity', guards have their ways around a headgear that is SUPPOSED to make them blinded too. And 'solitary' within the mask means absence of this connection for a long, long while.

I believe that she refers to you as the only 'blood relative' left in relevance to consuming her blood specifically - something that can run out its effect! Because if she means family - at least Maria still exists in spirit (that should be enough for vilebloods that transcend mortality), and if she means servants - Crow of Cainhurst still exists, right? Crow is still loyal to her in his insanity (still collecting blood dregs for her that he can't even deliver her), but he hasn't consumed her blood for years, so the telepathic bond between them is broken. Annalise has this bond with those in whom her "impurity" runs active, though! However our hunter would not be able to feel the true effect because… you know, paleblood moon block. They feel only a warming 'presence' rather than full connection - to the better possibly, as the latter tends to become addicting. I mean just look at Crow not being able to get over serving her decades later :')

I drew her portrait with her hair down, more like her hairstyle on concept art rather than hairbun from THE portrait! I believe this is the same dress minus the decor and jewellery, but sleeves of this dress had to be trimmed to keep her forearms free - she is supposed to share the blood from her veins without anything getting on the way! Though I believe her cuts heal within matter of seconds, and as long as her form persists, her blood seems to be endless. No such thing as dying from blood loss possible!

She had strong pride and dignity since childhood, that nobody had to teach her, but she showed the potential of a true royal this way. I already explained how her personality meshes with more mellow Elias' one in other post, yeah. I think when Alfred confronted her, she did not resist, basing it on how she won't let some maddened, barbarian boy force her to struggle or fear! She had not all that much to fear either with her consciousness being immortal, basically gave him the "a serpent never dies" attitude AND was right; I think the reason Alfred minecrafted himself had to do with her vengeful spirit! I talked about mysteries paleblood hunter could hold a few times now, but Alfred is only a normal human, you know? It is still a valid idea that Alfred only held on his noble quest and had nothing to live for once it was complete, but in my version he was sound with the idea of letting ideas of Rogeriusz live on through him and still hunt the beasts! I think based on his summon location he was also VERY interested in cleansing Old Yharnam.

…until after killing Annalise, he quickly ended with such intense dread, perceiving cursed knowledge he was not prepared for but that she casually juggled for decades in her solitude, and he just did not see a way to live like this. So he is dead on altar for Rogeriusz more as clinging to the only person/idea that brought him comfort, rather than coming to complete his quest. Basically, unless you are already connected to the divine that 'protects' you - never touch a current active blood queen! There was a good reason Executioners only messed with her baby and didn't kill her self. Alfred would know that if he loredigged more responsibly :(

That said, Annalise often lucid dreams, which in BB lore is as good as astral projection. She sometimes tries to reach Maria in her trance, but it never avails her anything - every time she is met with strong sea waves beating her away. When she is asleep, she could occasionally communicate with ones like Patches, that she finds mildly entertaining! She is aware of Micolash too and could communicate with him too, when he is willing to distract from research and Kos - it would be hypocritical to judge him, as she allowed the person she loved to take on nearly suicidal ritual and continues the ancient legacy heavily reliant on sacrifices and cursed rituals and necromancy. Well, at least, intended to, before Healing Church ruined everything. But, she thinks they share some things in common.

Also it is hard to not notice that she refers herself and her clan as 'unholy' and 'impure' etc, but that is less so internalised attitude induced by Healing Church - it has further roots in Pthumerian history that she is well educated on. Annalise is not the type to feel ashamed just because the moon presence governing this world decided ones like her "sinful"; she refers to her as impure in the same vein as people reclaiming slurs addressed to them or something like that! Iosefka and the imposter, on the other hand…..? Annalise is well aware of how hard they fell for the fear and prospect of being 'saved from natural depravity' (especially the imposter). If they were to return and beg her forgiveness for trading their legacy for agenda for Healing Church, and 'stars and moon' if you look further - she'd accept on the terms that they make their existence within the castle impossible for her to acknowledge. She oddly combines practical inability to forgive breaking her trust and accepting people searching for the right way no matter how many mistakes they make. Like, 'it is valid you realised, but first I'll be mad at you for 100 years' ahaha

___________

Alllllright, you aren't asleep yet? xD

This has been a lore and details lecture for quite a while ahaha; I tried to focus more on that, but I hope that the reply was at least somewhat entertaining! Thank you for letting me talk about these characters though! :) And I agree with you, I am rather surprised the vampire queen did not get more popular? But, yeah, if you found any of this useful, feel free to take inspiration!

#bloodborne #annalise queen of the vilebloods #king of cainhurst #ask replies #doodles #use later #bloodborne headcanons #also sorry for that shitpost doodle fdhhdfsd #i had to #i am better off not seeing how bad i delayed this ask reply fdshsd #like.. having thoughts is very easy! but organizing them less chaotically? #now that takes time #also don't mind quality of doodles it is mostly self-reference #needed to think about this stuff big time tho

[psioniciris]

Camera Obscura

Honestly this is one of my favorite topics since my dad's a photographer and taught me pretty much everything I know about cameras. The earliest cameras were said to be invented around 400BC by a Chinese philosopher named Mo-tzu and in the 4th century the Greek philosopher Aristotle realized it could be used to see a partial eclipse.

It wasn't until the 11th century that the camera obscura was used to reflect a full still image. As for the name, the actual term wasn't coined until 1604 by Johannes Kepler who invented a portable version he used for his astrology research in Austria.

Obviously there's a lot more to the camera's history, but I only wanted to share a quick overview of what a camera obscura is and how it got it's name before we get into the cooler and spookier aspects. So to give you a bit more context, one of my favorite videogames is called Fatal Frame or Project Zero where you have to defend yourself with only a camera with the ability to exorcise ghosts. It's a really good game, especially if you like the classics. Too bad real ghosts aren't so easy to deal with...

Moving on though, I mentioned in my previous post about how mirrors, photographs, and self-portrait paintings were sometimes believed to steal the souls -or at least a small fragment of them- of whoever is being reflected inside. And when you think about it, early cameras were pretty much the same thing. It's a lens that reflects the inverted image of something or someone in a dark room and later on it became possible to 'capture' the image on film by burning the image onto it.

Fun fact, that's why people had to stay perfectly still when taking a family portrait or something because the process of imprinting their image on film took time and moving would make the image blurry.

As for the rest when it comes to the paranormal myths about cameras, over the years I've learned that some stories about ghosts caught on camera are sadly either made up or clever hoaxes. There are definitely some cases where real ghosts have appeared on camera, but the idea that they can only been seen that way by normal people like us isn't true. The fact of the matter is you usually need a special camera to be able to see them if they're invisible since ghosts still have a low temperature, which means that you can detect them with an infrared camera but that only matters if you're out doing a paranormal investigation.

As far as actual photographs being haunted or possessed by ghosts...well, judging from what I've seen it's usually not so much that the photos themselves 'trap' ghosts, it's more like they're the ones who can't move on so it's an emotional attachment keeping them in there. Or at least an echo of their strong feelings and memories. It's the same with paintings in most cases.

In rare cases, there is some kind of magic or curse involved that has trapped the soul of their victim inside of an object but there's no way to safely test that theory. As you can imagine, the last thing I want to do is unleash a vengeful spirit by accident! Anyways, that's it for now but maybe next time I'll talk about videos since that's my main area of expertise. I am a vlogger after all! But if there's anything else you'd like to hear me talk about next, feel free to ask!

#danny phantom #danny phantom roleplay #danny phantom oc #danny phantom rp #camera obsura #iris brooks #psioniciris #psionic iris #ghost story #haunted photographs #oc #original character #ghosts caught on camera #paranormal investigation #fatal frame #project zero

[team-heavenly]

Chapter 18 - Part 2

Ayo! Cool kids go back and read the first part before the second!

So...! Affluent Yurt! Idk seems pretty dingy to me. Also if this looks like one giant room, that’s because it is.

Oh dear god oh f*ck the Sableye found us again!!

Only a few things to talk about, really:

I did need to reset once after a nasty Monster House + Agility + Draco Meteor combo. (What is it with Draco Meteor in this run?)

You can apparently hit Ghost types hiding in the wall with Rare Fossils lol

That said, Rare Fossils did not always spare me the mercy of Normal form Rotom, who hits surprisingly hard with flying type moves.

Rotom just before OHKOing Teresa with Sky Attack:

(Side note but I first saw this video on a post about Trump getting Corona and it made me laugh my ass off for DAYS.)

This was a tough decision at first ngl. Sleep can be useful in some cases. The move has a little more PP than Smokescreen. And I’m pretty sure we go straight to the Hidden Land Precious Butte from here, so I better be darn sure about what moves I choose to keep.

Then I took one look at the accuracy for Sleep Powder and laughed it off. Four stars versus eight? Bye bye!

Speaking of... Tropius almost never needed to attack, so I have no idea what his moveset was. All I saw was one failed Last Resort.

On to the next scene!

Hey, Andrea? Uhhh, irony just called and asked for you-

...Oh darn, I was too late 😅

Even without the portrait, you can see the “eh” is just DRIPPING.

I also like how the placement of Gastrodon makes him seem like he’s a part of the team (and not just an unwilling observer lol).

Oh yeah this is TOTALLY our fault. We left ourselves WIDE OPEN to theft, a conscious choice of action YOU’VE MADE TWO SEPARATE TIMES NOW

Man, how long ago was the expedition at this point? We have no idea how many “present” days we spent in the future, so...

...Okay, maybe not that long.

*muffled yelling from the peanut gallery* “YEAH AND THEY WERE THE ONES WHO FRAMED US FOR THE PERFECT APPLE INCIDENT! LOOK I KNOW THAT’S NOT IMPORTANT RIGHT NOW BUT IT MATTERS TO ME!!”

About the perfect apple incident? Oh yeah. Source: Trust Me™

Welp, Tropius just went MIA in a fit of rage. Understandable tbh.

So onward we go into the depths...

Wealthy Shore... Wealthy... Shore... I swear that sounds familiar, but I looked at all our previous dungeons and the name doesn’t show up anywhere. It’s very possible I’ve had a Magnagate dungeon named this in GTI? That’s the only explanation I can come up with.

In any case, this section was only 5 floors and I (thankfully) had no trouble breezing right through it.

I dunno if I focused on a different spot of the picture or what, but for this scene some of these shots have drastically different lighting/saturation. I hope the inconsistency isn’t too distracting...

This is on you, mate. You do a bad job of spying on the guild reconnaissance.

Well, we’re good guys in a video game, so we kind of have to care about you. Unfortunately.

Oh, to have been a Cutiefly on the wall for that.

It’s... a little touching, really... I absolutely would have kicked their limp bodies one more time before walking away lmaoooo

But then suddenly, redemption moment!

Actually, this added dialogue happened earlier, but my shot didn’t wind up looking too good... and this seemed like a natural place to put it instead!

...And then we never see them again.

Which is honestly kind of a shame? It would’ve been nice to have some resolution here. And maybe some groveling from Team Skull because you end up saving the world 😏 (I say like they’d ever do that...)

All joking aside though... this was definitely a missed opportunity.

And a little messed up? Because until Super Mystery Dungeon, for all you know they end up dying in the cave. Talk about dark.

Well Team Water Meanies, we had a good run. Thanks for the memories 👋

“...You two, can you move?”

“What, are you kidding?!”

Don’t let their deaths be in vain, click here to move on to Part 3.

#pokemon mystery dungeon #pmd explorers #explorers of sky #randomizer #chapter 18

[sneez]

[breaks down your door and throws this directly at your head (affectionately) with the force of a cannonball] HAVE YOU SEEN HIM

#fairfax #ghost post #HAST SEEN MY FATHER????????? HAST #look at him. look at him. foaming at the mouth (me not him. although he had so many illnesses maybe he had rabies also) #ANYWAY moving on from rabies #LOOK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! #i know i have posted one of these video things before with a previous portrait BUT!!!! ooh it's been so exciting on my private twitter this #week because i emailed leeds castle ages ago asking if they had any better images of my favourite fairfax portrait (the one in my icon) #because the only image i had was slightly out of focus and i thought they had forgotten but then they emailed back on wednesday!!!!!! with a #PHOTOGRAPH of the portrait!!!!!!!! (it's in their collection that's why i emailed) #anyway it's not the best picture because it turns out the portrait is Extremely Grubby these days. i have no idea how he got so dirty but #i do not mind because the Main reason i am so excited about it is that it lets me compare various pictures i have of the portrait to see #which is the most accurate and un-distorted by bad quality photography #so i have spent the past few days mashing a bunch of pictures of the miniature together and layering them on top of each other to make one #which looks most akin to the photograph i got from leeds castle and i Think!!! i have finally made one!!!!!!! which is the one i used to #make this video :-D (or myheritage dot com did at least) #it uses three or four (or five i forget) different portraits at different opacities and i think it's the closest image i have to the #original which is SO EXCITING because the picture i had before was a bit wonky so his face was a slightly different shape and his expression #was marginally different #anyway the reason i care so much is because this particular portrait (as i have mentioned previously) apparently looked a lot like him #according to contemporaries and captured his likeness very well!!! so when i look at it i feel like i am seeing Him. i am seeing his Real #Face #i have since changed my icon to the new image i have :-D i doubt anyone noticed because the differences are very subtle. well not to me #but i have spent so many hours looking at this portrait that that is hardly surprising i think #i sent the picture i got from leeds castle to the family group chat and my parents were like oooo what a handsome fella which made me #Very Very Happy. he is handsome!!! and he has the kindest eyes imaginable i cannot fathom how gentle he looks #maybe that is just me projecting but he looks so kind to me. big tired stressed kind man #although he looks very small in this portrait i think. small tired stressed kind man #ANYWAY i will stop now i am supposed to be writing my essay!!! i love you all so much kiss kiss (fall in love)

[isaspsp]

💋💫Crimson Lips 💫💋

A Lady never leaves a mark.

Unless she wants to ~

Edit: I found the original comment I had along with this piece!!! So under the cut it goes. Enjoy the reding, if you dare.

This piece is fanart for Monochromatic's "Crimson Lips"

I have a lot to say about this piece. Firstly, I have a hard time picking favourites most of the time. I don't have a favourite food. I don't have a favourite color. I don't have a favourite music genre. I don't have a football team. I do have a favourite number! I don't have a favourite author. But I believe that last part has been surely rectified by now. I guess I can say that I've dedicated so luch time to doing fanart for this one author, that they can, indeed, be considered my favourite author. Then we are taken to this piece. One more fanart. Of an ABSURDLY amazing story. It might be the bias that it is from my favourite author, and someone I have the honor to call friend even. (Mono, btw is the author of the books for my two AMVs, so I'm quite the fan) But really, it's an amazingly written story I urge you to read. Reminder that the fic is rated teen, but it deals with sensitive topics.

Now onto the piece: This piece took an ABSURD amount of time. Like. I think it officially topples any of my previous records. But I don't know exacly how long it took. If it were up to me (and it is), I'd say it took like, maybe 6 hours? (It didn't, it was a lot more) I really wonder what sort of trance this piece had over me. I finished it in about 5 days-ish? I made the rough thumbnail on day one; 40% of the frame on day two; finished the frame, sketched the characters and blocked in all of them in day three; Rendered 75% of the characters day four; Finished rendering and other details on the morning of day 5. Today! That might seem reasonable enough. But here's the thing. I worked day 3 and 4 all day solely on this piece. From 8am to 11pm. ALL DAY. AND I DIDNT NOTICE I SPENT ALL DAY WORKING ON THIS ONE PIECE. I didn't even open another drawing's file. If you're familiar with csp's time-lapse feature, know that a two character portrait usually amounts to a 2 minute video. A piece that I'd usually spend 4 hours on, amounts to 2 minutes. This piece has a ten minute time-lapse. So I'd wager that I spent… at least 20 hours on this piece. Which feels so wrong. It's a beautiful piece sure. I love it immensely. But it feels wrong. It doesn't feel like it would need that much time to be completed? It doesn't have a conplex background, it doesn't have challenging Lighting, the characters don't interact directly, there isn't so.e frame perspective going on. So I don't know what made this piece take this long.

Let's gather what could've made this such a long piece.

I didn't rush A SINGLE PART OF THIS PIECE. Which contributes to why It took so long. I ALWAYS rush some part of a piece. Not necessarily in big ways, but maybe a rushed element. In this piece, the only thing I settled for was the border/frame/background. And even then, I say "settled" for because I did put a lot of care in it, but it was okay with it not being perfect.

I'm not THAT used to drawing and consequently painting humans. Or humanoid creatures. The reason why I draw more antro than human is because I'm SO terribly horrible with faces. Now, you don't see all the thrown away sketches from years past. I think a lot of that stemed from me not knowing how I wanted to go about stylizing them. When I started drawing pony, I had a very small pool of inspirations, and I did a shit ton of tracing (much before I ever started posting on the internet), so I didn't have much - or any at all -pressure to find a style. Now it's different. I'm very proud of my art. I've convinced myself that I don't have time for self doubt. This is the one and only hobby I'll not ever allow myself to drop. I've dropped knitting, soap carving, reading, swimming (which I couldn't to much in the first place), but art has been the one consistent hobby I've had. My self doubt will have the rip my heart away before it gets rid of my love for my own art. But then humans. I love my art, but then again, I can dislike my work still. And because my horizons are so much broader than they were when I started, I have so many options… too many options. Humans are difficult to draw because they are so fundamentaly different from all the animals I've drawn. They are us. Humans, there is so much more nuance that you have to capture to make them feel real. It's a hard balance to achieve. There are so so so many ways to stylized humans, from more goofy, to more simple and concise, to graphic to hyper realistic (aka barely any stylization). And again, I' bad at picking favourites. So then come furries, anthros. The nice middle ground of humanoid, but still familiar with the animal bits. And with anthro, you can choose how humanoid they'll be, so they were a good way to ease myself into drawing humans! And it worked. But I fear it might've worked too fast. Or at least too pointedly. Too concentrated in this one piece.

It feels like someone else drew this piece.

I think the best way to analyse your art looking for ways to improve it is by imagining you didn't draw it. It's easier to pick out the weaknesses of something you don't have emotional connection with. After I'm done with analyzing, I can switch back to myself and love a piece for what it is. Again, I need to be proud of my art.

But this piece is almost foreign in quality.

It's supposed to be heavily inspired by the art nouveau movement. I think that is pretty clear, so naturally, it's a far reach from my usual style. I don't thing that the realism is the characters' proportions is a staple of that style, more so the rendering, shape language and background style are what clue you into that style. So I could've done any stylization for the characters and it's work. At least it would've been good enough for me. But then again. Humans are a pain to draw. And making them anywhere other than human would destroy the intent of the original text, so that wanst an option. So I started drawing. I honetsly don't remember most of my sketching process nor decisions. Only by looking at the time-lapse that I see what decisions I took. Again. Foreign. I think the only piece of human art I have similar in style tot his one is those humans portraits I drew of my OCs, Beau and Bishop. But even then, this feels… different. Not to count that the rendering technique is something I, again, have never done before! This was mostly a combination of hard pencils smoothened out my blender brushes. I usually just bland with the painting brushes themselves, so that was a new technique for me. Again foreign.

In conclusion. I don't know if it's a good thing that this piece feels that foreign. But I know I drew this and that I'm proud and completely in love with it, and I hope you all are too 💖

#this poece took 20+ hours. #20 plus. #and I forgot to post it on tumblr #Aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh #my little pony #rarity #mlp #fanart #fanfictin #Crimson Lips #humanization #twilight #twilight sparkle #princess celestia #pricess luna #Sapphire eyes #art nouveau #gosh I was so shocked when I found the commentary #i thought I had completely lost them #my art #art 2022

[mittensmorgul]

So, Signs that 15x20 isn't real: El Sol beer; warm, saturated lighting; Dean's choice of clothes. Signs the writers were silenced: cut-out-tongue-vampire-thing. Sign it's about sexual repression: Vampires! Sign it's all about the gay: Dean was nailed from behind. Anything else to add to that list of symbols? Because this looks like the writers winking SOS at us in a kidnapper's video.

oh gosh... I keep meaning to rewatch the finale and make a full list of it all, because this is tip of the iceberg stuff. But I just... heck I just don’t want to watch it again :’D

That rewatch is on the agenda, and I’m currently watching 15.09 on the eternal loop. According to the TNT schedule, they’re showing 15.20 on Tuesday, looping directly back to the pilot immediately afterward. So... if I do decide to watch that (and I haven’t decided yet), that’s... gonna be some wild whiplash...

But anyway, back to the question!

You have a pretty good list going there...

I’ll add these things that made the episode feel like not-a-finale:

-no Road So Far segment, or even any sort of “important moments from the last 15 years that brought us to this point” sort of montage/retrospective of their lives

-no Carry On Wayward Son at the beginning, but TWO versions of it back to back at the end

And these things that were just general wtf moments for me:

-Sam? cooking breakfast? since when does Sam make breakfast, ever? that’s Dean’s thing

-Dean, with a dog? since when has Dean ever wanted a dog? That’s Sam’s thing

-Dean makes his bed, and it looks messier when he’s done than before he started (this is... not Dean-like... I actually went back and checked previous shots of his room)

-they never, not once in the episode, act like they have even one (1) single friend or any sort of goal or direction in life, which is weird...

-apparently they’d been unable to find a hunt, making it seem like the supernatural world had been quiet (for a moment I thought maybe monsters were no longer a problem in a post-Chuck world), until they stumbled on a hunt out of nowhere after choosing to go to a pie festival... as if the moment they chose to do something to move on and just have fun, suddenly there was work for them to do and they immediately abandoned everything to hunt these mystery monsters from John’s journal, which turned out to be a trap for them (specifically for them? considering the rando s1 vampire seemed to have lured them there?)

-The fact Dean recognized this vampire he never even interacted with and somehow magically knew her name, despite it never having been stated in canon and, again, Dean never having interacted with her outside of watching her escape with the vampire who actually DID bear them a grudge from 1.20...

-the weird lingering close up shot of the rebar during the fight scene

-the invocation of “destiny” and “don’t have a choice” as they went into a freaking pie festival... this hits bad right now because I’m rewatching 15.09 in the background as I type this, and it was almost word for word what the Dean in Chuck’s vision of the future said to Sam as they resigned themselves to go off on their final hunt (which was vampires btw), which they lost because in the next scene Sam and Dean have become vampires and are both killed... so like... this was Chuck’s story. The trappings might’ve been different, but it was still fundamentally the same... Cas locked away in a terrible place (ma’lak box in Chuck’s story, Empty in Dabb’s), Dean resigned to his fate because of a vampire hunt gone bad.

-then the pie festival itself... Dean’s got a huge tray with half a dozen different varieties he’s excited to try (purchased from Dabb’s Pies...), is eager to taste them all (like... metaphorically trying out different “apple pie life” ending scenarios, because he’s finally free to explore and maybe he actually wants the pecan pie life...), but before he can even taste the first bite, Sam... chooses one and smashes it in Dean’s face.

-even weirder, Dean never once in the episode says Cas’s name, or seemed even once to give a dang about Cas at all... and handwaved it when Sam mentioned Cas and Jack. It had been like... days, on screen (if they’d intended for more time to have passed, they would’ve indicated that on screen, and they did not... they showed us MAYBE three days passing since the events of 15.19). So like... did Dean have a personality transplant or what. Sam says Cas’s name in the ep, Bobby says it in Heaven. Dean... never does. Which is weird, considering how many times he’s said Cas in canon over the years, to the point it’s literally become memes...

-jumping around a bit here, but why Masked Vampires? Why had John failed to figure out they were vampires originally? Because he believed vampires were extinct? because he hadn’t been told they existed at all yet when he’d confronted them in 1986? Was John suddenly just A Bad Hunter after years of canon reinforcing that he was actually a really good hunter?

-and why THIS WEIRD CONGLOMORATION OF JOHN-RELATED CASE NONSENSE? From his journal to the murder clowns to rando vampire from their first vamp hunt? It’s like the perfect storm of erasing the last 15 years just to “bring it back to the start” to end it all like it could’ve had this been s1 still.

-speaking of John, and the El Sol in Heaven... WHY would Bobby hand Dean “John’s Beer” in Heaven? Especially since Dean expressed the fact that he didn’t even like it? Like... why wouldn’t he have been handed a beer he actually ENJOYED in Paradise? Why force a John Beer on him when he could literally have anything he wanted?

-and why was Heaven for Dean, in a place where he could literally have anything he wanted, go anywhere and do anything, why was he just driving through the woods along back roads? After years of talking about how he wanted to go “toes in the sand,” take a vacation, go fishing, or even finally get to eat a piece of pie? Or like ANYTHING he’d talked about wanting to do over the years that he never had a chance to... but apparently the thing he’d arguably spent the most time during his life doing is the only thing he wanted to do now that every possibility was open to him? Yeah, no that’s stupid...

-Tree (the final shot of 15.04 with bobblehead Sam and Dean by the tree like they didn’t have a thought of their own, Chuck’s plastic figurines dancing on his orders, very much like where they randomly parked and had the “vamp mime” conversation)

-Dean casually resorting to the threat of torture after YEARS of the show condemning this choice. Dean gratuitously being “a killer” when his acceptance of the fact that that’s not who he was in the previous episode was literally the thing that defeated Chuck... like... this was entirely stupid...

-just... the pacing of the episode was so weirdly wonky, with random cuts and no sense of time passing anywhere, nor interconnectedness between scenes, and the weirdly uncomfortable interminable death scene. Like, it looked like the death scene of a soap opera heroine. It was upsetting when Dean hit the spike and realized what had happened, but then he just... lingered... dangling on the hook for Sam’s benefit. Like Dean was nothing more than set decoration like a framed portrait for Sam to hang up and walk away from. Which is weird... and stupid... Dabb knows how to do pacing, and it’s like he forgot everything he ever knew about writing to force this “good way to die” trope, as if the previous 15 years of the show hadn’t been spent denouncing (and Dean finally overcoming) this mindset of “I always knew I’d go down swinging” or whatever. WHY. IT WAS STUPID.

-Wig

there’s probably more, but I’m tired and have reached my daily limit for the wtf of this episode >.>

Anyone else, please feel free to add more.

#spn 15.20 #Anonymous

[tofumedic]

hewo! for the affections number.. 16 is so cute.. would u be able to do headcanons of all the demon bros with it? if not, can u pls do levi then !

The Brothers + Simeon with #16!

16. taking a photo of them smiling or in their element

(lucifer's is here from a previous ask! and bc of that i added simeon only for having some lil funnies i hope you dont mind <3!!!)

Mammon

His collection is the largest, he flaunts it like collectables like cars or like Levi's figures. It is literally one of his biggest flexes and will use them like trading cards never wanting to send them in group chats or privately bc he took those ones get your own human >:(!

He will however hold his phone directly in one of their faces, waving the screen around to show how he has so many good ones.

He uses them for call screens, his lock screen, his home screen, any widget he can other than the Goldie one. He's a menace about it but do not call him out on it he will buy a second phone to use in the public.

Anyways, anyways for actually taking photos..

Mammon always takes too many, as in he will take a bunch within the same timespan because he doesn't trust his hands not to shake, so if he just takes a lot at one time so he can delete the others and save the best ones

But he just ends up keeping all of them, just favoriting the best or separating them into two albums of "valuables" and "treasures" depending on the quality.

Usually they will all have a small blur, him too excited at seeing whatever expression you wear, whether its a smile at seeing him purposely acting dumb or you enjoying a hobby.

He feeds a lot of unfiltered second hand serotonin off of you! Please do not disturb his "I have just had a very bad brotherly bonding experience, I must cope by looking at my photos of my human- No I'm not smiling already shut up"

Leviathan

Levi will use photos of you like wholesome memes so they carry the same energy as the hang in there cat poster, using different heart overlays and nice quotes

His are also a mixture of blurry but also high quality photos, for ones he takes.

This is because seeing you so dedicated or when you smile in his direction, his heart does this weird jumpstart the palpitations making him feel heavy yet light at the same time almost like a peach and its pit.

But he has a preference to use either this small tripod(he has it as a preparation for going to live shows) or a timer so its set away from him as he calls you over, its his own little trap.

His favorite, the majority of his collection, are those! It's photos of you being in frame with him in it as well because there's just something about how all that happiness of yours is completely focused on him, your smile as you walk over towards him sometimes blurry and mistimed so its only you entering the corner of the screen but you can tell how he takes your attention.

When getting in fights about who has the best photos, he will drop ones that are different hugs of him in your arms like he was a newly one plush. Mammon especially gets pissy about these as well as Belphie and Asmo.

If you can't turn your camera on when he calls or if he is locked in a raid that they're losing he would ask you for a selfie also, never requesting anything special other than just yourself but his favorite is when you send just smiles or videos of the which character are you filter :]!

Satan

Satan often tries to hide it, saying he's taking a photo of himself or checking his hair, maybe even going as far as saying the text on his study notes are too small so he has to hold it in front of his face so close.

Think about cowboys, shooting from the waist. That's him when you're too far away, maybe with a brother or during class or eating. He will scribble out his brother or purposely have the other cropped out of the shot.

He does have a lot of you when you're just turning around to face him and then your reaction, he can't resist the temptation of taking your attention when he's bored or waiting for his next book order to come in before he goes back to the cat behavior of only seeking out attention when he deems it necessary and otherwise pleased for a period of time.

He loves the ones where you look at him before he's ready, these are just slightly shaky from him jumping or pressing the button in an embarrassed panic at your smug yet happy expression.

Has definitely done the cut a hole in a newspaper and put his camera to it to look out like it was some camouflage but he's first, smiling much too hard and trying not to laugh at it, and second had seen it in multiple old movies and shows you had watched together.

Satan, speaking of movies, quite enjoys you in low light. On movie nights where your face is only illuminated by the projector screen and the photos turn out a bit grainy, there's something so romantic about you just existing in such an atmosphere. These ones he does like more when you're focused, looking far off with a small pleasant smile on your face at the soft plot of tonight's pick.

Asmodeus

Asmo will send you them all the time, he's like your own personal Devilgram manager he will even edit them for you and send the before and after of those photos too (MC: when did u take these??? Asmo: ,';p)

He will always have such good angles of you, from your side, from above or below, a 3/4, or full portrait, your silhouette. He may have one for each basic one at least though his favorites are above and below, these are the most personal feeling to him.

Usually these come as him trying to get your attention, bothering you with his phone and purposely leaving the little shutter noise on so you hear every single one while you're just trying to watch a DevilTube video or do something else.

Him snuggled into your side post cuddle just to lean up, phone in his hand and a menacing giggle, it's the first thing you see waking from your drowsy state is him on top of you trying to get cute pictures that he can use as teases as if something else was in progress.

Or ones where you roll on top of him, just trying to get up to see the dumb little flash as an alarm instead of his cute good morning kisses to your face(those are actually used to buy more time with you because he is allowed to be a little selfish as a treat)

He also has them set as his lockscreen and homescreen, these being photos of you together so he can have the best of both worlds, himself and your happy smiling face. He just finds it so cute, whenever you want an audience to see it he's in the first row.

Sends them to the group chat with his brothers to start some chaos

"My~ Isn't my dearest MC just the cutest?" Asmo has sent 28 attachments.

Beelzebub

His collection isn't one of the best out there but it is unique and keeps him content and happy, pleased.

He likes having photos of you for when you two are separated, it makes you feel closer to him and him to you

His may have some of the least blur, hands steady you work on something separately yet aware of the soft stare that was bearing into the side of your head.

He may forget sometimes about the sound so when you get the rare notification from his electronic betrayer it is free power to tease him, asking him if he wanted your attention or if he just took a photo of you and to be honest, then his photos if you let him continue for that setting are a little blurrier on your fine details. He's embarrassed.

He likes these more than ones with just your smile because then he isn't as satisficed because then he's thinking about how nice it looks in person and your laugh and when you let out a sigh being tired from your work, it'll be a cycle until he gives up and goes to see you in person.

But he likes the ones of you in your element very much and photos of you in general, saying that looking at them makes him feel "full"

He means to say complete, he's content and pleased and delighted and he has a reminder of you existing, that you're real and not a midnight sleep walk hallucination.

Belphegor

He has the smallest collection but next to rest, Beel, and his appearance he is mostly focused on capturing photos of you when he can.

He didn't get to really know you as long as his brothers have so its only fair he gets to spend more time with you than them until he's equal, and then some because you're really comfy and you make his twin happy? and then on top of that you make this face when you are concentrated and you smile different depending on if you're gonna laugh or if you're confident.

There's so much he has to memorize, he's rather demanding with having the attention so he may continue this personal agenda of his.

A lot of them are from similar angles, from laying with him in different positions but everything feeling relatively the same, normal. These are usually after he has woken up, not before he goes to bed so either it's your soft good morning smile, or your surprised "how long have you been awake" face, or you still asleep on your own.

Many of them often have his bed head just barely visible at the bottom, usually having laid on top of you and just using his selfie camera and angling it up to see you take up more of the screen.

For just being a pillow that moves a lot you definitely are photogenic.

He doesn't send his photos of you to chats but will save photos sent of you from everyone except Lucifer.

Simeon

PLEASE applaud.

It takes him such a long time, but Solomon gave him the idea saying it was something sweet you would also enjoy the concept of. So he is doing his best.

He will see you, just existing and his heart will swell, needing to pause a moment before kindly asking you to hold that thought and pose as he turns on his phone, maneuvering to the camera and trying to get it to focus on you perfectly.

It takes him a few minutes every time but he is getting better at it but his reaction is always the same, smiling at you showing up on his phone screen waiting for the picture to be taken.

He never can be sneaky about it unless he asks for help to get your photo, sending Luke on his biggest mission yet, a photo after he asks you what you thought of Simeon's cooking knowing you'll have that sweet face of genuine thought looking back on it.

But he has yet figured out how to turn the sound off and almost always accidentality flashes you up close, it's so bright.

He has the most blurry photos, and that's not on purpose but when he asks you to look at them with him so he can coo about how happy you look or how serious, its endearing with the blur especially as they clear up a bit continuing the timeline of photos.

He really does his best to have these mementos of you.

Is delighted when you surprise him by putting his favorite one of you as his home screen, he's so grateful let him match with you he wants to be yours too!

from this prompt list!

#anon my dear i hope u liked it :D! #tofu answers! #tofus lovable anons #obey me #obey me headcanons #om headcanons #obey me scenarios #obey me imagines #tofus blurbs! #obey me mammon #obey me simeon #obey me leviathan #obey me levi #obey me satan #obey me asmodeus #obey me asmo #obey me beelzebub #obey me beel #obey me belphegor #obey me lucifer #obey me brothers #obswd

[imaginesupply]

Homecoming - Chapter Five

(Gif’s not my own.)

Summary: The day has arrived, Captain Syverson is going home. For good, this time. He is going home to a civilian life he can hardly remember and a wife he barely knows, with memories of the war still fresh on his mind. Love might not be able to heal everything on its own, but it’s a good start.

Genres: Romance, drama.

Story warnings: Smut (always fully consensual), mentions of PTSD and nightmares and mental health, angst, hurt and comfort, fluff, mentions of war (minor), mentions of cheating (minor), mentions of pregnancy (very minor), police appearance (very minor), violence (very minor).

Notes:

It’s my first time writing for one of Henry’s characters and I’m unsure I did Sy’s character any justice.

This is a Capt. Syverson x OFC (Ada) story, written in 3rd person POV but OFC’s physical description is very limited so it could also be read as Capt. Syverson x Reader, I think.

English is not my first language, so there might be some mistakes. Proofread, but not beta’ed. We die like men and all that.

Timeline is a little wacky: The movie takes place in 2003 and the U.S. forces were withdrawn from Iraq in 2011, but I never set a precise date because I don’t think it’s essential for this story. However, some elements might not be realistic because if we set this story in 2003: Phone cameras quality was not as good as it’s now, but for the purpose of the chapters, I will need you to imagine you could film great videos with your flip phone haha. Plus, it says Sy is coming back after being deployed for more than three years which makes no sense unless we set this in 2006 or later. I am asking you disregard any time inconsistencies.

Also: I am not American. I only lived in the US for six months and it was in the Midwest, not Texas so please bear with me if I write something stupid.

Finally: This will be a Christmas fic and I intend to post the last chapter (there will be seven in total) on or before Christmas. However, religion is never mentioned in this story and the Christmas-sy elements of this story are limited to family gathering, gift giving and tree decorating.

Chapter Five starts after the cut. (Chapter Four can be found here.) Let me know if you wish to be tagged in future chapters or if you wish to be removed from the tag list.

A/N: I am aware of the neutral, perhaps positive, portrait of the police I painted in this chapter. I am fully conscious of the recent (and not so recent) instances of police brutality happening all around the world, many – if not most – of them motivated by racism and other despicable ideologies. With this chapter, I did NOT mean to express support for the police forces. I simply had this ‘plot’ idea come to my mind and decided to write it. There is no ulterior motive.

While all my personal experiences with the police have been positive, I am aware that my ethnicity gives me privilege and that many people are not as lucky as I am. This both angers and saddens me. It has to change.

Black lives matter. Minority lives matter.

Chapter 5

Chapter warnings: Cockwarming, irresponsible driving (kind of), car accident (not serious), police (but no police violence), very mild violence, language (perhaps a little bit worse than in previous chapters but nothing you don’t hear in real life, I guess), mentions of mysogyny.

Ada yawned with Sy quickly following suit. “You can drive my car if you want, Sy. It’s not that new anymore, you know.” She offered, gracing him with the most angelic smile she could muster. It was the first time she was granting him the opportunity to drive her car.

Sy laughed next to her, his left hand moving over the center console to rub her thigh. He had that stupid grin again, that looking endearing with his current droopy eyes. “It’s your car, darlin’. Besides, you’d kill me if I ever so much as got a scratch on it.” He chuckled, suppressing another yawn. “And I know you’re only offering because you want to sleep.”

His wife gasped, a look of mocking offense on her features. “They’re your nephews!”

“But you were the one who said yes,” Sy countered, his eyes closing again as he made himself more comfortable on the car seat. The drive home was only about one hour and a half, but it was the perfect length for a nap.

“What the fuck was I supposed to say, huh?” Ada laughed, gesticulating wildly as was her habit. “Yes, Joshua, I understand you’re taking my pregnant sister-in-law to the hospital. No, I will not look after your kids for the night. It’s our date night.”

Next to her, Sy grimaced. She did have a point, even if he had been looking forward to going bowling with her: Ada was a sore loser which always ended with lots of fun for him. At least, his sister and the baby were okay. Just a normal case of Braxton Hicks, apparently, whatever that was supposed to mean. Perhaps it was good thing Ada didn’t want children because he’d freak out if she started having contractions four months in. “You fell asleep on Luke’s bed at one in the morning when you tried to get him to sleep for the third time and I had to spend the whole night entertaining them with tea parties because they wouldn’t tire!”

“Hey! That’s not cool!” She protested accusatorily, her eyes on the road as she switched lanes to take the next exit. “I didn’t know you couldn’t give kids sugar after a certain hour!”

Sy huffed, shaking his head. They’d had the great idea to bring donuts because according to his dear wife, sugar always made you feel better when you was anxious or down, and the kids had been aware something was off with their mom. “We suck at this parenting thing.”

“You don’t say!” Ada laughed, before loudly cursing at driver who’d just cut her off, something which never failed to make Sy smile. “The nap’s going to feel heavenly once we’re home.”

Sy hummed in agreement, his head falling back against the headrest as he drifted off, hiding his eyes from the sun with his cap. Ada glanced sideways at him, shaking her head. Part of her wanted to shake him awake. If she had to suffer, so did he. But he was right, she had slept more than him and he looked too peaceful to disturb, especially with some leftover glitter still on his cheeks.

Suddenly, there was a mild thump and the car stuttered before stopping, startling Ada who jumped on her seat.

"Shit!" She cursed. "Did I just...?" She began to panic, her eyes moving to the red car in front of them, too close. She had bumped it while she had been distracted by her husband’s stupid, sleepy face!

"Yes, yes you did," Sy laughed next to her. Ada was a good driver and she loved driving, but she was easily distracted and Sy never failed to tease her about it. This time, however, he could tell she was scared from the way her chest was heaving with her shallow breaths. "Want me to deal with it, darlin'?" He offered, tilting his head at the other driver who had just come out of the red, broken-down car.

"No!" Ada protested all too quickly, taking off her seatbelt and grabbing the necessary documents from the glovebox, accidentally hitting his knees in the process. "I am an independent woman who don't need no help," she muttered, trying to convince herself of her own statement. In the eight years since she’d had her gotten her licence, she had never given any of her cars a single scratch, let alone gotten into an accident.

Sy grinned at her antics but tried to hide his amusement, not wanting to make it worse. "All right. I'm here in case you need me, okay?" With a determined nod in his direction, Ada stepped out of the car and attempted to summon the Annalise Keating or the Olivia Pope inside her, whichever she could find in herself.

The man from the red car, who seemed to be in his early forties and balding, was already inspecting his vehicle for damage – looking mighty pissed as he did so. Ada approached the impact point from the other side, noticing the bump on the man’s old car. It didn't look too bad, she sighed with relief. Her own car barely had anything. Ha! She would have to use this as an argument next time Sy and her started discussing cars. Her black Citroën DS5 was sturdy and not just fancy looking, unlike what he said.

"Hello, sir," she said calmly, the man instantly looking up at her. Damn! He really looked furious, seething even. "I am so sorry for this. I was a little distracted- Anyway, it doesn't matter. My insurance will cover whatever repairs your car may require."

"You stupid little bitch!" The man shouted, out of the blue.

Ada gasped, backtracking. The muscles in her jaw twitched. What the fuck was wrong with him? "I understand your anger, but there's no-"

"What were you even doing behind that wheel?" He snarled, gesturing at her car, her baby. "Who the hell lets women like you drive cars like that?!” The man cursed, aggressively waving his hand in the air.

She just stood there, still in shock. Did... did he just bring misogyny into a fender bender situation?! "Women like me?!" She repeated, quite stunned.

"Aye! Bitches like you have no business driving-”

Ada flinched at the man’s words. He was starting to breech the distance between them, moving too close to her. Ada jumped again when she felt a warm hand on her shoulder before realizing it belonged to Sy and letting herself exhale slowly. Thank God he didn’t listen to her and stayed in the car!

"I get that you’re pissed, but that's no way to talk to a lady. You should to apologize," Sy told the man, making it sound very much like an order and very little like a suggestion. The driver huffed before coming closer, his face about as red as the car as when he started laughing. Ada instinctively hid under Sy's arm, though she aware of the ridicule of the whole situation.

"That's your whore? You let your whore drive your car?!"

Okay, this was going too far. It left her lips before she could help it, "that's my own goddamn car, you wanker!". Maybe it was time to stop borrowing insults from Tom.

Ada could almost hear how his jaw clenched when she felt Sy's whole body tense up against hers. "Call her a whore one more time and you're gonna wish she had run you over instead."

This was escalating. Ada bit her lower lip. She was going to have to be the bigger person here. "Look, I'll just go grab my phone from the car and call the police. They'll deal with this." Ada announced, dislodging herself from Sy’s grip before turning around to get to her car.

Her hand had just wrapped around the car door handle when there was a clouting noise, quickly followed by a loud thump, this time. Ada immediately turned around at the sound. The angry driver was out cold on the ground, blood rushing out of his nose and forehead, with Sy looking down at him, the same blood tainting his fist.

"Oh shit!"

°°°

A lanky guy, smelling heavily of pot, was thrown inside the almost full holding cell by the same officer who had arrested him. Sy was amused at the sight until the guy, after a full survey of the room, started walking him up to him before sitting down on the bench far too close for his liking.

Exhaling through his nose, Sy tried ignoring the smell and closed his eyes again. He didn’t expect the nap he had been looking forward to, to be in a stinky cell with stinky men but it would have to make do. At least, after the man sitting closest to the entrance had commented on the leftover pink glitter that still shone in Sy’s beard, nobody had bothered him anymore – not after he quite literally made the man piss himself with just one stare. That man wouldn’t have survived a single day in Baqubah.

"It's cramped in here," the new guy commented nonchalantly though his eyes were fixed on Sy. Out of politeness - damn Ada and her insistence on good manners! - Sy acknowledged his useless statement with a noncommittal hum.

"Name's Ben, by the way," he said, stretching out of his hand but Sy didn’t move a muscle. What was it in his current posture - crossed arms and spread legs - that made him appear friendly enough for a chat, he wondered, rolling his eyes behind his closed eyelids.

"And you are...?"

Sy groaned out loud time. "Not interested."

Ben didn’t get the hint and proceeded to ramble off about how he got caught selling pot near the university. Sy was actively working on drowning out his voice when the sound of fast and angry clicking heels on the concrete floor caught his attention. He smiled. Ada. Apparently, she hadn’t changed and was still dressed for date night, wearing a dress and stilettos, even though they had only meant to go bowling and eat at a steakhouse.

Somehow, everyone in the holding cell must have been intrigued by the same sound because all conversation suddenly stopped, the men all hoping to eavesdrop.

"I am here for Syverson. I wish to talk to him."

"Ma'am, I apologize but we are not allowed to let him out of his cell."

"Not a problem. Just give me the keys and I'll let him out myself!"

Every person in the holding cell laugh with Sy grinning quietly, amused at how she sounded distinctively more foreign when she was mad. He was used to her accent in more intimate settings, but he was enjoying the sound of it during her current outburst which was followed by an uninterrupted string of curse words and insults alike, all coming from her delicate mouth. First, in English, then French. Spanish. Portuguese. Italian. Sy frowned at the last one, he didn’t recognize it. Was it German? He'd have to ask her.

"What a woman, huh," the guy next to him deadpanned, still not giving up on a conversation.

Silence fell again as everyone attempted to listen to the rest. “I swear to God I’ll hang your heads up in my living room if –“

Sy only huffed, leaning back against the cold wall. "You can't even begin to imagine."

"You know her?" The pothead quipped up.

"Yeah," Sy replied. "She’s my wife." He said it loud enough to make sure everyone was able to hear it.

“Oh,” came the nasal voice next to him just as they heard heavy, resigned footsteps become louder.

A different policeman stopped just behind the door, a colleague just behind him as he fished out the right key from his pocket. “Syverson,” he called out loudly. “There’s a woman here for you.”

Sy got up at once, unable to hide his smug smirk. Ada always got her way.

°°°

“What the fuck were you thinking, Sy?!” His wife blurted out as soon as she was let inside the interview room, the young officer locking the door from the outside. Then, turning around, she caught sight of her husband handcuffed to the table and her shoulders instantly slacked, her anger vanishing almost instantly. “What you did was disproportionate,” she sighed, her voice calmer as she took a seat in front of him, the cold iron table separating them.

"He called you a whore, I just punched him!" Sy protested, leaning back on the chair. "My response was disproportionate - disproportionately small."

"You knocked him out cold!" Ada reminded him, her voice pitching higher than usual but the only response she got from Sy was a smug grin. "He might press charges, you know. It's battery."

Sy rolled his eyes, sitting up straight. "He’s an asshole."

Now, it was her turn to roll her eyes although she knew he hated it when she did that. She took a deep breath, hoping to calm down. Sy was looking entirely unbothered, but she was freaking out at the situation. "I'll try to convince him not to press charges and offer to cover the medical bill on top of the car repairs in return."

"Medical bill?" Sy asked, cocking his eyebrow.

"Yes. After the police took you into custody, he was brought to the hospital. From what I heard, he has a broken nose, needed stitches on his forehead and got a concussion." Sy only huffed with a smirk. "This is not funny, Syverson!"

"It wasn't funny when he called you a whore either," Sy countered. He was right. It was also very pleasant to see that dickhead in pain, but she wouldn’t tell him that.

"Look, my friend, Gale, who's a lawyer, is on her way. I'll get you out of here tonight. He’ll either agree to drop the charges or I’ll bail you out."

The corners of his lips twitched. He moved his hands as much as the chain allowed, to grab hers and squeeze them in his large ones. "Are you worried about me, darlin'?"

What a teasing little shit he could be! Of course, she was worried about him! He was in a cell! Feigning innocence, Ada smiled, running her thumbs over the back of his hands. "I am not. However, seeing what you did to that prick just got me really horny and I would like to have you back in my bed tonight," she whispered, watching as her husband’s smug grin slowly disappeared as she got up and grabbed her purse, heading to the door.

"You better get me out of here quickly!" Sy called after her.

°°°

He was returned to the holding cell, the officer uncuffing his wrists again once the bars closed behind him. There were two new faces, but he also recognized that at least three men had left already. Unfortunately, pothead was still there.

“I saved you your spot,” Ben smiled wildly, gesturing at the vacant portion of the bench next to him. “The guy in the red shirt was going to sit here but I told him it was occupied.”

Sy merely hummed, taking the seat that had so generously been saved for him. Hopefully Ada would get him out quickly because he didn’t know how much longer he could deal with his chatty neighbour.

“Was she mad?” Ben asked, whispering loudly and defeating the entire purpose of a whisper in the first place. “Did she yell at you?”

Despite his closed eyes, Sy could feel Ben’s stare on him as he awaited an answer. “No.”

Ben nodded thoughtfully, shaking the uneven bench as he did so. “If we go to prison, I want to share a cell with you.”

If Ada didn’t get him out of there quickly, he was soon going to get charged for battery again.

°°°

Sy stood by the counter, his attention on the ugly Christmas decorations he hadn’t noticed when they brought him in hours earlier. Somehow, he had managed to forget all about it. And fuck, he still needed to get Ada a present!  

“Here are your things,” the young officer told him as he slid over a transparent plastic bag.

With a curt nod, Sy ripped it open and fetched his wedding band first, before looking for his wallet and belt. He was already heading to the door when he turned around at the last minute. “Did Mrs. Syverson post my bail?”

“No, the charges were dropped.”

Huffing with amusement and a hint of pride, Sy zipped up his coat and headed to the front door. He swiftly descended the stairs in front of the precinct, his face illuminating at the sight of her. She was still wearing the black dress and the fancy shoes, her makeup now lightly smudged around her eyes.

As soon as he was close enough, his hands moved to Ada's waist and he leaned down to kiss her, only for her to pull away at his touch. "Not so fast, big guy," she teased, a glint in her eyes as she grabbed something out of her coat pocket he couldn't yet identify. "You're still in trouble."

Sy threw back his head, his laugh booming through the night sky as he finally saw what she was holding up in front of him. Handcuffs, and not the fluffy ones either.

"Now gimme your hands," Ada demanded, making him cock his brow at her authoritative tone.

With a chuckle he obeyed, presenting her his hands. "Yes, ma'am."

Sy watched keenly as she fumbled with the cuffs to get them around his wrists, and then seized the right opportunity to take the upper hand, easily taking the cuffs away from her small hands.

With a shriek, Ada found herself bent over the black hood of her own car, her cheek pressed up against the slick surface and her husband's body pressed up against hers. She could hear the smirk in his voice when he spoke. "Mrs. Syverson, you're under arrest for unlawful teasing back in the questioning room." Ada scoffed, the sound weakened by his heavy weight on top of her. "You have the right to remain silent. Everything you do say can and will be held against you in-"

"Your dick!" Ada suddenly blurted out, a little too loud given where they were, and Sy immediately stopped, clearly surprised, but she quickly felt him laugh against her back.

Before she could join him, Sy smacked her ass, effectively silencing her. "Guess I'll have to fuck that attitude out of you," he grunted before pulling away and fastening the cuffs around her wrists.

Ada kept complaining as he carefully dragged her inside the car. Despite her struggling, Sy easily opened the right backdoor and threw her on the backseat, mindful to fasten her seatbelt before closing the door. Her eyes widened and her mouth went agape when Sy sat down behind the steering wheel and proceeded to push back the driver’s seat and readjust all the mirrors.

“Are you shitting me?” She exclaimed, leaning forward on her seat as much as the belt would allow. He was messing up with all her settings and the grin on her face made it very clear that he was doing it all on purpose just to get her riled up.

“Language, darlin’,” he chided, turning on the engine. “Didn’t you ask me to drive earlier, anyway?”

Ada groaned in response, shutting her eyes tightly before opening them again. “You know very well that was-“

Sy didn’t let her finish, the tires squealing on the tar as he sped out of the parking lot all too fast. Ada involuntarily cringed at the noise. “I’ll make you pay for this!”

“We’ll see, kitten. We’ll see.” He was entertaining by her determination even though her eyes were already closing.

As expected, Ada fell asleep within five minutes despite the handcuffs keeping her arms in an uncomfortable position. Her head lolled before it finally came to rest against the window. He watched her though the central mirror, an adoring look in his blue eyes as she sighed contently the very moment she had fallen asleep. While he had managed to rest while in the cell, though not as much as he had hoped, he knew Ada had been up all afternoon trying to sort everything out and get him out. Sy had noticed her exhaustion as soon as she started fumbling with the handcuffs, her movements uncharacteristically clumsy.

He stopped at a junk food drive thru on their way home – night had already fallen and he hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast. He doubted she had either. Her eyes didn’t even flutter under the bright neon lights and once he parked the car on their driveway and went to carry her inside along with their food, after undoing the cuffs, her body was completely limp in his arms. It was only when he accidentally let her shoulder hit the doorframe as he tried to lead them inside their bedroom, that she woke up again. “Ouch!”

“Sorry,” Sy murmured and kissed her forehead before laying her down on the bed and setting down the bag on the mattress next to her. Her nose wrinkled as she sniffed the air even as he helped her out of her coat and dress, and then the shoes. “Did you get us food?”

“Tenders and fries.”

Within an instant, she had ripped the bag open and was clutching the bucket of chicken to her chest, moaning as soon as she took a bite. He smiled knowingly at her– she had been hungry after all.

Hurriedly, Sy took off his clothes and slid in bed behind his wife, wrapping an arm around her waist to pull her closer to him. They hadn’t slept together the previous night as they babysat the kids and he had missed the feel of her soft body against his. A content hum escaped him as his already partially hard cock nestled against the roundness of her ass.

Ada chuckled at his reaction, the vibrations of her body sending sparks of pleasure to his growing erection. “I have an idea,” she whispered, her voice becoming seductive again as she started rubbing herself against him.

Sy groaned deeply and tightened his grip on her waist, forcing her to still even though he was no longer sure for what he now hungered more; food or his wife. “We’re both hungry and exhausted,” he reasoned with her, his fingers moving some hair away from her neck so that he could kiss her there.

“Let me,” she insisted, a grin audible in her voice. Her hands disappeared under the bedsheets and she slid off her panties before retaking her initial position as the little spoon. Behind her, Sy groaned as her delicate fingers took hold of his cock, giving it a few pumps before guiding him inside her warmth. He muffled a soft moan against neck at the snug feeling of tight her walls, his arm tightening around her again. She let out a quiet gasp at the stretch, it hurt a little despite her still being sufficiently wet from when he had pushed her against the hood of the car. But once he was fully inside, Ada sighed at the pleasure of being again. “Now we can eat.”

°°°

There are two more chapters to go! Next chapter will include Christmas tree decorating. I am running behind on schedule so I cannot guarantee the last chapter will be posted by Christmas but I’ll do my best.

°°°

@colourmeinblue​ @hail-horror-queen​ @youthought-iwasa-nicegirl​ @kmuir1​ @madbaddic7ed​ @coffeebreathy​ @purplelove75​ @summersong69​ @helenaellie​

#henry cavill smut #syverson smut #henry cavill x ofc #syverson x ofc #henry cavill x reader #syverson x reader #syverson fluff #henry cavill fluff

[imagesbyele]

the theme I don’t know how to describe because it has too many things featured in it and it will take a year or 

aro-ace theme!

note that you are allowed to use the theme for whatever you want, change all colors, images (you want to make it a marvel thing? go for it! It’s personal and you want to use other flag colors? go pick those rainbow colors!), but my inspiration was, well, not having seen aro-ace themes before and wanting to make one. I didn’t upload background images but you have the option. Feel free to edit as you please, just don’t remove the credit or claim it’s yours!

as always in the source you’ll find the link to the post with static preview, code and instructions/extra credits.

theme is contained, responsive, super customizable. It’s free! But as always consider donating to my ko-fi as this was a lot <3  like or reblog if you use! (or just if you like it, if you want to!)

 this post will have: what you can edit from custom page, the widgets/scripts used with credits and some explanations. Asterisks * next to something will indicate that more about it will be said in the linked post. I’d apologize for the length but it’s due to how many things I added to the theme and that you should know about. 

now, what can you edit from your customization page:

-nearly every font and its color and size, so that if a font is by default bigger than others you can easily reduce the size. There is a select menu for the body font with all the fonts present in this blog, so you know what they are and can type the one you want for other eleents. I think I only left a couple to be edited from the editor, like your quotes posts if you reblog them a lot. This includes h2 as it’s what you use as ‘big font’ in your posts and h3 in case you want to personalize it and use it for something on purpose, as it has to be added to the html of the post.

-one of the new things:I used a gradient for the backgrounds of the big container, the sidebar and the posts container, but also of tumblr’s default music player (latter done initially following @octomoosey​‘s tutorial then messed with by me hence no album art).  See static preview posts. You can type the colors straight from the costomization page like this:

if you want one solid color you can just write, for example: black, black as it needs at least two. To bottom/To left/to top/to right change the direction. The only thing you need to edit from the html is if you want to go from linear-gradient (like you see in the sidebar) to radial-gradient (like in the big container which has green in the center and purple on the outside) and vice versa, if you want. 

-you can also upload background images of the sidebar, container and bigcontainer and select the optional blending with the colors, which can be none and you only see the images or something like screen or hard-color and check the results (bigcontainer as an overlay gif on Screen now)  -more typing: you can paste the symbol or the symbol code for the list items and the decorations around the post title, right now both being spades. *

-you can upload up to five background images if you enable the ‘changing background’ function otherwise only the first one counts. They will change when you refresh the page, thanks to @lmthemes​

-you can turn on and off the music box (player3 by @glenthemes​​ ), and if it’s enabled you can add two songs from the customization page (or go to the html editor and up it to four before it can get messy as it shows on hover), typing url, author, url of the album art, and song title. You already have We Are Golden by Mika as an example (takes a second to start due to the recording, watch out not to get scared if there is silence and then the first note)*

-optional searchbar in the sidebar with optional suggestions when you click on it (if you want them though you’ll need to go to the editor to type links and names, but you can turn it off and just keep the searchbar, like I said) also by glenthemes’ tutorials. 

-the separator between text posts image is also optional and if turned on, you can also turn on and off whether the image is the avatair/portrait of the person who made the post, with a link to the original if it’s a reblog, or if you want the image to be one you upload yourself, 50x50px and it should resize to fit in (also with a link, in this case to the post itself so you can open it from the top of the page). One is the toggle button ifshowtinyimage, and the other is ‘tinyimageisthesource’, if you turn that off you upload the image yourself. If you add a source to your posts, it will appear among the permalinks regardless.

more under read more!

-besides all normal colors and borders you can pick the color of the border/glow/shadow (call it as you want) of three different categories, or turn it off: the mainglow for big elements like containers and sidebar and sidebar images, the audios glow for players like spotify, regular one or soundcloud. Finally the images shadow when inside your posts. The latter is set on inherit because it means that if an image is also a link like your tiny-image it will be of the same color of your links and change on hover. That is something you can only change on the editor by searching for color:inherit and change it to what you want, if you don’t want to turn it off. 

-askbox colors have been changed with @eggdesign​‘s tricks! look for ask_form in the editor and try changing the number of filter there to see more effects. Also the askbox never shrink, a fix by @whateverhtml​ -pinned post has a little banner, styled like permalinks. 

-you can pick a color for top-info which are the date and notes. I left it empty because it automatically gets the default links color but you can pick it yourself. 

-turn on and off unnested captions looks for textposts and for all other posts (as people who use xkit to edit previous posts will get blockquotes anyway and may not like the final result) thanks to @annasthms​ code. -blockquotes are of alternating colors, by @bychloethemes​. You can obviously choose the same color if you want them to just have the one. You can also select the type of blockquote, if a solid line or dots or dashes.  -you can choose if your smaller sidebar image, sidebarimg2, is an image you’ll upload or if it’s your avatar/portrait by toggling it on and off. If you don’t want sidebar images and you don’t upload any, there are instructions on top of the html to delete the border so you only see the sidebar bg. (basically just delete their box-shadow) -speaking of which, your title will wrap around the second image like in the preview. If that doesn’t work for you you can try changing sizes and font or by going to the editor and changing the margin-top so it’s out of the sidebar image’s reach and can be a “straight line” again (in case it doesn’t fit and the long title is cut in the wrong place)

-you can turn on and off a copy link of the post button on the far left of your permalinks bar, so people can copy the permalink from dash - also by glenthemes.

-navigation links have two alternating colors, odd links right now are black, even links are white, and their hovers are the opposite of that. You can make them all of the same color, in which case you’ll need to look for .navilink a:hover and change the hover color for both. If you have custom pages and enable the link to show it will be automatically added. To change the cat icons just search for ‘cat’ and replace as pleased. To change the ask icon because maybe you don’t have them enabled look for ‘envelope’ with your ctrl + f. You can type urls and titles of navi links from the custom page, the first two are automatically home and ask, there are three more under the description. All icons from font-awesome have a black border so the white ones don’t disappear on light backgrounds, you can change that looking for .fas 

-you can select post-sizes: 400, 450, 500, 540. Whether the sidebar is next to the container or on top will depend on your post size and the screen width as at some point they may not fit. They always do fit on desktop though, and on screens that are smaller than 800px the sidebar is assumed to be on top and will have a max height of 300px (but you can scroll down). I couldn’t make the bigcontainer get bigger for giant screens as I can’t calculate the right size in which all post-sizes + sidebar will look good.

-lightboxes show images with a glow too. Speaking of which you get lightboxes as always, pxu photoset fix and video resizing fix all by @shythemes​ and with the bychloethemes fix. npf photosets fix by glenthemes. No href.li addition from tumblr when you add a link to a post by @magnusthemes​.

-soundcloud player is minimal and its play button is the same color of your permalinks icons thanks to shythemes tutorial. spotify is also minimal, instructions to change it are there. 

-tumblr controls are small and semi-transparent until you hover, also dark regardless, followed painthemes tutorial.

-chats are styled like imessages by ncrthlanes now deactivated, submit posts have at least the submitter’s url recognizable, reblogged asks also get a background for the answer as well as borders, link posts are styled as much as a link-post can be styled. 

-there are already links and similar things written to be an example in your customization page but in any case you get instructions in the editor and everything is divided in sections as much as possible. Also I’m here for any questions. 

#asexuality #aromance #aroace #lgbt #aro-ace #themes #free themes #free resources #evansyhelp #dailyresources #rp themes #rph theme #rpc #main theme #lgbtqia #dustyresources #onlyresources #completeresources #my themes #tumblr theme #rp theme #theme 08 #mine

[allthingsfern]

In order, my responses to comments in Reply of my COVID19 era post that was my answer to my question “My answer to my questions: Has the era of COVID19 changed your photography? How? And perhaps also, why?“ I am so confused now...

adventuresofalgy

Algy thinks you are lucky and - certainly if compared with Europeans - perhaps quite unusual in not having experienced a more profound effect on your creative outlets and expression. Many of Algy's creative friends have experienced wide-ranging and often severe impacts on their creativity and associated motivation - and therefore on their mental health as well.

themazette

As @adventuresofalgy Jenny said.... you are lucky...

I am indeed very lucky, or as I think of it, blessed. However, it is no way a US thing, nor even a California thing. I add California, because I know many in the US and around the world think of the Golden State as a haven, a progressive, hippie filled state that is all about peace and love and marijuana. However, that is far from the truth. California is like Germany in the 1920s and 30s. There was Berlin, where there was a wildness in the city that was not shared, and was often looked-down on, by those in the majority of the country, who lived in more conservative areas and who, often, economically could not afford the grand life of partying Berliners. In California it is the same. Except for a few urban areas, the state is full of very conservative folks, and for them, like for those in the cities (and in the rest of the world) this COVID19 era has been devastating. Well, and the fires for Californians have been too.

Even in this cool college town where I live, which is lovely and quiet and inspiring, the painfully empty streets, movie theaters, restaurants, shops (think of all those unemployed people) is (still) staggering. In mid-March last year, right after lockdown, I took several phone videos of the deserted street in our town and the campus, but I could not bring myself to share them, since I knew that so many others here on Tumblr were experiencing the same desolation in many different ways. (I figured: “Why add to the sorrow we are living, almost globally?”) I was overwhelmed by the emptiness of the major (well, major for a small town of around 65,000 people) street where I live and the empty bicycle trails and street on campus. And by empty, I mean that even now, I see maybe 3 cyclists per hour, and very little car traffic. Remember, this is a bicycle town; I do not own a car, doing most all my errands on my bike with its 2 fordable baskets in the rear.

And now, over a year later, that same heavy, oppressive emptiness persists. And no, I am not used to it. And yes, I traveled over the last year, but I found the same suffocating blanket of emptiness in each city I visited, even in Las Vegas. It was unnerving. As a matter of fact, last year when I drove to San Francisco 2 months after lockdown for my birthday, I wound up getting depressed and disoriented, in a city where I lived for almost 7 years. Driving back home across the Golden Gate Bridge with tears of sadness in my eyes on my birthday was not what I expected. However, I did get some solid photos of the malaise that hung thick in the air, a malaise that physically took up the space that once was taken up by crowds of people.

Now, I am also very aware that my situation is unique. (Not a fan of the word exceptional, since it can mean both unique and special, and I do not see my situation as special.) My life situation is very unique in that I have a job I love and I work with a great team of characters. We get work done and we have fun, share about our lives. My job is often, especially since COVID19 first got noticed in early 2020, stressful and demands my colleagues and I learn (and sometimes then teach) lots of new technology and that we adapt to the vagaries of the technology gods, which are sometimes unfriendly and unresponsive. And a big part of my job is trying to figure out how to get the technology gods to like us again and grace us with their gifts. (I never realized, until now, with this discussion, that the troubleshooting that is a big part of my job is creative and probably fuels my photographic creativity. Who knew?) Yet, as a group, my colleagues and I support each other. And I am fortunate to count my closest colleague, Steve, as a friend. We have been a great emotional support to each other over the years and now through this COVID19 era. And I recently was reminded (as if I needed reminding) just how unique my work situation is because I participated in a committee that was going over responses to a UC Davis-wide survey exploring levels of employee satisfaction. My 2 colleagues who were also on that committee and I did not have the complaints that others from other departments shared. We work well together, have supportive management that share what is going on and include us (as mush as possible) in the decision making process. And as a department, we get stuff done.

Possibly the best example of how blessedly unique my situation is is what happened this morning when I was talking (yes, on ZOOM) with my immediate supervisor. We discussed the work related stuff, including how at around 10:30 pm the night before I figured something out about an online tool integration I had never done before that I knew was easy but I did not see as easy until I reread the overly complicated instructions a couple of times and just figured out how and where to cut and paste the lines of code (it was that easy, just fucking cut and paste some lines of JSON code) that got the fucking thing to work. Then we talked about his dealing with his young children returning to school and how “normal” now is not “normal” from before and how disruptive the whole thing has been, yet since we work in a supportive atmosphere (and are both salaried), he was able to deal and keep living.

Then, and you are gonna love this, I shared about my original COVID19 question post and the responses and pretty much said to him what I am sharing here.

We talked for a little over an hour. That kind of rapport is rare, for any job, anywhere.

And then there is another way my situation is unique. In some ways, previous “bad things” were actually a preparation for this era of physical distance and uncertainty. In mid-2019, from July to August, first because of my work related bowling concussion and then an antibiotic resistant infection, I was bedridden for about 5 weeks and then had several absences because of concussion issues, like sudden and extreme anger flare ups, nausea, headaches. But however bad I thought that concussion and infection were, the concussion induced forgetfulness and my desire to sharpen my mind and nurture and nourish it have lead me to become, in my old age, organized. I now often take notes of important stuff, add work and personal dates and notes to my Outlook calendar, and even know what day it is, which bugs my colleagues who often find they have no idea what day and/or date it is. Yep, unique, but the bad concussion shit got me to be organized in ways that I was never able to be before, no matter what I tried. This time, I just fucking get organized, without thinking about it too much. And if I fuck up with my being organized, like I did the other day for work, I admit it, fix it, and move on.

Preparation for isolation (and unexpected natural threats) came by way of the 2018 Northern California (the region where I live) fires that year, which caused the campus to shut down for about a week. (As my friend Steve called it, the smoking break.) And for work, my colleagues and I faced a couple of long term, emergency technical outages that impacted all of the UC Davis faculty, one of them for over a month. Pretty much on a professional and personal level, I was, if not ready, at least getting used to the WTF of whatever life decides to surprise me with. (And lets not forget the really bad fire last September, seen in this video I posted of ash “snow” falling. We did not have to shut down the campus because there was no one there anyway.)

Another aspect of this last year, and one that has been present in my life for a few years now, is the BLM movement and the brutal police violence against Black people in this country. As someone who was a teaching assistant and taught in African American Studies and worked closely with students of color on campus in a student run organization, I was and am still devastated, in part because I know, from hearing so many personal accounts, the pain many of my friends, former colleagues, and former students, are still facing and how overwhelmed they felt and still feel. I understand, if as an outsider, their emotional exhaustion. This has been going on for a while, plus add the years of anti-immigrant hate against the Latinx in the US and the rising tide of violent hate against Asians, and yes, it has been sorrowful. Heartbreaking. And I have, in several ways, including my photography, tried to capture the sorrow and resilience of US people of color. It hurts, almost physically, that many people of color are just tired of talking and dealing with the hate.

So, yes, my situation is unique, but with its own emotionally draining weight. And yes, I am extremely grateful. This leads to the other 2 comments in Reply:

kkomppa

Thank you for sharing, Fern. Very interesting. Like you, I would say my output hasn’t changed much. However, I have sought locations deeper in the wilderness. This has been fulfilling.

schwarzkaeppchen

Really interesting thoughts. We live in strange times, but creativity and motivation comes and goes for so many different reasons. My photography has changed a lot. I used to work as a photographer at events and took portraits for fun... Now I'm officially a portrait photographer.

Both of these comments point to another unique aspect of my life situation: For some of us, our photography and how we do it, has not changed much, and if it has, that has been a part of our overall experience with this art form we love so much.

For me, because of my depressive tendencies, the Zen of photography, at least the way I do it, is therapeutic. And I do not use the  term “Zen” lightly here, because my spiritual life has helped me come to terms with the WTF surprises that are pretty much life, if at times the WTF of it is more impactful, as it is during this COVID19 era. And that is part of what I was trying to share with my original post: Before this period of isolation and disorientation, I was already coming to grips with the gospel truth that “creativity and motivation comes and goes for so many different reasons.” as @schwarzkaeppchen​ said. In no way do I diminish the anguish flared up by these bleak times that impact so many around the world. And really, when you think about it, bleak times have been a norm, at least here in the US, since late 2016, though, of course, lockdowns and physical distance make it all worse. But, at least for me, I try to learn from the bleak times, even if I abhor going through them. And when dealing with the highs and lows of creative energy, at least for me, I have a calm certainty that photography is part of my life and I do not have to worry, since I only love it more each day. And the other side to my certainty is that if someday my love of photography fades, some other treasure of creativity will replace it.

Let’s be real, because of photography. I think about stuff like this and get to have discussions with so many great Tumblr original photographers.

And I am grateful for it, and no, this is not unique to my life situation. I know many of us love being here and sharing the good, the bad, the confounding.

Please think about joining @tvoom and me for InConverversation this month. It has been a long time since we talked, and this COVID19 era will be our topic.

I am grateful for all y’all.

[lovewillthaw-j]

(please unmute and watch till the end)

Focus on Frozen (1) score (3/?)

Hans theme/HANSORCERY

This is the third post in this series and it's on Hans' musical theme. Now I know Hans isn't popular to post on, and I don't like him either. Let's focus on the genius of Christophe Beck instead, shall we?

I mentioned in the last post that I made a huge jaw dropping discovery in the score. I'll get straight to it! In the 6th and final appearance of Hans' theme, Christophe Beck combined Hans theme and the Sorcery theme in a stroke of GENIUS! Watch till the end of the video and read point 6. I don't know if anyone else has written about this before, let me know. Henceforth I shall call that line of music Hansorcery.

Additionally, when Hans reveals his true intentions and sinks deeper and deeper into evildoing, Beck literally lowers the notes he uses for the theme, getting lower and lower by a half step each time. Read 4-6 for the details!

1. First meeting with Anna

This is the first time the theme appears, and it is sweet and fairy-tale-ish. After all, he is supposed to be Prince Charming, isn't he? There are 2 parts to this theme (and this will be important later) and I have called them A and B.

2. Glad I caught you

This is the lush, romantic waltz that plays as Anna and Hans dance. It does sound very nice, doesn't it? Like a classic fairy tale waltz.

3. Kiss me now!

Fast forward to Anna's reunion with Hans and she (shamelessly) asks to be kissed, stat! Here, part B plays 4 times first. Then, when Hans "tenderly" holds Anna's face and moves in for the (fake) kiss, we hear part A again.

4. True colors revealed

Oooh. The start of his descent into evil. Christophe Beck turns a cute romantic theme into a foreboding, dark theme. Again, part B precedes A. The last (and lowest) note of this appearance of the theme is a low D (or "Ray"). Keep that in mind as the lowest note is gonna get lower. BTW I'm always upset when I think of what he did to Anna in the library in front of Agnarr's portrait. How dare he!

5. More lies

Here, he puts on an Oscar-worthy fake display of sadness and lies through his teeth and usurps the throne. The theme is SO dark here, played by the very low strings of the cello and double bass. The lowest note sinks down by half a step to C# (or "Doh" sharp), signifying a further descent into evilness.

6. HANSORCERY

OMG. I literally had chills when I realized this. This scene is when Hans tells the greatest lie to Elsa, that she had killed Anna, to drive her mad and render her too distracted to notice his murderous act or to fight back. Seriously, how evil is that!!!! Grrrr you monster!!!

Some background: If you read my previous Sorcery theme post, you might have noticed that I missed out the theme's appearance in the track "Whiteout" (I was working fast and covering both movies and OFA, it was an honest mistake) . I think it was fortuitous that I did! When I next listened to Whiteout, I was puzzled why the Sorcery theme sounded different. To my shock I realized that it sounded like Hans theme, but not quite! Then the full impact of what Beck had done hit me like a ton of bricks! He had combined Hans and the Sorcery themes! You can see it in my picture where I show you which part is Hans theme and which part is Sorcery theme.

Do you get the full implication of this? Up till now, the Sorcery theme has only been associated with Elsa's magic doing bad things. Which she never intended to, she just didn't have control. But Hans' actions were 100% intentional. By meshing together the themes, Beck is telling us musically that Hans is the worst. His deceit is worse than Elsa's freezing the entire Arendelle. And, Hans is a "sorceror" too in successfully deceiving Anna, Elsa, the foreign dignitaries and the whole country!

Enough about Hans! Let's focus on what Beck has done. I'm literally WEEPING at the master stroke he has performed here. Like I said, my mind has already been blown by the scores, but this?

This is indescribable GENIUS.

The lowest note here is again a half step lower than the previous one. It is C (or "Doh"). Hans has sunk deeper to a new low. And as poor poor Elsa sinks to her knees, overwhelmed and probably suicidal, the part B of the theme plays as the snow storm stops.

You failed, Hans. You were no match for the TRUE LOVE between Anna and Elsa. There was never any competition from you.

Christophe Beck - Sir, I salute you!

#frozen #disney frozen #christophe beck #disney

[phoenotopia]

2020 October Update

So... we've launched. And our launch was... actually kind of... bad...

This is a dev blog, so I'll speak on it. But before that, we do have the game's steam page up. If you're anticipating the PC release, please do visit the steam page and add it to your wish list. It would help us a lot.

VISIT STEAM LINK

...

So what didn't go so well?

1. We launched in Nintendo's Americas and Europe territory. If you've been following the release, you'd know that America got the game first. We didn't move to launch in Europe at all since I thought the EFIGS languages (English, French, Italian, German, Spanish) were pre-requisites for Europe. By the time I learned that this wasn't necessarily the case, and attempted to course correct, the damage was done. We had half the allotment of keys to do outreach, and maybe some European outlets that would've covered us, did not.

2. When the game launched, rather than a victory lap, what we experienced was more of a public lashing. We did get some reviews that praised the game highly, but just as many reviews lampooned the game for its high difficulty or other failings. I've since released two patches (or 3, depending on how you count it) to address the difficulty. A lot of overnighters. If you recall in the last blog post, I thought it'd be a good start if we got 20 or so reviews on Open Critic. But we've only 8 as of this writing, and the aggregate score isn't so hot. So that's a fail by my metric.

3. A publisher reached out to us because they were interested in physically printing the game! Yay! But... to advance our talks, they wanted to see the game's sales numbers to ensure that there's a good chance their investment could be recouped. And unfortunately, the game's sales numbers are pretty low. They backed out :(

Some hard lessons were learned. The biggest lesson for me concerns how well we playtested the game. Looking at the original playtester list, it's a short list. You may recall from a previous blog post that our ability to test was severely hampered by technical limitations. Add to that, a lot of people on this list are objectively really achieved players. We're talking power ranked in Smash Bros, regular tournament goers, and people who've played and bested every Souls game. And as the maker of the game, I am most blind to the game's challenges.

Now, I'm definitely more of the opinion that you prioritize PC development first. I still have some reservations about some stages of PC development. But if you do PC/Steam first, you have the great benefit of being able to do Early Access, which gives you access to a greater testing pool. I now view it as an invaluable part of the equation. If we had been able to do Early Access for 1 or 2 months before release, we probably could have ironed out most of the game's difficulty and balance problems. Hard lessons, indeed.

There were a lot of other notable events that occurred over the past 2 months - the travails of press outreach, realizing my own limits as a developer, feeling defeated and getting back up again, etc. There's too much stuff to chronicle or go into detail. But it wasn't all bad.

Some good things did happen...

We got a publisher to publish for Japan! It came as a huge relief, because clearly, we don't know what the heck we're doing.

The publisher has been an invaluable source of information and feedback. They've recommended some changes to the game to improve user experience. Some of these changes I was hesitant to do at first because they concerned systems I thought integral to the identity of the game. But after trying it, I have to admit, they're good changes.

So a Japanese version of the game was moving ahead. And it looked like that'd be it. I wasn't planning to move forward with any other language translations due to the game's low sales and our funds being depleted. 

But, I was approached by a translator who urged me to move ahead with translations. He told me he was willing to work for only a small price initially and then be paid the rest after from a percentage of the game's sales until the cost of the translation was paid in full.

I was surprised translators were willing to work under such a model since it's entirely likely the game's current low sales trajectory would continue and they wouldn't earn back the full cost of translation. But I was also flattered they were willing to take a risk with me. After that, I approached some others with the same hypothetical deal, and long story short, we're now moving forward with French, German, Spanish, Portuguese and Russian translations. As for why these languages in particular, they were languages for whom I had contacts (because they reached out to me at some point in the past). And also because they were deemed more likely to be profitable based on their home country's gaming market/buying habits. I'd be personally happy to have my native language be represented, but it's not expected to be a profitable territory. But if the game does better in the future, it may justify the costs of translation. There could be a chance!

The plan right now is to get the game supporting these first round of languages and then to patch that into the Switch version as well as launch the PC version with these languages - all in December. A lot of things need to align for this to occur, so a delay isn't out of the question. It'll be busy... I'll update the blog again in latter half of December, probably near the game's PC launch date... OR to announce a delay. Let's hope it doesn't come to that.

Fan Support

While the past two months have been grueling, one good thing remains constant - fan art! Thank you everyone who submitted. It means a lot to me and the team!

Big thanks to Pimez who's taken on watching over the reddit community as moderator. He also combs the other communities and makes sure I see every new art piece. Despite juggling his own life and all these tasks, he still found some time to draw.

Pimez's piece reminds us that just because the new game's out doesn't mean we can't still celebrate the original flash game. The jail dog is a dog found only in jail and only in the flash game. I imagine Gail is just tossing a stick, and they're playing fetch.

A new artist to this scene æv draws both the Phoenix logo AND a super cute picture of Gail playing the flute. So precious, you want to pinch her cheek. Even the Sand Drake is enthralled!

Another new artist, beet4ppy arrives on the scene with two pictures! One features a no-nonsense battle-hardened Gail looking stoic and tough! Kinda reminds me of Vinland Saga actually. The other, a more cheerful group composition - I must say I'm a big fan of Fran's classic anime-style eye!

A returning artist, Cody G, returns with a picture depicting the tribulations of cooking. Gotta love Gail's frantic expression! I've heard the complaints, which is why we've added an option to slow the cooking mini-game down. An improved button font is also on the way.

Gamesing with two undertale x phoenotopia crossovers. Thomas being a robot builder makes sense taking a role similar to Alphys. But why is Alex dressed like a clown? Perhaps there is a hidden meaning here... 

A new artist, Warotar, draws both a pooki wearing Gail's clothes and Gail wearing pooki clothes. Awww. The pooki is a bit scary - it kinda reminds me of a tragic event in a certain anime. But the Gail is adorable!

POL#5655 submitted this one to KM's discord which made its way to me. Here, a stylized Gail appears unnerved by the dark red eyes stalking her in the background. Are they bats or something more sinister?

A new artist, MilesCPW, arrives on the scene with three rare well-vectorized arts! Love it! One scene depicts Gail balancing a bomb on her head - that's a speedrunning trick I only learned about recently after someone emailed me a video O_O

The other drawing gives us new insight into Katash - he could actually look cute if he wasn't trying to kill you.

And the bees... Okay, this one got a chuckle from me :D

A returning artist roccy_chair draws this heart-warming scene from the beginning of the new game. Aww. Mika doesn't get much screen time for story reasons, so it's nice to see her represented.

UnrealWorld_32 returns with another drawing of Gail in Panselo, this time capturing a more idyllic time. I like the tranquil nature of this piece. And Gail does in fact play the guitar, denoted by the guitar in her room.

Returning artist shafiyahh draws a nice portrait of Prince Leo - looking regal and princely. I like the storybook art style of this piece. It made me immediately think of "the Little Prince" - one of my favorite books actually!

Negativus Core returns with a beautiful group composition of Gail and the gang - flying from a Switch shaped window - totally sensible considering the game is only Switch right now. As usual, I'm impressed by Negativus Core's use of challenging angles to frame a more dynamic shot of the characters. Great job!

And it wasn't only artists bearing the banner. I'd like to give a big shoutout to everyone in all the game's little communities (from the reddit to the discords to this tumblr). I've seen this community help newcomers with gameplay and walkthrough advice, discussions, updating the wiki, and so on. It does bring a smile to my face. Thank you everyone!

#phoenotopia