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#this is the only post about them i'll keep up
moviecritc · 3 days
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ohhh i may have an idea for your polyamorous thing, what about the reader trying to soft launch her relationship with carlando but people keep thinking they’re just a group of very close friends or they think that she is only dating one of them and the other is just their friend so she gets tired of people not taking the hint and just ends up hard launching? maybe at a grand prix weekend?
captions ⋆ carlando smau
pairing: carlando x reader
summary: carlos, lando and you had been dating and soft launching each other for almost two years, and carlos just got bored of people thinking you're just friends.
warnings: some suggestive comments
a/n: not the biggest fan of lando EXCEPT when carlos is around so i loved doing this so much. also, it's my first smau, pls tell me what you guys think about it <3
masterlist | wattpad | letterboxd
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yourusername spent a few days watching this two drive in circles very fast (+ kiki)
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user1 NEW CARLANDO PHOTO JUST POSTED
user2 thank u y/n for feeding us with all this carlando content
landonorris dry ass caption
yourusername at least i post you you dumbass user1 never beating couple allegations user3 carlos must be so tired of third wheeling them
user4 THAT IS THE CUTEST DOG I'VE EVER SEEN
francisca.cgomes i'll never forgive you for naming your dog almost like me
yourusername it's my love language ok landonorris you could've named it lando or smth yourusername i'll change her name to nowins 💋 landonorris wait wat
carlossainz55 👑
landonorris ok i'll correct myself THIS is dry carlossainz55 you muppet yourusername at least he comments good things ?? user5 their friendship is top tier
lando.jpg just posted
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user1 here before y/n
user2 NOT LANDO SOFT LAUNCHING CARLOS
user3 i'm dying
user4 i don't wanna start something but that aren't lando's arms in the third picture
user5 it scares me that you can recognize lando's arms... user6 girl go touch some grass
yourusername and i'm the one getting called dry
landonorris i didn't want you to feel bad bout you're boring caption 💛
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yourusername you guys could've win at least
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landonorris isn't a podium not enough for you?
yourusername no landonorris yeah idc what you think yourusername THEN WHY U ASK i'm changing to red bull they'll give me more emotional stability maxverstappen1 please stay there i don't want to have lando in the garage looking for you
user1 cute cute cute friendship
user2 call me crazy but...
user3 but WHAT GIRL? user2 lando soft launching carlos and posting the picture of y/n with another boy (definitely carlos), and them posting each other anytime they can user4 girl they're just friends user5 yeah they've been knowing each other for a long time, they're just very close
carlossainz55 our biggest supporter 💛💛
yourusername always 💛 user2 OUR biggest supporter? them using the same heart lando used in a previous post? user6 paranoid
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carlossainz55 💛💛💛
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user1 WAIT OMFG
user2 CARLOS HARD LAUNCHING LANDO AND Y/N I TOLD U GUYS
user3 they're all dating?
user4 isn't that obvious
yourusername cute dog
carlossainz55 Hermosa we talked about calling Lando our dog landonorris she meant kiki you muppet yourusername no i actually meant you baby
user4 y/n won the game with this two
user5 now i know how true jealousy feels like
yourusername my pretty boyss 💛
carlossainz55 🥰🥰
landonorris dream rides 🤩
yourusername lan- carlossainz55 I'm going to ban Lando from this app user3 LANDO LMAOOOO
user6 CARLOS AND KIKI ARE THE CUTEST AHGDJKJHFSA
charlesleclerc so happy for you guys
user7 charles approves
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yourusername your dream girl's dream boys
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carlossainz55 First
landonorris he's so obsessed carlossainz55 Yeah
landonorris now THAT is a good caption
francisca.cgomes ok cutiess
danielricciardo Y/N blink twice if you need help
landonorris shut the fuck up she's totally fine with us yourusername save me pls
user2 does she even have a job?
landonorris serving cunt? carlossainz55 Being the most beautiful woman in the world? yourusername i'm a publicist but yeah mostly what they said user3 you're so iconic for this
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copperbadge · 3 days
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Immediate Writer's Block
Had a comment on another post where I thought I'd probably need more space than the notes in which to respond, so:
constant-state-of-self-discovery Oh I get the envy I feel it right now how the fuck do you manage to write without impassable writers block after 5-9 sentences because I haven't fucking figured it out lol
I do have some advice on this!
I think most writers get blocked from time to time, it's normal and my general strategy is just to wait it out, but if you're frequently blocked after only writing a very little bit, I think the problem is one of two things: either you don't know what you want to achieve with the scene you're writing, or you don't know what should happen next within the scene to achieve that goal. If you frame "I'm blocked" as "I don't have an answer I need" then often you move from just sitting there, sweating and staring at a blank page, to thinking productively about how you're going to get where you're going. It's the difference between not knowing an answer and not knowing an answer but knowing where to look for it.
An invaluable piece of advice for this, which I think I picked up from someone who got it off a National Novel Writing Month messageboard, is "When in doubt, ninjas attack." It's not meant to be literal, you don't need to have ninjas or fight scenes just because you don't know what to do, but it helps to get the creativity flowing again. If you don't know what should happen next, or you know but you're having trouble actually writing the scene, it can be very helpful to induce a moment of uncertainty or surprise -- to have a metaphorical ninja attack. One time I did this literally -- the POV character was just on the road somewhere and I didn't know how to get them from a pastoral country road to their actual destination in an interesting way, so I had them get attacked by highway bandits and have to fight them off, which also allowed me to demonstrate that the character had significant unarmed combat skills. But it can also just be like, two characters who are having a boring conversation can be interrupted by a third person, even just a stranger asking for directions, or there can be, IDK, an explosion, or something goes missing, or etc.
Sometimes it also helps to leave it alone but keep it in your mind and go do something else -- listen to a podcast, take a walk, read a book, not because those things are distracting but because all our inputs eventually feed into our brain and come out as reactions. If you're thinking about your book while you're wandering around a park, something you see in the park might have an impact on it. If you've got YOUR story in mind while reading someone else's, you might be more inclined to look at what they're saying and see what you think of it, how it might play into your work.
And honestly, sometimes you just gotta go past it. I'm working on the next Shivadh novel right now and it opens basically with Simon the chef getting into a spat with his love-interest-to-be over some cheese. He want the cheese, she won't sell him the cheese, so they get off to a very contentious start. But I suck at writing conflict especially when it's basically "A character I like is being pompous and another character I want people to find likable is being stubborn and somewhat unpleasant". I've been stalled on it for a while. But I know where the scene ends up, like I do know what the goal is, so I just...skipped it and went on to writing a scene I like better, where they meet a second time and actually discover each others' identity and that they're about to be forced into the grownup equivalent of a school project. Once I've gotten dug deeper into the story I'll come back and write it, and by then I'll have the benefit of knowing the love interest a bit better.
So yeah -- I think a lot of breaking a writer's block, especially when you don't need rest but are just stumped about what to do, is to twist and look at it from another angle. It's not that you don't know what to write, or don't want to write what you know you have to -- it's that you don't have the correct answer to a question, or you need to leave that part alone to ferment and come back to it later. At least, for me.
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lvndrdaaze · 2 days
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What are your thoughts about NSFW alphabet for Wriothesley? 🥹👉👈
I have so many thoughts about him, but hardly any are coherent (ᴗ_ ᴗ。) I'll do my best though asjakdks
I'm gonna make a post explaining my rules for requests, but just to let everyone know, I'll write NSFW or SFW alphabet headcanons for any Genshin men and some BSD characters, but I'll only accept requests for 3-4 letters at a time bc I get overwhelmed trying to write more than that at a time (,,>﹏<,,) I just chose a few letters for this, let me know if there's any specific ones you want me to write for Wriothesley <3
(gn!reader, NSFW so no minors!)
Wriothesley NSFW Alphabet - J, N, X
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J = Jack off (masturbation headcanon)
Anytime he gets bored, Wriothesley thinks about jerking off. However, he doesn't often have time to actually go through with it, between receiving regular reports from guards and dealing with difficult prisoners, so he only gets as far as palming himself until his cock is half-hard and just beginning to stir in his pants before he's interrupted. This means that when Wriothesley does get the chance to go all the way, usually late at night when the Fortress is asleep, he's already been teasing himself for so long that it doesn't take long until he's twitching and moaning into his fist, clenched in front of his mouth to muffle the sounds. He prefers to keep this activity away from his desk at the very least, as not only is thay not a very sexy location in his mind, but he also wouldn't want to risk destroying any important documents when he cums. So instead, he half reclines on the sofa in his office, his head tipped back and his chest heaving as he strokes himself quickly with one hand and cups his balls in the other. When he cums, he does so freely, splattering his own stomach with his seed with a noise somewhere between a whine and a groan.
N = No (something they wouldn’t do, turn offs)
Wriothesley is adamantly against hurting you. Up to a certain point, pain can be fun, but he doesn't ever want to risk crossing that line and causing you severe pain. He'll happily spank your ass and thighs until they're red with blistering heat, and he'll wrap a hand around your throat and squeeze slightly to show his dominance, but he refuses to go any further. He won't fully choke you or slap your face, partly because he doesn't trust himself not to cause you actual injury, and partly because those things aren't sexual to him. They're real and visceral, and he hates the idea of introducing you to them like that.
X = X-ray (let’s see what’s going on under those clothes)
Wriothesley is big, and he knows it. It's around 8 inches, and so thick you can hardly wrap your hand around it comfortably. The skin is a little darker than the rest of him, and the tip is darker still and bulbous. There's no curve to his dick, and his pubic hair is dark and wirey, speckled with grey like his hair.
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Feel free to request more NSFW/SFW alphabet headcanons! More info in my pinned post ^-^
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1ightsen · 2 days
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Maxie Infodump #1 - Little known character details from official media
I promised to post some of my maxie infodumps and headcannons, and I think I'll start it off with something simple. His official character bio that was hosted originally on the first release of ORAS (this will be ORAS Maxie focused)
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here is a transcript for easy reading: "Maxie is the leader of Team Magma, the team seeking a world ideal for humanity. He pays attention to even the smallest of details, and is quite sensitive in some regards. He has a habit of describing situations in numerical terms. He possesses a cool-headed outlook, thinking that some sacrifices cannot be avoided if he is to achieve his goals." Okay, so first, after looking at the original japanese version of this page,
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小さいことまで細かく気にする、神経質なところがあり、さまざまなことを数字を交えてあらわすのが口癖。 目的を果たすためなら、犠牲が出ても仕方ないと考える冷徹な思想の持ち主でもある。 The one word in here I wanted to be sure of was 'sensitive' since it can have many meanings, and the original japanese gives us some possibilities with:
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Personally I think (being) highly strung is the most likely option here, but either way its an interesting character trait. And we all know he certainly builds up frustration and tension and explodes a bit like a volcano. Even if he does manage to correct himself afterwards.
~ ANYWAYS ~
Now that we have the bio, let's break it down a little and look at some fun examples of it in action! Maxie has a habit of describing situations in numerical terms. This typically comes out more when he is nervous or stressed. Here are some examples: Ill just take ORAS as an example here since this is already getting pretty long... In ORAS after fighting him at mt chimney, he lets you know in a specific numerical way, how much he fell behind:
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And then again, when you battle with him and lose in the Battle Resort where he just has to let you know the situation in numerical terms by giving you the exact lose chance according to his own calculations of course:
"So the great Maxie has fallen, even when battling alongside your team... I shall commit this curious phenomenon to memory. It had less than a 1 percent probability of occurring, you know."
this culminates in a really interesting interaction between him and courtney after the delta episode. While It's pretty clear that Maxie cares for his team and especially his admins, he definitely struggles when faced with his crying admin, and being unsure of what to say, he settles with a numerical quantifier again.
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He assesses the situation, and decides to comment on how MUCH courtney is crying. His "paying attention to even the smallest details" trait also ties into this habit of his, and is probably why he jumps to conclusions a little too early because of small things he's noticed. Accusing Tabitha of wanting his spot as leader, just because he disagreed with him is one of those situations.
Pokemon Masters EX has a lot of new scenes with Maxie, and I would love to talk all day about them, but I'll just pick out one here, and that's from the "A pasio Spectacle" event. In this event, Maxie overhears team break members simply say the word 'glasses' and instantly jumps to the conclusion that not only did they want to talk to him, but that they noticed his "magnificent mega glasses" and would like to hear a lecture on how they were scientifically made.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZmmaf9bhD8&t=144s here's a link to watch it, its worth it :D He certainly picks up on small details, but tends to miss the bigger picture sometimes, which is fun because I believe archie tends to do the opposite. Perhaps his mega glasses are actually designed to reflect this, because they work like horse blinders, and keep maxie looking straight ahead (trust me, I've made a pair of these, and you cannot see someone standing to your immediate side). Looking straight ahead is also relevant to his life goal, of ensuring the bright future of humanity, and as he says: "propel humanity to greater heights of progress and evolution." And that concludes my infodump regarding this one little bio that is no longer available without the wayback machine, and I just wanted to share it with any other Maxie fans out there :D Next I think I might tackle the bigger topic of how Archie and Maxie have so many fun contrasts in personality and more. and then maaayyybe I'll feel comfortable enough sharing my headcannons and theories. But only if people want more lol, I am not good at writing big posts :>
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Hi! I got your ask and I'll answer it soon <3 in the meantime, I was curious about
Ka-freaking-boom, baby | Pinning (against a wall) | Renegades
👀👀
The titles/descriptions are a net, and I am but a fish you caught with it
majinbangus 🥛🐟
Hiii! Tysm for the ask! 💕
For the WIP ask game.
Alright, here we gooo *rubbing hands with glee*
Ka-freaking-boom, baby
That line by Soap drove me insane, so I came up with a Reader feeling the same way lol. It's very short so I'll post it entirely here:
“Ka-freaking-boom, baby.”
The perfect mix of rasp and silk in his voice seemed to drain all the blood from your brain and send it rushing south. It was almost worse than having his fingers stroking every inch of your skin.
Before Soap had any chance to react, you dragged him away into the nearest dark alley and kissed him furiously.
A confused moan escaped him under your assault.
Once you’ve had your fill, you withdrew, glaring at him. He was panting, eyes wide, cheeks flushed, torn between bafflement and pleasure, and, a rare occurrence, at a loss for words.
“Fuck, what the fuck… was that!?” you yelled in a whisper. “Do I have to be a freaking bomb for you to talk to me like that!?”
His eyes widened even more before understanding spread across his face. A chuckle left his lips.
“Jealous o’ an explosive, hen? Yer too cute.”
Not in the mood to play around, you grabbed his flak jacket to pull him where you wanted and, lips pressed against his ear, you described all the unspeakable acts you would do to him if he used that voice back at the base.
He let out an agonized sound at that, as if you were torturing him.
“Steamin' Jesus…”
He covered the hand that was holding him in place and took a deep inhale, most likely to keep it together.
“Bonnie, love ye, but the mission…”
You aggressively shoved your index in his sternum, looking him in the eye.
“You're making it up to me later, you hear me?”
His head was swaying with the contrast between your filthy promises and your harsh gestures, but he straightened up, recognizing an order when he heard one.
“Yes Ma'am.”
Pining (against a wall)
I read a fic where in one chapter, Soap and Reader hide from enemies with Reader stuck between the wall and Soap, and our beloved sergeant gets...hum... affected by their proximity lol. So I wanted to do a version where Soap is the one pinned between Reader and the wall. It's also the same vibe as The powder and the fuse, aka Soap sees his gf in action being very badass and finds it hot. It's smut tbh, with their clothes on tho.
WIP:
"At the sight of your enemies getting closer to your location, your bodyguard training takes over. Before you can even think about it, you grab Soap by his flak jacket, drag him into a dark alley and end up half-pining, half-slamming him against the nearest wall without warning, shoving your hand over his mouth for good measure. It's a professional reflex you'll have to apologize for later.
That, and if there's one thing he's never been good at, it's keeping it shut.
Not that he ever gave you a reason to call his skills into question, always proving himself serious and reliable on the job, but missions with only the two of you together are few and far between, and he certainly never stops running his mouth over comms during them.
Wholly focused on your opponents’ behavior, head turned away from him, on the lookout, the hand on his mouth keeping him against the wall, the other by his head, caging him in, you don't pay attention to your newfound proximity. How your faces are barely a centimeter away from each other, how his warm breath strokes your skin with each respiration. You don't notice either how much you’re pressed against his body, how your chests are touching, the contact exacerbated by each inhale, or that one of your legs is nudged between his.
Or the way his cerulean eyes are devouring you, drinking in your every move."
Renegades
It's a retelling of MW2 with Shadow!Reader, from the mission Alone until Graves die. Lots of action.
Reader kills her own coworkers when they go after civilians and deserts the Shadow company. She comes to the rescue of an injured Soap in the hopes that she can ally with the TF to take down Graves.
It's called renegadeS because It's not only about Reader's treason, but also because the TF is considered treators thanks to Shepherd, and that Reader consider that Graves betrayed her for sending her after civilians when she stated from the start she wouldn’t go after unarmed ppl/civilians.
Something about having to betray either your community/organization/group, or your own moral code, but doomed to be a traitor all the same…
WIP:
"Joining the Shadow Company had never been your first choice. Military organizations tended to be bad news, and private ones were even worse. However fate forced your hand. Or, more exactly, capitalism did.
The pay offered by the Private Military Company exceeded your wildest dreams. You've made more in a week than in one year of your regular job as a bodyguard. And you were in desperate need of money; a lot, and fast; it was the only way to afford your sister's cancer treatment.
Things weren't so bad at the start. The commander was a bigmouth, but he was sensible, and he got the job done. At some point, the corporation allied with a special task force, an international group of elite combatants, some sort of legendary military unit. You hadn't paid them much attention, since they weren't the enemy.
Until they were.
Somehow the General that commanded both those guys and the Shadow Company decided to betray his own men, turning them into traitors. At the same time, your orders brutally changed. You were expected to turn the whole town upside down to pinpoint the ex-Special Forces, and if civilians happened to be in the way, well… there was no one to hold you responsible if you put a bullet in them.
You didn’t care about the Task Force. Sucked to be them, but surely they could handle themselves.
However, the moment your coworkers started to execute unarmed civilians right in front of you, you snapped.
The latters’ screams for mercy still resonate in your ears. The racket caused by the bullets you sent through your former companions in arms hadn't been enough to make you forget their bloodcurdling yells. 
You hadn't even had time to ponder your actions. Your body acted on its own. You slaughtered them without batting an eye. They probably didn’t even understand what happened to them, not expecting your betrayal. You didn’t regret it.
You hid the bodies to the best of your abilities, and slipped away.
Now here you are, lost in Las Almas, a small city in Mexico, operating in the blind. Between the dark of the night and the rain, your vision is execrable. You have little time before your ex-colleagues’ death and your disappearance get noticed. The clock is ticking, and you can see only two options presenting themselves to you: fight or flight.
You eventually stumble upon a squad of Shadows. You've been monitoring the comms, and your treason hasn’t been noticed yet. 
So, in a rush of insane hope, you do the unthinkable and reveal yourself to them.
Maybe, just maybe, not all Shadows are bloodthirsty mercenaries who shoot innocents at the first opportunity. Maybe they can be reasoned with. Maybe you don't need to fight alone. Maybe…
You salute them as you approach, acting with as much natural as you can muster.
One throws one look at you and turns away. The other two stare with curiosity.
“Whattya doing here? This isn’t your area.”
You play dumb. Easy to perform when your interlocutor is already looking down  on you. The only perk of being a woman in this field of work is idiots underestimating you.
“Lost my way. The others left me behind. Mind if I join?”
You make your tone as silly and harmless as possible, turning your voice higher pitched than normal. It works like a charm.
You put up with their mockeries that sound a lot like insults and other jeers, keeping a naive smile on your lips.
Following on their heels, it's easy to fall back into the routine that's been yours for the past few weeks, since you became a shadow. But that illusion of normality shatters the moment you come across inhabitants.
“They don't know shit,” grumbles one of the shadows, after barking orders at the civilians only leads to desperate pleas for mercy in spanish. “Might as well get rid of them.”
You stare at him with incredulity, your bewildered expression hidden by your balaclava. How could someone be so callous with human life was beyond you. Yes, you were killers for hire, but between fighting seasoned soldiers on a battlefield and slaughtering unarmed families in their own home, there was a world of difference.
“Sure,” shruggs another.
The third one doesn't even bother answering, already taking aim with his rifle.
You feel trapped in a horror movie, an alternative reality.
“That's not necessary,” you step in, loud enough to be clearly heard, but still attempting to not sound too authoritarian. “Killing them isn’t gonna give us any answer.”
“Who cares?” snarls the first one at you, irritated by your intervention. “We get a bonus for each target, it's all that matters.”
“But they're not targets,” you hiss, getting riled up despite yourself. “Is that what your morals are worth? A bunch of zeroes?”
“For the love of… knew admitting women was a bad idea. You’re too soft-hearted for this job. So either shut the fuck up, or-”
He never gets the chance to finish his sentence, as the bullet you fire lodges itself between his eyebrows.
As the other two squad members let out expletives in shock, you’re already shooting again. The one who was aiming his rifle at the denizens drops dead just as he gets you into his sights. The last one scrapes your side with his handgun before you make him join his teammates.
Panting, you lower your weapon and kick at one of the corpses in rage.
“Fuck! Why did you have to be such a rotten piece of shit!”
From the corner of your eye, you notice the group of civilians nearby shaking with fear, glancing at you with horror and uncomprehension. You sigh and tell them to leave, unable to look them in the eye, ashamed.
Once left to your own devices, you let your fury and your frustration explode.
“Shit, shit, shit! Never should have taken this fucking job!”
Overwhelmed, you crouch, covering your face with your hands, and swear some more.
“Why'd ye do that?”
The hoarse, foreign, barely audible voice coming out of nowhere makes you jump. You point your handgun in multiple directions, in vain.
“What the…?”
You cautiously inspect your surrondings, on your guard, ready to open fire at the first sight of an enemy. Eventually you find the owner of the voice, inside a nearby building, slumped against a crumbled brick wall, and immediately take aim at him. 
“Hey there.”
The salute may be casual, but his body language shows nothing but extreme vigilance and sharp suspicion, his own handgun pointed at you. The tone of his voice isn’t exactly warm either.
At the first provokation, he will swiftly end your life without any qualms.
Your eyes roam over him and, as you take in his bare face, the soaking wet blue t-shirt adhering to his skin, and jeans, you realize you're not dealing with one of Graves’ guys. The british flag displayed on his bulletproof vest silently answers your interrogations.
“You're one of those brits,” you sigh in relief.
Well, half-relief. You may not consider them your enemies anymore, but unfortunately, that doesn't mean the opposite is true.
He scoffs at your remark, apparently mildly offended.
“Scottish.”
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breezytealy · 3 days
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Summoning Goten and Trunks fans
HI RIGHT so I'm trying to get ages and school years for Goten and Trunks and it's driving me bonkers (working out Blue Hal but birthdays will do), feel free to chip in and correct, I'll update the original post with strikethrough corrections if needs be.
ETA: would be too much to correct but @secretsofdbz has a really good breakdown of why we can consider Daizenshuu (and therefore most online timelines) as out in the reblogs. The post below attempts to square Daizenshuu by squinting but sounds like it's neater to just ignore it. It's too late for my fics I'm stuck with parkour, but maybe not for yours if you're particular!)
At the end of the day it doesn't matter but I like everything to line up as best as possible and headcanon what I can't.
They're born 767 and 766 respectively, Future Trunks is postulated as Nov 766 as he's stated he was born about six months before the androids arrive. We know Goten is born after late May 767's Cell games.
In the early May 774 tournament before Buu we know they give their ages as 7 and 8, but since that's impossible for Goten I like to think he rounded up and Trunks was born earlier than Future Trunks. Trunks could have also lied but we know the timestream changes and it's just funnier to me that a 6 year old would lie to be a cooler age, especially if his friend is 8.
Running with those constraints we're at:
Goten: May 767 - Dec 767
Trunks: Jan 766 - early May 766
I thinkkk Blue Hal takes place 3 months before Super Hero, which is when Pan is 3. She's born 779 (seeing references to May?) so Blue Hal at the latest is early 783 could be late 782? She's also supposed to have just started kindergarten in Blue Hal, but I don't have the Japanese scan to see if it's Japanese or American naming, and kids join nursery all the time so idk if there's strict timing help there. We also know Goten and Trunks are one school year apart.
So! Taking late 782 for arguments sake:
Trunks is 16 turning 17 sooner rather than later
Goten is 15, turning 16 later rather than sooner
In the Japanese system which runs April to April and three year high school, to keep them only a year apart Trunks needs to be born after April (so basically born in April 766), making him a first year high schooler (already turned 16), so Goten is a final year middle schooler (May 767 - Dec 767, has or will turn 15 in that apr 782-mar 783 school year).
BUT we know they go to the same school, and it's literally written as "high school" in the Japanese, and it's in West City, so they could be a freshman and sophomore.
Going further, if it's a Western High School the American system runs September to September, that means Trunks can be born Jan-early May 766 and Goten May 776-Aug 767 for the year gap, and in that case Goten is a sophomore and Trunks is a Junior, as they'll be turning 16 and 17 in their respective school year.
So I can get all my ducks in a neat little row with a very constrained pick of April 766 and July 767 for birthdays. I think?
WHEEZE
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levemetal · 3 days
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I have a million and one svsss AU ideas that idk if I'll ever write cause I have 0 confidence in my untested writing skills. Any of these appeal to you?? Go ahead, use 'em. Know any fanfics like that? Please please PLEASE leave them in the comments. Ideas to add? Anything? Please go ahead I have no friends that are as deep in the svsss brainrot as me to subject this to ˚‧º·(˚ ˃̣̣̥᷄⌓˂̣̣̥᷅ )‧º·˚
Continued under the cut due to excessive rambling
These will be Ghost King/Calamity!SJ cause he has been living rentfree in my brain ever since one braincell at one AM shouted about it so you have been warned.
- Dual Ghost Kings YQY and SJ, Post canon of PIDW. That's it that's the idea. Their extras hurt my cold dead heart way too much and as much as bbygirl SJ is a piece of shit, Yue Qingyuan deserves happiness, and for that he needs his Xiao-Jiu. Basically YQY does not stay dead when Bingge turns him into a pincushion à la White No Face to Xie Lian except with arrows. What happens from here? Idk didn't get that far but I imagine he steals back his (probably dead) Xiao-Jiu, maybe does some other batshit insane shit like we all know that deep down he's capable of, and the duo fucking COMMUNICATES for once in their life and they live happily ever after. Bonus points for hilarious deaths for Bingge.
- If you're a filthy multishipper like me, want a BingJiu version of the above QiJiu? Easy, SJ decides to haunt Bingge's ass for eternity and vice versa when Bingge kicks the bucket and so they spent the rest of eternity trying to make each other miserable in increasingly ridiculous and creative ways. Maybe along the centuries they find a common enemy or sort their shit out and proceed to make their awful existence everyone else's problem. A match made in hell, truly <3
Are you seeing a theme yet. I like a general comedic air to svsss AUs, it just belongs to the svsss experience ya know? Anyway carrying on-
Shen twins, and SQH twins cause why not. If you want Binghe twins too, actually probably funnier with Binghe twins, where one is our beloved maiden Bingmei and the other OG!PIDW Bingge but forced back in time with memories of the PIDW timeline. Transmigrator SQH aka Airplane gets the peak lord + Mobei-Jun plotline while OG!SQH is just chilling as an An Ding Peak Hallmaster or something. Meanwhile, the Shen twins have a funny game of imposter going on. As far as everyone is concerned, there is only one Shen Qingqiu, Shen Yuan. Shen Yuan transmigrated in earlier into the novel, but ended up going to CQM with Yue Qi while SJ got stuck in the Qiu household as in canon. From here the details can change but the main idea is that
A) Shen Yuan knows how to do his peak lord job actually
B) SJ is a calamity ghost, having died either in his disciple years or alternatively never made it out of the Qiu household alive
C) Both SY and SJ have been playing switcheroo when SY needs to head out and do stuff or just wants SJ to do his paperwork for him.
I still need a good reason for the switching and duping, but wouldn't it be funny if the disciples just had to deal with their peak lord behaving WILDLY different at times. Most of the time it's good ol' Shen Yuan smiling at disciples, way too enthusiastic for monsters and plants and keeps forgetting his fans everywhere. Then one random week in the month after he has a resting bitch face, scowls, snarls and bitches at anyone and has 0 patience for teenage attempts at music.
Most shrug it off as just terrible migraine weeks, but some disciples are suspicious, most of all Bingge who is CONVINCED something is WrongTM. Like, he KNOWS SQQ and this SQQ is just so different, something must be different. He doesn't know how right he is yet everyone just thinks he's actually insane.
I know this is probably increasingly insane and dumb, but fast forward to the Abyss opening. SJ was probably there to keep an eye on his clumsy twin, but SY ends up asking the ghost to look over the Luos, as the system still demands that they go to the abyss. So SJ after much grumbling agrees (after all he probably just was unmasked as ghost calamity, and the twins as demons, with a huge amount of cultivators moving their way. It's really the smaller hassle to jump into the Abyss and deal with the horrors there. Besides, the scholar in SJ would be curious about the abyss (and SY too let's be honest) ), kicks both in and goes "Alright we're taking an impromptu field trip" and jumps in after leaving SY to deal with the political mess that comes after.
Anyway, the last AU can be changed in various ways, like make it a PIDW time travel fix it with only the OGs around, or just Shen twins, etc. Feel free to shout at me how dumb this all is.
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penkura · 2 days
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last forever [3/13]
Summary: Zoro only offered to marry you to keep you out of an arranged marriage with a man much older than you. You agreed with the caveat of ending it via annulment once you received word from your parents regarding the original engagement, despite your growing feelings for your close friend.
Pairing: Zoro x Fem!reader, mentioned Sanami later (like epilogue later so chill)
Warnings: Marriage of Convenience, Fake Marriage, referenced sex (waaaaaay later on), mutual pining, Zoro is bad at feelings but what's new there, eventual romance I promise, mention of past attempted assault (I'll warn in that chapter), creepy older dude later on
Note: At time of posting, this is the most recent chapter I have finished. Chapter four will be worked on and hopefully posted tomorrow (4/29), then I will update every Monday, hopefully.
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Your stress is through the roof, watching Zoro fight against Dracule Mihawk. You're wringing your hands hearing Luffy tell Johnny and Yosaku not to interfere, and it makes you want to jump over and help. You knew this was his plan as soon as name left Johnny's mouth before you all arrived at Baratie, you hadn't gotten the chance to tell him he should wait, and seeing his swords break, the large attack from Mihawk that left him bloodied and Luffy screaming his name now makes you wish you could go back and do that.
"Sis, we need your sewing skills!!"
Johnny and Yosaku brought Zoro onto a small ship manned by Usopp, one you'd probably be taking to go after Nami and bring her and the Merry back.
You're about to jump in and go to them, before remembering the one thing keeping you from doing so.
Damn it, I can't swim!
"You have to bring him over here! You guys know I can't swim!"
"We can't get close enough," Usopp yells and looks between you and Zoro, "He's bleeding really bad!"
Biting your lip, you barely notice Luffy wrapping his arms around you three times before he says your name.
"You're gonna fly!!"
"Wait wha–"
Luffy lifts you up and stretches his arms all the way over, making sure you've touched down on the boat before he lets go, arms snapping back as he tells you to help Zoro. You start getting your supplies ready, your heart pounding in your ears and you barely notice Zoro awake, lifting up Wado Ichimonji and making a promise to Luffy with heavy breaths and tears you've never seen before.
Actually, you've never seen Zoro cry before this day.
"Until I become…the world's greatest swordsman, I swear…I'll never lose again! Got that, King of the Pirates?!"
Hearing Luffy's agreement makes you smile as you stare at Zoro, quickly remembering you have to start stitching him up or he'll bleed to death in this tiny boat. Usopp starts you all in the direction Nami took the Going Merry, while Johnny and Yosaku watch you with tear filled eyes as you stitch up the gash from Mihawk down Zoro's chest, he's nearly fast asleep by the time you finish and cut the thread.
A very quiet word of thanks leaves his mouth before he's asleep, you simply respond telling him not to mention it, rinsing your hands in the sea water. Johnny gives you praise for being able to stitch up such a large wound, Usopp saying you were one of the best he'd ever seen for a makeshift doctor. You hear them, but don't respond, watching Zoro sleep instead. Despite his loss to Mihawk he looks as if he's resting peacefully, and that makes you happy to think about for the time being.
You're quiet as you place a hand on his face, stroking his cheek slightly while telling the others that he'll be alright, before removing your hand from his face.
You'd love to tell him how amazed you are and that you have feelings for him, but now's not the time. Maybe another day, when you aren't chasing down your friend who's stolen your ship and is going off to who knows where, and maybe when Zoro isn't unconscious from nearly bleeding out after taking on a fight he couldn't win (but oh how badly you wanted him to win it).
Right now, you have to focus on Nami.
+!+
How you all have now liberated three towns from Pirates or the threat of Pirates, you aren't sure. Your crew isn't anything like the Pirates your parents had tried to teach you to fear as a child. Luffy was far too kind and really only wanted to be King of the Pirates, but helping Nami came first.
Freeing her home from Arlong and his Fishman Pirates was the main priority of the day, and you were glad to lend a hand. Nami had become your best friend in no time, you had to help her. Even when you were told (ordered really) to stay back by Zoro, you made sure you were ready to help if needed.
And you tried. Tried to pull Zoro away after he'd beaten Hachi and was on the verge of collapse from a fever and his wounds from Mihawk, but he tried to shove you away and tell you he was fine despite the dizzied look he had. Arlong ripping his stitches out caused you to try again, trying to help him, but you were stopped by Johnny and Yosaku pulling you back, telling you not to bother because you'd just die.
Even seeing Luffy swap places with Zoro terrified you that he was going to be even more badly injured, but you were still held back by your old friends through the end of Luffy's fight against Arlong, finally freeing Nami and her hometown.
Your biggest concern afterwards was Zoro, but when you saw him later that day with a drink in hand you knew he was fine. Most of your time at the party was spent with Nami and her sister Nojiko, listening to Usopp tell his stories to the kids, and sharing Sanji's food with Luffy. Every now and then you'd look for and find Zoro, a few times smiling brightly at him when you caught his eye, which made him look away from you immediately.
Sanji, still brand new to the crew, noticed the looks you and Zoro shared that night. You were strange, your relationship with him, whatever it was, was strange to him.
Even stranger, he notices you leave Nami and Nojiko at one point, hurrying over to Zoro and latching onto his arm, making him lean in to hear whatever you had to say. He rolls his eyes while you smile, but doesn't shake you off, letting you move his arm around your shoulders while he has another drink.
You're weird, both of you. The rest of the crew isn't phased at all by the two of you being so buddy-buddy, but Sanji wonders what you two have going on. Are you together? How long have you known each other? Surely you only met when you each joined Luffy, right?
When Zoro leaves you to go look for Luffy, food, or another drink, whatever it is, you seem content to be left alone, until Sanji sees your shoulders drop and you look almost like you're going to cry. Maybe his eyes were playing tricks on him, he's not sure.
But if Zoro said or did something to upset you, Sanji was going to make sure the swordsman paid for it.
+!+
The majority of your crew doesn't know of your struggles with nightmares. Normally they take the form of your parents, the man they were going to force you to marry, and being trapped in a loveless life in your home village where most treated their children like property to be sold. Your only solace there being your older brother who was protective over you. Being the one to help you run away, making you swear to never come back and to take his sword to protect yourself after he'd spent the last few years teaching you how to use it.
You were good at keeping those demons to yourself, to not worry anyone. The nightmares had been less lately anyway, you felt safe with everyone around. The six of you on your way to Loguetown, you and Nami snatching up the office area as your room, both turning in late in the night after long talks about numerous things.
Your bad dreams, however, took a new form that night. This time, the dream takes you back to Baratie, back to Zoro's fight against Mihawk, and instead of him waking long enough for his promise to Luffy, you're sitting beside him while he bleeds from the wound and you're unable to move. You can't bring yourself to start stitching him up, and before anything else happens, you've woken up.
While it wasn't as bad as the dreams about your parents, it was enough to shock you awake and into a seated position on your bed. Nami is still fast asleep in her own bed, apparently not having noticed or heard your heavy breathing from the nightmare. You don't know why your nightmares took this turn, you'd much rather deal with seeing your parents in your dreams than seeing your closest friend and ally dying in front of you, even though he was just down the hall and alive.
It's several minutes of tossing and turning before you decide to get up and sneak off to the boys' bunks, turning back to your habit you'd been determined to stop as more crewmates joined, but you can't help it.
The past nightmares have been enough to make you slip into bed with Zoro before, he never fought you over it and let you stay, let you continue when it was just the two of you, but with more friends you worried they'd all get the wrong idea.
And maybe they will, but if Zoro doesn't mind and it helps you sleep, they shouldn't complain or tease you. Hopefully.
Usopp and Luffy are both spread out on the floor, making you have to tiptoe around them to get to Zoro's hammock, not even registering that Sanji's is empty.
You're quiet while you slip in and under the blanket, wrapping your arms around Zoro and making yourself comfortable. You figured he was asleep when you walked in, but his hand moves to grab one of your own, thumb stroking the back of your hand while he waits to hear if you say anything.
You don't, Zoro doesn't mind, he knows you won't tell him the contents of your nightmares anymore, not after the first one. If you're unable to sleep, he's glad to let you join him and keep you safe. He promised he would do so, helping keep your demons away so you could rest.
Unfortunately, your peaceful sleep is interrupted early in the morning by Sanji shouting at Zoro to get off you, like he'd done something wrong when you were the one to climb into his hammock.
"What do you think you're doing to [Y/N]-chan, you moss head?! Get your hands off her!"
A pillow lands on your face, likely aimed for Zoro, but it misses him due to the fact his face is buried in your shoulder while one arm is around you. Normally your face would be red at this, but with Sanji still nearly screeching for Zoro to "unhand" you, all you can think about is crawling in a hole and dying.
Zoro gets fed up and eventually lets you go, taking the pillow that disturbed you both and throwing it back at Sanji with twice the force.
"Shut up already!! You're going to wake the whole damn East blue!"
"I will as soon as you stop violating sweet [Y/N]!"
Yeah you really want to just up and die right now.
"Who's violating her?!"
"You are, you savage!"
"How do I violate my own wife when she's the one that crawled into my bed?!"
Everything goes quiet, you don't want to know what look is on Sanji's face at the moment, but you're grateful for Nami coming in and telling everyone to shut up, even though she's a moment too late. Luffy and Usopp were awake and just watching the scene unfold, until Zoro's statement which makes Usopp's eyes go wide and Luffy laughs. He just knew you two wouldn't be able to keep this secret.
You're so embarrassed that you pull the blanket up over your now definitely bright red face, wishing Zoro and Sanji didn't feel the need to egg each other on and instigate all these petty fights.
When you finally decide to look and see what's going on, Luffy's still laughing, Nami is confused, Zoro's still got a glare set on Sanji, while your chef and Usopp are both looking at the two of you wide eyed, disbelief on their faces before there's one outburst from Sanji.
"Your WHAT?!"
+!+
It feels like an interrogation. You're in the kitchen still in your pajamas with Usopp and Sanji both questioning you and Zoro about your little marriage, Nami and Luffy enjoying breakfast to your side.
Zoro's completely unbothered by the whole thing, answering Sanji's questions with an annoyed look, while you answer Usopp's inquiries with your face still red from the way everyone was woken up that morning.
Eventually, they come to realize you two are only married to prevent the arranged one your parents set up, making Sanji sigh in relief and Usopp is slightly concerned but seems to understand.
“So, one more time,” you just can’t look at Usopp while he relays your situation once again, “You and Zoro got married to prevent you being forced into an arranged marriage, but you’re going to annul?”
You nod, taking glances at Zoro, who continues to glare at Sanji for waking you both too early. All of this was too much first thing in the morning, and you both had decided to keep this little marriage a secret from any new recruits, wanting only Luffy and Nami to know because you’d both slipped up with calling each other husband and wife without thinking about it in front of them.
"And you're just waiting for your parents to say something?"
You nod again at Sanji's question. "It's weird, I know but…I just can't go back there. My older brother told me never to go back, or I'd definitely be forced into that marriage."
"Your parents suck." Luffy nodded, still eating his breakfast when you look over at him with a smile. "But we'll keep you safe! We'll fight anyone that tries to take you from us!"
"No one's forcing you back home," Zoro doesn't look at you, instead moving to leave and start his training for the day despite not having breakfast yet, "I'll make sure of that."
There's something in the way he says it, as you thank everyone, that makes Sanji lean back in his seat and watch Zoro leave. Even with you both stating you were not in love and were going to annul the marriage as soon as you heard from your parents, Sanji swears there's something weird about the way Zoro treats you.
It might just be friendship, but it feels like something more that neither of you are saying. You absolutely could be hiding real feelings for each other, he knows that, the way you two speak to each other and work together seems to say so, but until either of you say anything, Sanji isn't willing to believe this is anything more than a sham marriage.
There's something else, he's noticed in his short time with you all, in the way you look at Zoro, the way you speak to him as well. Zoro's a tough guy, but you speak so gently and kindly to him, it's almost like you really are his wife and want to stay that way. Maybe it's just your dynamic since you two have known each other much longer than the other Straw Hats, but Sanji isn't convinced. You and Usopp break him out of his train of thought by asking for breakfast, which he proceeds to provide you both with a grin, deciding he'll have to ask you another time if you have feelings for the moss head swordsman. If your heart's already taken, he'll gladly leave you be, despite his rivalry with Zoro.
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annaraebananawriter · 6 hours
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(Request) I Bet You Were the Best Brother
It's been a while since I posted a oneshot, so I hope this 5k one manages to make up for that.
As I've mentioned before, been going through a bit of a writer's block that is finally going away. Some it still lingers, but it is infinitely better. Feels like I can breathe again. So, everyone reading this that struggles with writer's block at the moment--know that it will go away. You will be able to write again. It's not a matter of if, only when. You will be able to write again.
Anyway, I don't have any other major life updates for you, so I guess I'll let you start reading now. Happy reading! Let me know what you thought!!
Fandom: Undertale/UTMV
Characters: Dream and Nightmare (Who belong to Joku)
Warnings: A character losing their memory and swearing and I think that’s it. Let me know!
Summary: Ilike_cringe (Fri 14 Oct 2022): "here is a request :>. Could you make it that nightmare might have hit dream tooo hard in a fight that (bear with me ) Dream lost his memory ( if you could could you add more spice \^o^/)"
Word Count: 5395
~oOo~
Nightmare wanted there to be a note that the fight started off normal.
His gang showed up, causing some ruckus. He hung out in the background observing, soaking in the new misery like a sponge, keeping an eye out for the tell-tale sign that the Star Sanses had shown up. In today’s case, that ended up being an arrow flying at one of his boys, which barely got dodged, the blue glow disappearing as it left eyesight. Grinning, he had taken it as his cue to join in, grabbing Dream by the ankles as he notched another one, and throwing him across the space.
Not too hard, of course. He didn’t want his brother out of commission quite yet. That was always the fun part about the fight, seeing him defeated. It needs to be drawn out a bit, though, for it to be really satisfying.
Dream recovered from the toss quickly, though he was soaked head to toe—he had unintentionally tossed him into the river. Whoops. The annoyed look on his brother’s face made his grin widen even more. They quickly fell into their routine after that, trading blows and insults, slowly moving away from the others. Another toss had them entering the woods, which resulted in a lot of fallen trees, a clear indicator of where they’d gone.
A cliff came into view, with Dream’s back to it. Nightmare didn’t take much note of it at the time, too preoccupied—his brother had just gotten a pretty bad hit to the back of his skull, making him stumble. Pausing for a minute, he gave him some time to get his bearings back before attacking again, pushing him closer to the cliff edge.
So…technically, this whole thing could be considered his fault, but how was he supposed to know what would happen?
The cliff seemed perfectly safe in the normal dangerous way!
This means the fight was going great until the cliff crumbled under Dream’s feet, making him shriek, eyes widening, his bow dispersing as he pinwheeled backward. Nightmare froze, staring at the now absent spot with eyes equally as wide, tentacles raised to strike.
Then it went silent.
 “…shit,” he hissed, automatically turning around in case his brother teleported at the last second to safety. It wouldn’t be the first time, so it shouldn’t be the last time.
No one was there.
He waited.
Still no one.
Maybe Dream was just in shock, still picking himself up. Turning back, Nightmare stepped closer to the cliff, small rocks tumbling after the larger ones from his movements. If he leaned over, he could probably tell…ah, no. Nope, that was just a bunch of trees. His brother was probably under those trees. Probably just picking himself up.
He’ll return in no time.
Nightmare just had to wait.
So, he did.
For one minute. Then two. Then…honestly, he lost track of the minutes after that, glancing back and forth around the clearing, looking over his shoulder at the cliff like Dream would just suddenly appear, having climbed up for some stupid reason. Any minute now, the fight will be back on, continuing as usual…any minute now…
…any minute…
…any—
Okay, so.
Something was wrong.
Turning back to the cliff, he glared at the edge. It was its fault this was happening. Why did it decide to crumble now? Particularly when Dream was on it? Why?
Now his brother was somewhere below, dazed as hell, without the clear thinking necessary to teleport, or injured badly enough to be unconscious—and as soon as that thought popped into existence, he shoved it away, then took time to quell the rising panic in his soul.
No, no, that’s not possible. Dream’s far more durable than that. Sure, it’s a cliff, and cliff’s cause damage, even to immortal beings, but still. His brother could heal, so shouldn’t that work on himself, make him more…invulnerable, or something? Unless…he couldn’t actually heal himself and he’s just been assuming that he could this entire time…no, that couldn’t be possible. Nightmare’s pretty sure he’d remember that if it were the case.
So…what happened?
Maybe…maybe Dream was just staying down there for a while.
He’ll probably join again in a bit.
Yeah, that’s probably it. So, he should really go back and help his boys. Hey, maybe Dream’s already there! Maybe he went to his friends instead. Makes sense, makes sense…
He should go help his boys now, he’s been standing here too long.
And…he wasn’t moving.
Why wasn’t he moving?
Dream’s fine. He’s back at the main fight. It’s something that’s happened before. It should be something that happened here. It’s fine. He can go back. So…what kept him here, staring around like his brother would magically appear, a tight feeling in his chest that threatened to steal the air away from his non-existent lungs?
Maybe…maybe he should just go down there, check on Dream—
That was another thought pushed away. No, hell no. If he gave in to that though, if he went down there to check, now, after too much time has already passed for that to be considered just moving the fight along, that’d be…that’s cause his brother to hope. Hope that things could go back to the way things were before the apples. He can’t go through the painstaking steps needed to crush that hope, put off the last stubborn spark that remained until he was sure it wouldn’t create another flame. Not again.
Besides, he didn’t even care. Not that much. Sure, yeah, he cared somewhat, always would—that’s just naturally part of being a brother. But the majority of how much he cared was in the past, before everything was plucked off a tree in the form of a black apple and devoured. That care no longer exists, taken over by the need to win all these fights, making the scales tip in his direction.
It just…didn’t exist. He didn’t care.
(Some days, it was harder to convince himself of this fact than others.
This was one of them.)
He didn’t care, so he should so rejoin his boys, and get out of this AU.
This time, he teleported.
It was an easy win. Dream never came back.
When it came time to go home, Nightmare couldn’t stop his gaze from wandering away from his boys, who were celebrating as usual, over to the trees. In the direction of the cliff, even if he couldn’t see it from here.
The tight feeling in his chest squeezed and squeezed. His tentacles flicked nervously behind him. For some reason, he kept thinking that now was the moment his brother would appear, now was the moment he could stop all this silly, stupid worry, go back to being angry. And the longer he looked, the more that thought wavered and shook, gathering speed as it transformed into a tornado that threatened to consume all of his other priorities until he made sure Dream was okay. But the only way to do that was to go and check, and leaving now would just make the boys confused and worried, which he could not handle right now.
Besides, he was sure it was fine.
He got them all home before he could convince himself otherwise, before the urge to make sure was too overpowering. To make sure he was really distracted, he holed himself up in his office, pulling out some paperwork—which wasn’t even real paperwork, just a bunch of sudoku and word searches and other puzzles printed out to make it look like he was working on important stuff.
For the most part, it worked. Kept his mind too busy to think about what happened.
Then he got to one particular word search that—and he is not joking or exaggerating this part—had three words at the bottom for him to find, all in a row, that read: ‘Dream’, ‘injury’, and ‘concussion’. Isn’t that just the strangest collection of words you’ve ever seen? The surreal coincidence of the words made Nightmare stare down at the page for a minute, completely gobsmacked. Who the hell was writing these word searches, and why the fuck did they include these three specific words on the same one?
It was like a sign or something…
Sneering, Nightmare tore the word search up into tiny pieces, sitting back in his chair, spinning around and around. Trying very hard not to think about the three words. And how his brother never came back. And how the yelp he let out when he fell just fell silent and how he never bothered to check and—
And now he was thinking about it.
“Fuck.”
Growling to himself, he stopped spinning in his chair. Then, he promptly stood and teleported back to the AU.
Leaning over the cliff again, he teleported down. His brother wasn’t anywhere in the immediate proximity—though, why would he be? This was all just a waste of time—so he started walking around, ducking under some tree branches. When he fell, Dream would’ve had to have landed somewhere around here…though he still wasn’t sure why he was searching.
His brother was probably gone by now. His friends probably came to collect him.
Why did he think he’d find him here, lying on the ground as if nothing happened? As if he just decided to take an impromptu nap, in the snow and in wet clothes and…
Oh. Oh, shit.
That was actually Dream lying there in front of him.
Fuck.
Almost tripping over himself, Nightmare hurried over, falling to his knees beside his brother. His hands hovered in the air around him, unsure what to do. “Dream?” he called, hoping to wake him up. Nothing happened.
Dream didn’t move.
For a soul-stopping moment, Nightmare actually thought he might be dead. Panic swirled in his chest, choking him, until he remembered that if they were dead, their body would turn to dust. Presumably, anyway, since they had no real way of knowing that until they…y’know…actually died, but still. The thought allowed him to gather himself enough to Check his brother, make sure of it. It said he was fine, if missing a chunk of health.
Nightmare breathed out, hating how shaky it was. “Idiot, making me worry for nothing…” he muttered to himself, looking down at his brother, frowning. Shaking his shoulder, he raised his voice a bit, eager to wake him up, make sure he left to wherever, hopefully back to his friends, and get home himself before his boys wondered where he went off to. “Dream. Wake up.”
No response. Dream was still. Breathing—he double-checked, just to be sure—but still.
Frowning, he shook him again, rougher. Still nothing.
Even unconscious, his brother insisted on being annoying. Scowling, he sat back on his heels. “If you don’t wake up, I’m going to kick you.”
Nothing.
Welp. His hand was forced.
Standing, Nightmare kicked Dream in the side—not too hard, of course, he’s not a complete monster. Just enough that he woke up.
Which he did.
Finally.
Nightmare rolled his eye to himself, crossing his arms as he watched his brother groan, coming to. A hand half-raised to his head before stopping, eyes blinking open and squinting against the light. His eyelights were paler than normal, just a hair bigger, too. He could see the exact moment they focused in, his brother clocking that there’s someone standing above him, but Dream didn’t panic, didn’t seem to be anything more than confused.
Dream blinked again. “Hi.”
Nightmare raised a brow bone. Seriously? That’s it? He fought the urge to roll his eye again. “What are you still doing here?”
His brother seemed to get more confused. “What?”
Wondering if the fall knocked loose some brain cells, Nightmare scowled. “What do you mean, ‘what’? You know what. What are you still doing here? This is, like, the most uncomfortable spot to have a nap.” Without waiting for him to answer, he continued, waving a hand around. He couldn’t let the opportunity to mock him go by. “And why didn’t you rejoin the fight? I thought you had a duty to protect the positivity in the multiverse.”
“Um…” Dream blinked for a third time, squeezing his eyes shut tightly. He laughed, nervously, like a reflex, and when he opened his eyes again, they were fuzzy again. “Sorry, you went a bit fast for me there. Could you repeat that?”
Ugh. Now he was just being difficult.
“You’re so annoying.” Nightmare said, stepping away. “Just get up and get out of here.”
Looking up at him, the words seemed to take a few minutes to sink in. Then, nodding, Dream tried to stand, movements jerky, as if he was figuring out how to move them for the first time again. When he stood, he wobbled, tilting over a bit before righting himself.
Nightmare realized he had stepped forward, ready to catch him should he fall, and retreated, tucking his hands back into his arms.
Damnit. He was slipping. He had to get out here, fast.
“I’m alright.” Dream said, clearly noticing his misstep. He was smiling. Nightmare had to look away before the sight made him feel warm inside. “Just a bit dizzy.”
“Whatever,” Nightmare said in return, leaving it at that.
Still smiling, his brother shifted on his feet, looking down at his hands and clenching them into fists a couple of times. His gaze wandered back up to him, and then away, looking around them with a curious, still confused, look. It was almost like he was trying to figure out where he was, as if he wasn’t just in a fight here earlier.
He couldn’t have forgotten that fast, could he? And what was he still doing here?
Shouldn’t he be opening a portal by now?
“What are you waiting for?”
Snapping back to look at him, Dream didn’t seem to understand the question. “Huh?”
Waving a hand again, tentacles flicking behind him, Nightmare’s scowl deepened. Why the fuck was he acting so weird? “Open a portal already and go home. Your friends are probably worried sick by now.”
(He ignored the voice in his head that said he was starting to get worried, too.)
“Right, right.” Dream nodded, trying and failing to look like he knew what he was talking about. “A portal…see, um, I would do that…but, uh…” Looking around again, shifting some more, his smile turned sheepish. “Well, I don’t remember, exactly, how to do that.”
Nightmare did not return the smile, unamused. He just stared.
What the fuck? What was he playing at? What was the point in drawing all this out? Nostalgia? What did he get out of acting so weird? What was going on here?
“Do you think this is a fucking game?” Nightmare asked, voice slipping off into a growl. His tentacles moved restlessly. He was getting agitated now. He just wanted to go home, get back to his puzzles, and maybe sleep for a week. But no, he was here, playing along with this stupidness, unable to get a grasp on what was happening.
Dream looked alarmed, holding his hands up and shaking them furiously. “No! No—”
“Then why the fuck are you wasting my time? I come out here, in the middle of the evening, to make sure you’re good, and you decide to, what, pull a joke on me?” Unable to curb his irritation, he shook his head, rubbing a hand down his face. “Stars, I hate you. I’m reminded now why I don’t bother doing this for you. You never take it seriously.” Turning he started to walk away, hearing Dream stutter excuses behind him.
He didn’t want to hear any excuses. He was done. He was going home.
“It’s not—I’m not joking,” Dream called after him, footsteps crunching on the snow as he chased after him.
“Of course, you are!” Nightmare sighed, in annoyance or anger or both of them combined. He didn’t care anymore. “You always are!” He didn’t bother stopping or turning around. Just continued on. And then he remembered he didn’t have to walk away at all, could just make a portal out. Turning his annoyance to himself, he raised a hand to do so—
“I don’t remember that.”
—and stopped.
The statement struck the right chord, making something inside him fall to the pit of his stomach, pricking him uncomfortably. Slowly, he turned to face Dream again, paying more attention. “…what?”
“I—I don’t remember that,” Dream said, tone so genuine, eyes so wide and confused and even scared that it seemed to create a physical attack on his soul. Raising a hand, his brother held it to his head. “I thought if I waited a bit, I might remember something, but I don’t. It’s all just…blank. I don’t know anything you’re talking about, like the fight or my friends. I place any faces to them or names or anything.” He let his hand fall, shaking his head as he turned his gaze down to his feet, speaking softly. “I just don’t remember.”
The words pushed Nightmare out of the present, sending him spiraling into the black hole opening in his ribs, right where his soul is. They pressed in on him, reverberating, turning into a high pitch that buzzed inside him, threatening to cut off his breath.
He didn’t want to believe the words. In fact, he was trying his absolute best not to. Excuses flew through, nitpicking through the explanation and finding words that betrayed the real truth. He told himself over and over that no matter what, no matter how injured he got, Dream would never allow this to happen. His brother would hold onto himself with an iron grip, too desperate to let go, and the Multiverse would allow him to hold on because it was just another being that favored him. They would not let their favorite Guardian lose his precious memories, not for all the stories it brought them.
No, it just wasn’t possible. He was lying—though the reason why was unclear, and nothing could really justify it, he had to be lying. It was a trick, a ploy, maybe even a trap. Yes, that’s it. Any minute now, the other Star Sanses would jump out, pull their weapons, and Dream would drop this façade and go back to pleading with him and when it didn’t work, when Nightmare lashed out in anger, he would pull out his bow and—and—
It just---it had to be a trick.
It had to.
It…
His eyes didn’t look like he was lying, though.
No matter how long he searched, how close he looked, it was a blank sheet of gold. He found confusion, yes, he found anxiety—nothing new there—but he did not find any recognition. Hope and helplessness, but no relief in having someone he knew find him. Even now, as his brother looked around the clearing, he only saw curiosity, as if he hadn’t seen this place before, as if he had just arrived, as if he had just woken up and was in an unfamiliar place with unfamiliar faces. The eyes came back to his, smiled at him, and—
And they were still blank.
A ghost.
The black hole in his ribs widened, pulling him in faster. Digging his heels in, he resisted with everything he had, swimming back out. He had to confirm this, he told himself, had to make sure this was the truth. If there was any chance he did remember, whether that be his friends or his title or Night—
Well, Nightmare just had to find it. He had to.
He heard himself speak before he was fully back in his body. “Did you hit your skull?”
“Ah, maybe?” Dream tilted his head, reaching around to the base of it before retracting quickly, wincing. “Yes. Yeah, I did.”
“Turn around.”
Obedient, Dream did, and Nightmare stepped closer, observing the crack. It wasn’t as bad as he was expecting—certainly not as big—but it was still enough to make bile climb up the back of his throat. Swallowing it down, he darted his gaze around it, taking in the gaping black hole, about the size of a cherry, thinner cracks webbing out from around it. It had blood crusted on the edges, and he was sure that if he took the time to look around the cliff, he’d find matching spots.
Absently reaching out, he traced along the wound with his fingers. Stars, how he wished he knew how to heal. This would be so much easier.
Dream pulled away after his fingers made contact, and he let his hand fall as he turned back, already apologizing. “Sorry! Sorry, that just…really hurt.” He laughed again, but it petered out as he caught sight of Nightmare’s face. “Oh…that bad of a sight, huh?”
“You said…” Nightmare swallowed again, ignoring those words. “You said you don’t remember anything?” The feeling in the pit of his stomach clenched.
“No.” Oblivious, Dream shook his head. “The latest memory I have is of you standing over me. Before that…” Tilting his head again, his brother thought about it, ultimately coming up with nothing. No spark in his eyes. “Nothing.” He looked regretful, like he wished he could be of more help. “Sorry.”
There he went again, apologizing.
Nightmare was going to have to have a talk with him about that. He can’t keep saying sorry for things that he didn’t need to say sorry for in the first place.
First, however, was dealing with—this.
“So…” He didn’t want to ask the next question. It burned in his throat, made his tongue curl in preparation, the words too ugly to even think about. Why did it need to be said? He already knew the answer to it. Why did he insist on asking it when he knew what was going to be said? He would rather them stand like this forever than ask it.
That was a risk, though. And he would really like to get some sleep tonight—even if that might be impossible the longer this sank in. They should really wrap this up soon.
That meant asking uncomfortable questions.
Swallowing himself down, Nightmare let the question go. It couldn’t hurt to ask, anyway. “You don’t remember me?” The words lingered in the air, an odd hint of emotion to them, something fragile and vulnerable.
(He knew the answer to why he wanted to ask this.
Somehow, somewhere inside him, there was still a need that maybe something would be remembered. If the longer they talked, the greater the chance the memories would just snap back into place. That the hollow feeling of having someone you grew up with look at you like one would a stranger would disappear, replaced by joy or anger or tears, anything else.
Inside, if nothing else, he needed there to be a chance he’d be remembered.)
It felt like hope.
“No.” Dream answered, the shaking of his head feeling like salt poured into open wounds. He seemed disappointed in himself, upset he couldn’t help. For him, this was failing at giving someone what they wanted.
For Nightmare, this was confirmation.
(It felt like denial.)
(There was a stinging in his chest. Where did it come from?)
“Where you someone important?”
Nightmare automatically bristled. “I—” He stopped himself, glaring down at the ground while clenching his jaw.
His instinct was to say that, of course he was. He was Dream’s brother. They grew up together. They were, still are, two halves of the same coin, two halves to the same balance. Despite everything, that had to mean something.
But that wasn’t the truth, was it?
Not anymore.
Maybe one time, before The Incident, before the villagers came to them. It was just the two of them, after all. And Mother, but she couldn’t really say much, or do anything beyond existing. Maybe then they were each other’s most important person. And maybe it would’ve stayed that way had everything not gone to shit.
But the point was, that was in the past.
Whatever they had, it was gone. In more ways than one now…
Inhaling, Nightmare looked away, shoving his hands into his pockets. “That…depends on your definition of important.”
They had other people in their lives now. He had his gang, his boys. Though he often complained about their foolishness and called them idiots, not once had he ever wished he hadn’t met them. Dream, he knew, felt much the same about Ink and Blue. Neither of them would trade their friends for the world.
Even for each other.
“I was—” Nightmare sighed, rolling back his shoulders. “I’m your brother. Nightmare.” He forced himself to look back at Dream, even if the eye contact burned his soul with something uncomfortable. “Your name is Dream, by the way. In case you forgot that, too.”
“Cool!” Dream paused and gasped, beaming as he made the connection. “Our names match!”
“Yeah.” Nightmare said, forcing himself to smile back. “Yeah, they do.” Of course they did, he thought to himself. That’s the reason why they chose the names.
Brow furrowing, Dream tilted his head. “Wait, if we’re brothers, wouldn’t I just live with you, then?”
“What?” Nightmare felt himself frown in return. “Why do you think we’d live together?”
Strange, considering Dream didn’t even remember him.
(There was that stinging again.)
“I-I don’t know, I just…I have this feeling that brothers should be living together. That they need to live together. I don’t know why, but it’s a very strong feeling.” Dream raised a hand to his chest, hovering over where his soul would be. “When I think about you, um, that feeling gets all…strange.”
This caught his attention. “Strange?”
“Yeah.” Nodding slowly, Dream worked through it, finding what to call it. “I think it…I think it turns jealous, somehow.”
Nightmare stared.
Jealous…?
That couldn’t be right. Dream had to be reading it wrong.
There was nothing to be jealous about. His brother always had the perfect life. What more could he want?
If anything, he should be the one jealous. He’s the only one who deserves to be jealous. Jealous of the way people were always drawn to his brother over himself, the way people thought everything of the sun and nothing of the moon, even though they both shared the same light. It was his right to be envious, his right to look upon the past and view it with bitterness. It was his right to look at the present, now, when Dream still has his friends and his standing and still has everyone revolving around him.
At least he can find relief, find arrogance, in the fact that he found his own friends, his own group of people who looked up to him. It took years, it took work, but he found them.
He didn’t need Dream anymore.
(So, what if sometimes he looked at his brother and his friends and felt a longing to join them?
So, what if he found the way they laughed, the way they treated each other, a reminder that he’s done too many things to be treated like that again?
So, what if he’s tired of fighting all the time and wants to go back to how things were, while knowing that could never happen, while looking across the battlefield into golden eyes that reflected the same kind of feelings and—and…oh.
Oh.
Oh, they would never escape being peas in a pod, would they?)
“Hey, you mentioned my friends, though.” Dream said, brightening up again, looking around like they might just pop up. Not that he would recognize them. “Maybe we could find them and they could help me get home. What do you think of that?”
Maybe, Nightmare thought, looking away as well. He couldn’t lie, it would be nice to leave this place, and dump the responsibility of an amnesiac onto someone else. Especially the Guardians of the Multiverse, the coveted Star Sanses.
But something twisting in his stomach stopped him from agreeing.
He thought, all too suddenly, about how he came back hours later to his brother still lying in relatively the same spot he fell. Meaning Ink and Blue never came back to look for him after they retreated. You’d think, for monsters that claimed to be his best friends, they’d be out here the minute the battle was over, bringing Dream back home to be checked on.
Why should he trust his brother with those two, when they didn’t even search for him? They probably don’t even know he’s missing. They certainly don’t know he’s injured. He can’t help but wonder what their reactions would’ve been to this memory loss.
Too bad he won’t find out.
“I think they’re busy, actually.” Nightmare decided, making a split decision that he hoped wasn’t wrong. “And going to be busy for the week yet.”
 “Oh…”
Dream looked disappointed. Hurt.
The look on his face only solidified Nightmare’s decision. His tentacles curled in satisfaction. “You can come home with me, though. Stay for a bit.”
“Really?” Starting to brighten yet again, Dream seemed to hesitate, searching to make sure he was telling the truth.
“Yeah.”
“Awesome.” Dream’s smile lit up the forest, and Nightmare turned himself away before he found himself getting soft because of it. Raising a hand to open the portal, he heard Dream chuckle behind him. “I gotta say, even though I don’t remember it, I bet you were the best brother ever.”
The words were said so confidently, so…normally…it made Nightmare freeze. The portal wobbled in front of him, but stayed open, and he blinked at it a couple of times before he turned back to his brother.
His mouth was dry, for a reason he couldn’t yet understand.
“What?”
“Well, I mean…it’s like you said. You came all this way, in the middle of the night, to check on me. You were worried. And then, when you found me, you stayed to wake me up, even though you technically already completed your goal. You didn’t just leave. And you checked my injury without me asking you to, and told me my name, and now you’re offering to let me stay at your place.”
Dream’s smile turned smaller, more vulnerable. “It just seems like a very nice thing to do.”
Nightmare’s gaze was frozen, locked onto that genuine, soft smile. The last sentence played on a loop, ringing inside his skull.
A very nice thing to do.
In any other situation, the suggestion would be laughable.
But like this…
(There was that stinging. Again. Why won’t it just go away?)
He thought back to the fight that happened earlier. How he reveled in the pain he caused, how much fun he had taunting his brother. How often he attacked him, without worry or caution. How eager he was to throw him around into trees, back him up into a cliff. He hadn’t even thought about what might happen, too giddy, too smug. All he wanted to do was put him in his place…he hadn’t even cared that he was bleeding…hadn’t even reached out to try and save him when the cliff crumbled…
How long had Dream laid there, in the snow, still in wet clothes?
What did he think as he watched Nightmare watch him fall?
How can that be called nice?
How can what happened during The Incident be called nice? What kind of brother turned his twin into stone, and left him in a dead AU all alone, knowing full well that he would one day return? What kind of brother picked an apple he was supposed to protect in the first place? What kind of brother was he?
Certainly not the kind this Dream was talking about…
“Right.” Nightmare said, the words tasting like ash in his mouth. He understood why this time. He wanted to throw up. “Thanks.”
Dream didn’t notice anything wrong. Still smiling away. As always. Always. “No problem!” Rocking back on his heels, he started to look around as his attention span waned with no portal to go through.
Still, Nightmare did not move to open it.
Instead, he found himself changing tracks. Jumping train from thinking about how bad of a brother he was, to how good of a brother Dream was.
Is.
Was.
Stars, this was so confusing…
“You weren’t that bad of a brother yourself.” Nightmare said, and this time the words were better tasting. At least this way, something true would be said here.
Dream looked back at him, surprised, with a spark of confusion. Then, even if he didn’t know everything Nightmare was talking about, he smiled, taking it as the compliment it was. “Aw, thanks.”
Nodding, Nightmare finally managed to open the portal, letting Dream go through first. He hesitated to follow, looking around the AU again. For some reason, he felt like he would still find his brother, memories and all, waiting for him if he looked hard enough. But he wouldn’t. He knew that.
At least, he had to accept that.
That stinging again…
Showing it down once again, Nightmare turned and went home.
(It’s only after Dream is settled into one of the guest bedrooms—stocked with fresh bedsheets and a fresh pair of clothes for the next day borrowed from Nightmare’s own closet—and he’s back in the safety of his office that he lets his composure finally break. Choking, he slides down his door, hand clasped over his mouth to keep as quiet as possible.
It’s only then that he lets himself cry.
Cry about how he never reached out to catch his brother when he first fell.
Cry about what his brother thought before splitting his skull on a rock.
Cry about the stranger left in his brother’s body.
Cry about everything.)
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bb-olicity · 8 hours
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On An Island Alone
It’s been 3 weeks since Chenford’s breakup and I feel like I’m on an island… alone.  The day after 6x06 aired, I made the decision to walk away from The Rookie. Well, at least until after the finale. I’ll decide if I'm walking away permanently once I check online and see how the season ended.  And before I go any further, to anyone who wants to say I'm not a true Rookie and (most importantly) Chenford fan: I have just as much right to stop watching the show as you do to keep watching it.
So why am I choosing to no longer watch the show?
The main reason I started watching the show in the first place is/was Chenford and I can’t sit there and watch them redo Seasons 4 and 5A and I won’t. Especially considering the fact we already know from Eric’s comments to TVLine they’re not getting back together by the end of the season finale.  I do not see them getting back together until at least the midseason finale next season.  Actually, if I’m being completely honest, I’m not sure they will get back together or if they even should.  I know me saying that will make a lot of people mad, but after reading Melissa and Eric’s post-episode interviews, I got a sense of finality when they were talking about Tim and Lucy’s relationship as a couple and the breakup.  Plus, I honestly don’t see how they can come back from what they did, which leads into the other reason why I’m not watching anymore.
Tim’s whole storyline rubs me the wrong way in so many ways.  They could’ve brought in his military past in so many other ways and still had him struggle without destroying his character in the process.  As it is, the storyline feels extremely forced just to cause drama for the sake of drama and, for me, irredeemably destroyed Tim’s character.  They completely erased 5 ½ seasons of character growth in the matter of only 1 ½ episodes.  And I'll never be able to see Tim the same way again, even if he goes to therapy.  I personally would never be able to trust him again and I honestly don’t see how Lucy could either.  That’s also why part of me feels like they should not get back together. Yes, I know it’s a short season and everything is condensed, but Alexi and the writers should not have done the storyline this late in the season, knowing they would not be able to do it justice with only 4 episodes left and not knowing the show’s fate by the time they finished filming the finale.  Since they were planning to break them up, I feel like they should’ve done it at the end of the premiere or by 6x03. That way there would’ve been time for Tim and Lucy to work through their struggles individually then work them as a couple by the end of the season.
Why do I feel like I’m on an island alone?
After the episode aired, a lot of the fandom was angry and a good number said they were done to show.  However, over the last few weeks, I’ve noticed that number dwindling and a lot fans are now justifying the breakup who weren’t before and they have absolutely every right to.  I can see where they’re coming from, to a certain extent.  Tim and Lucy both were hiding things from each other since they started dating and would just gloss over things that needed deep and meaningful conversations to work them out.  That said, I personally will never agree with the breakup or the whole (Tim’s) storyline and will always maintain the breakup was completely unnecessary and they could’ve (and should’ve) stayed together and worked through their struggles as a couple.  So yeah, I’m on an island alone… and that’s okay.
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killian-whump · 2 days
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Hi everybody. Just a quick notice to let you all know there might not be any updates on this blog for a little bit. My mom had a stroke the other day, so keeping up with Colin --- Well, no. Keeping up with Colin is still possible for me, since he hardly does anything we can see anyway and the lovely soul behind @colinodonoghue will surely inform me if he does.
However, keeping up with this blog is gonna take the back burner for a bit, while I help my mom through this tough time and we all adjust to her new limitations and difficulties. I won't be checking my dashboard or seeing posts/mentions/replies on posts (including this one) regularly at all. I only have about an hour or so a day to catch up on ALL my usual things at home (the rest of the time is, for now, spent at the hospital, away from my computer), so please don't be hurt or offended if I don't respond to you here. I'm gonna leave Asks on so you can send me messages if you want to, but please be aware it might take me awhile to see them! I'll also be responding privately to them (or not at all to anonymous ones) so as not to gum up everyone's feeds with my thank yous ;)
I AM on Discord still, as it's the one app I have in the phone I'm borrowing for the time being. Username's the same, and I'm keeping up with the O'Donocrew server (you can join it here if you want to). But again, responses from me are slow and sporadic. Some days I have quite a bit of time to putter around, some days none at all. Please don't be offended if my responses take awhile and/or are a bit short.
As for my Mom's condition... Physically, she's doing pretty good and seems to be on track for a full recovery. There's weakness on her right side, a bit of spatial neglect (sometimes she forgets the right side is there), and some rigidity they're watching out for, but these are all things that are already improving a bit and should improve a lot more with physical therapy. Cognitively, she's a bit easily confused, but her mind is still sharp, her memories intact, and her personality unchanged. However, she's having the most problems with speech and there's a major disconnect between her mind and her mouth when it comes to being able to form words and say what's on her mind. It's highly frustrating for her and worrisome for us, because we want to make sure we're doing everything we can for her, but it's hard when she can't really tell us what she needs/wants. There seem to be improvements in this, little by little, everyday... so we're hoping with more therapy and practice, she'll keep improving and things will get much better. Overall, we're all so lucky and thankful it wasn't any worse, and we're being optimistic about the future.
Thank you for all the well wishes and love I know you guys would/will send. I always feel the love from you all - my mutuals, my followers, my secret lurkers... all of you, my friends. I love you all and will certainly be back as soon as possible to regale you all once again with my crazy hijinks and my immense love of Colin ��️
Be well, be happy, and be good to one another ❤️❤️❤️
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zombeebunnie · 2 days
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Trembling Essence:💙Script progress + Updates💙
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Hello and welcome new followers, long time no see! I was very busy most of this month, but I am back and ready to continue from where I left off on the game! This game development post might be a bit long but I tried to condense everything! :]
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"How are things going so far?":
It's going slow and steady! I haven't been able to do too much these past few weeks, however, I wrote a few parts out before I got too busy and couldn't do anything else.
I want to be very careful when it comes to spoilers but, based on your choices, some of these areas will give off immersive cozy/homelike vibes that really express Noah and the player(Y/N)'s view towards each other. In the old 2023 script I was very new to writing so the small semi-hints of romance weren't the entire focus compared to the horror aspect but there's a better balance between both genres now and I'm still aiming for a meaningful slow burn versus it just being all over the place. :] I liked writing them a whole bunch which lead to a lot of these taking place in the mid/end of Day 4+, they just need to be placed in specific areas that call for it. With that being said, it felt really comfy adding key details about Noah and creating meaningful sections in the game. I was even going to draw out some of the unseen script/scenes but I believe the best thing to do is give deeper lore from the [Extended Demo] first. Even though my writing style has improved I still have to fix the multiple pacing issues I wrote last year.
"Playtester's advice":
I wanted to continue working through Noah's backstory but I kept having moments where I'd get sidetracked into wanting to fix up the start of the game again. Eventually, I talked to my play testers about it and they gave me a few encouraging pointers.
To help keep my process at ease, I will fix the beginning of the game when I take breaks from writing up Noah's backstory. :]
I talked about this during early 2024 but the start of the game that leads up to the cabin is still getting reworked. I was able to get some of it fixed for the [Extended Demo] but I wasn't done. Things are still up in the air but, I will say that I have a better view of everything than I did before. :] Another priority that needs fixing are the backgrounds! I've improved a lot on drawing and they need to be optimized. When you first start up the game, you wake up in a holed out tree in the swamp with the choice to leave this area and possibly end up in the forest. I was going for a very immersive form of symbolism that only a few noticed but, I believe I can do a better job about this. Unfortunately I don't have any new backgrounds to show right now but maybe next week I'll have some finished up! :]
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"Art process/Noah's sprite sheets":
As far as Noah sprite sheet goes, it's still in sketch mode.
I didn't draw anything since I was gone so I need to do a few warm ups before I get to them. There are some old drawing prompts I wrote down and old sketches that I never got a chance to doodle so hopefully I can get to them at some point with some attached lore. :,]
My Q&A / Ask box has been reset!
Thank you to those who have sent in asks in the past, unfortunately they all disappeared except for 1 while I was gone. I have no idea what happened but I can only guess it just got reset.
If you have any questions about Trembling Essence/Noah feel free to ask or resend them in here please. This makes it easier for me to see and answer accordingly! I would really like to hear from you guys!
This is all I have to share so far, Thank you to everyone for the continued support and patience while I was gone! I was ready to accept the interest for this game to fade out and coming back to see that it didn't happen makes me happy, I really appreciate it. :,]
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scorpioriesling · 4 hours
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Random Tropes HC (pt. 2)
✧・゚: *✧・゚:* ✧・゚: *✧・゚:* ✧・゚: *✧・゚:* ✧・゚: *✧・゚:* ✧・゚: *
Pairing(s): Lucien / Eris x reader
Warnings: slight sexual suggestions
Summary: Random tropes, and how each would play out, depending on the character... and you, of course.
SR’s Note: I saw a filter on Tik Tok where you can rank book tropes, and this idea came to mind. I am using my top 6 (not in order) for the purpose of these posts -- enjoy! Part 1
✧・゚: *✧・゚:* ✧・゚: *✧・゚:* ✧・゚: *✧・゚:* ✧・゚: *✧・゚:* ✧・゚: *
Lucien - "Only One Bed"
You were definitely crushing on Lucien -- who wouldn't?
You were close with him and Tamlin, working at the Spring Manor until you became more than an employee, but a friend.
Well, a friend to Lucien anyway.
Tamlin took note of how well you were able to spy, and turned you into his own personal Spymaster.
You didn't mind too much -- after a while, Tamlin warmed up to you. He also appreciated how you made Feyre feel more comfortable when she first arrived in the Spring Court.
As fate would have it, you and Feyre were a lot alike.
It didn't take long to see what was going on. She was planning to run.
Over the last few months, Tamlin grew more enraged, more angry at the world. You couldn't stay, you knew you had to get out.
And Cauldron be damned, Lucien was coming with you.
He wasn't happy about it at first, especially when the two Night Court warriors winnowed Feyre away and left the two of you to walk the rest of the way to the Night Court.
"Do you think he will change?" Lucien asks you, the cold wind ruffling his hair. You shiver against the wind.
"No," you say after a long moment. Lucien pulls you close to him, heat radiating from his body against the chill.
"I don't know if we could ever go back." He says. You sigh and bury closer to him, trying to keep in step with his long legs.
"I don't think he'd allow us back." You say. Tears prick the back of your eyes, but you blink to keep them at bay. Lucien changes the conversation, happier topic chosen this time. He is talking about all the delicious food the Night Court must have when you finally spot a motel in the distance.
"Our salvation!" Lucien gasps. He grabs you by the arm, pulling you with him as he breaks into a jog. You're panting trying to keep up, but you finally make it to the building.
"We're just about sold out." The stocky female behind the desk murmurs. Lucien sighs and runs a hand through his hair. You're standing behind him, and you place a delicate hand on his shoulder. He turns to you, gaze softening.
"Ma'am, we'll take whatever you have left." You say. She rummages through her drawers, presenting a single golden key on a long corded string.
"Floor 2. Last door on the right." She huffs. You anxiously take it from her, looping the string around your neck. The key dangles like a pendant on a necklace as you take Lucien's hand in yours and lead him upstairs.
Some salvation this is.
There's only one bed.
A blessing in disguise.
"Cauldron..." he sighs, slinging his bag to the floor. "I'll just, take the floor." He says, moving into the room. You furrow your brow.
"Lucien, do you think I've never had a sleepover before? We can share." You say. You rifle through your pack for extra clothes, and with a wave of his hand, the candles and fireplace are alight with warmth.
"Well... only if you're okay with that." He says. You nod, realizing then that you have no sleepwear. Lucien seems to realize the same thing as his hands come up empty.
"You can shower first, if you were wanting to." You offer kindly. The firelight is painting his features beautifully, and you force yourself to look away. But Gods, was it hard.
"Thanks!" With that, he was heading for the bathroom. You sighed, flopping down on the bed. You hadn't expected this level of comfort from a motel bed, but the soft silky blankets, the plush pillows...
You sighed a breath of contentment.
You stripped down to your undergarments, as your clothes from the day were filthy. Folding them into a neat pile beside the bed, you slipped under the sheets, goosebumps erupting over your body as the blankets had not yet warmed.
Lucien finally came out of the bathroom, his eyes raking over your bare shoulders concealed by the covers. He choked down a cough, and you kept your eyes closed as he slid into the bed next to you.
His bare arm brushed yours, and your eyes flew open. You readjusted to lay on your side, and so did he at the contact. However, now you were face to face.
"Are you... cold?" He asked. His sweet gaze held yours as his fingers timidly grazed your shoulder. Fresh goosebumps appeared, and you shivered.
"Yes." He frowned.
"Comere." His hand gripped your waist, fingers over your hip bone as he pulled you flush against him. You pretended not to notice the growing buldge pressing against you as his hand traced small patterns over your back.
"I can give you some of my body heat, if this is okay?" He asks, voice low and raspy. Maybe it was the way his lips were inches from yours, the small candelight illuminating his perfectly sculpted face...
Or maybe you had finally decided to be honest.
"It's more than okay." You said. Heat returned to your cheeks, and a small smile danced on his lips as his gaze flicked between your eyes and mouth.
He reached out, tucking a strand of hair behind your ear.
"I can give you more, if that would be okay too." He whispered. You shook again, this time the excited, anxious, energy rolling from you.
"It's more than okay."
Eris - "Who Did This To You?"
Reading was one of Eris' favorite pass times.
In fact, it was one thing he had in common with you.
The only thing, he swore.
One of many things, actually.
In fact, Eris was doing just that when he heard a commotion outside. Usually, it was his father. He'd learned not to get involved, but this time...
This was different.
His heartstrings tugged as he strained his ears, trying to listen beyond his windows for any indication of what was happening.
"Please... please..."
He snapped his novel shut, flying to his feet and racing outside. He wasn't sure what had come over him -- but he knew. He could feel it. You were here, and you needed him.
He'd thought over and over the last few years how you'd cry. How he would and could make you do it. Thought about killing you himself, once. Using his fire on you in ways he'd done only once before. You were acting like a lap dog, sitting with the Inner Circle at one of their meetings. Rhysand didn't let you talk, of course. You didn't even challenge him. You always let him walk all over you.
Maybe that's what pissed him off so badly.
You were packed full of good ideas, talents, advice; but you bowed to Rhysand, and that was that. You never spoke up for yourself.
You were worth so much more than that. You could offer so much more than you were allowed.
He tore through the hedge maze, snapping branches, feet thundering around every corner. His breathing was heavy, eyes searching in the night to find you.
"Please, Eris... someone..."
He followed your pained whimpering until he found you in the middle of the maze. You were slumped against the large water fountain, breathing unevenly as blood stained your neck, dried flakes throughout your usually vibrant tendrils. Your hands braced over your abdomen, tears creating tracks down your dirtied face.
"Oh my Gods..." He rushed to you, and you looked at him in desperation. His heart broke in two, seeing you crumpled and hurt in front of him.
His sadness turned very quickly, to anger. He felt... violent.
He ran his hands over your face, seeing blood pouring from your lip, and he reached up to move some hair from your forehead -- a huge gash the cause for the ever growing pool you sat in. Well, one of the causes. He was fuming, hands trembling as he tried to stay gentle with you, but absolute rage filled his every vein at how this could have happened to you.
Who could've let this happen to you.
"Eris, I..." you coughed, more crimson drops landing on the stone pathway below. "I... I didn't mean to... this is the first place I thought of..." another loud sob wretched from you, and Eris cupped your cheek. His whiskey eyes were dulled to a deep bourbon, his jaw clenched.
"Come with me."
He scooped you up, carrying you as carefully as he could back to his wing of the Forest House. You let out small yelps, the searing pain in your stomach too much to handle.
"Please, stay with me Y/N," he pleaded, looking down at you sorrowfully. He felt as though he was carrying a small, injured deer -- that is what you were. A gentle, wise, doe. His gentle doe.
He finally made it inside, sitting you on the sofa in front of the fireplace as he ran to the washroom and returned quickly. He presented a small wet cloth, taking your chin in his fingers and beginning to wipe away the red stains over your delicate skin. He tried so hard to stay gentle with you, trying to replicate the softness you'd always offerred others.
But, that's one thing you didn't have in common. He wasn't soft, or sweet like you. He tried to steady his breathing, gazing into your round, watery eyes instead. It only caused him more pain, seeing you like that. His head dropped, and he raked a hand through his hair.
"Put this in here," he grabbed a clean cloth, folding it and raising it to your mouth. You opened, usually defiant towards your enemy, but, really... you'd do anything he asked. He placed it between your teeth, and his hands covered your bloody ones, still clutching your stomach.
"Y/N... you have to move your hands." He says. Your eyes screw shut as you groan, removing your hands shakily. He breathes a sharp gasp, shaking his head.
"Hold onto me." He says. You look to him in confusion, and he places your stained fingers on his shoulders. One of his hands lingers on your for a moment, and he pressed the inside of your wrist to his lips. He looks back to you, eyes already asking for forgiveness.
"I'll be honest, I've thought about hurting you before as you've hurt me," he says, voice deep with ... something. Something you couldn't place. You could barely focus as your mind started to fog, vision clouding with black spots. "...but never like this."
He sighs one last time, a hand coming into view, fingers ablaze with fire. You sit up, or try to anyway -- a sob racks your chest, and Eris holds you down, hand splayed over your sternum.
"Hold onto me." He says again. His hand meets your bubbling would, fire searing the skin as a scream ters through your already dry, cracked throat. Your eyes blow wide, and you squirm under his hold. He looks at you with regret, pulling back for a moment only to press heat onto your would again.
Your hands rip and claw at the collar of his shirt, red already smeared over most of it. He huffs, continuing to carterize your open would.
Over. Over. Over again.
You lean back, knowing the familiar weightless feeling. You were going to black out. His once-white collar slips from your fingers, and your eyes meet his one last time before you slink into darkness.
When you come to, you're wrapped cozily in silken sheets, a pair of fleece pants covering your legs. Soft sunlight streams in through... a window. You blink, widening your eyes and looking around. The mahogony sheets were an unusual replacement to your lilac ones, and the four poster wooden bed was a change as well. Your eyes caught on a bookshelf, one with many titles like yours, at least. One book sat on the window seat, basked in sunlight. It was a title you'd already read.
You were in Eris' room.
You lean to sit up, but cry out in pain and lay back down, head flopping against the plush pillows under your head. Your hands instinctively reach toward your stomach, tugging at the hem of the tank top you bore. A bandage was wrapped around your midsection, concealing any injury. Your mind went to last night, what you'd endured, winnowing to the Autumn Court, the burning...
In moments, Eris is passing through the doorway, concern threading his brows together as he looks you up and down.
"Is everything alright?" He steps to the bed, sitting on the edge of it. He pulls the covers up, tucking them around you in comfort. You shake your head, silver lining your eyes as they meet his.
"I... they took me last night." You manage to get out. Eris readjusts to face you, a hand stroking through your hair. He bites on his lower lip, eyes searching yours.
"Who. Who took you Y/N." He says. It sounds like more of a demand than a question.
You shake your head, a tear slipping free as you remember being kidnapped from your bed, and tossed onto the mountainside. The feeling of snow under your knees, rocks in your palms only the beginning of the pain you'd endure before somehow winnowing away.
"It was... they wanted me to partake in the..." you stifle another cry. Eris brushes his thumb against your cheek.
"The fucking Blood Rite." He bites out. Anger radiates off of him, the small fire in the fireplace near the window growing with each passing second.
Again, he asked, eyes boring into yours. "Y/N, who did this to you?"
✧・゚: *✧・゚:* ✧・゚: *✧・゚:* ✧・゚: *✧・゚:* ✧・゚: *✧・゚:* ✧・゚: *
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cassandraevans · 1 day
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Some other grievances I've had with the 911 show. I just wanna get these out and be done with it. I wanna just sit back and love the characters without caring about the writer's choices but alas. Hopefully this will be all of my rants about this show and I'll be able to post only what I love about it from here on.
I know I've been very critical of Eddie so far and angrily so. But as much as I'm criticising him for being a very bad and careless romantic partner, i really really hope that when it comes time for him to get together with Buck, he will have learned from all his mistakes and matured and learned about his shortcomings and where they stem from and I hope he'd have worked on himself enough to not put Buck through any of the bullshit he put every one of his romantic partners through. Buck doesn't deserve that.
While I absolutely love Buck, I also have a problem with how he just kissed Lucy while being in a relationship with Taylor where everything was finally looking good, I knew from the moment Lucy was introduced and the way Buck looked at her, and the writers make him cheat on Taylor and ask her to move in as a way to deflect from that. Yes he tells her later, yes she forgives him and I was hoping they would last a little longer but no, the writers just kept her around long enough to make her do something bad to break them up, so then it wouldn't be his fault.
It's like the writers don't think cheating is that bad at all, you cheat? No worries, all forgiven, your partners love you too much to leave you over that. The question is, do the ones that cheat love their partners the same? Because when Hen cheated on Karen I was so pissed, like the lady did not deserve that, I'm glad they didn't break apart over it but still it was not a simple mistake. And then Buck cheated on Taylor and then the writers made her use a private conversation for a news story and stab Buck in the back. Like if they were going to break them up they should've done so when he cheated or let them remain together, I hate it that the writers made Taylor forgive Buck for CHEATING but Buck breaks with her over the first mistake she made in the relationship, I'm not defending Taylor's choices and I was angry at her for it, she could've gotten Buck in so much trouble which he didn't deserve but I hate it that she made one wrong choice and the relationship is over while Buck cheated and he was fine. I hate the writers for trying to dismiss cheating as no big deal.
I was also mad at Hen being all pissy when Karen was grieving the loss of her embryos and Hen had to feed Denny, and do some other things around the house that Karen usually does, I get it, Hen comes home late from her draining shift and it hurts to see that nothing's done but the that's the least you can do for your wife, not to mention one who left her opportunity to become an astronaut to raise a child with you as a family, when she's grieving the loss of your potential children, but Hen keeps complaining and gets mad at Karen for grieving instead of performing her motherly duties, like I feel like the writers of this show have a problem with women taking some time to themselves, whether it be to grieve, or go take care of your dying mother and then grieve, or having postpartum depression, the women are the villain for wanting, no, needing a break, mostly because of things they had no control over, if they deviate from their motherly/spousal duties because of any tragedy, they're not the victim but their partners are, [(I know chim tried his best and didn't deserve to suffer, but neither did Maddie. Chim's storyline after Maddie left literally made me bawl and I'm so glad they're back together, they need each other, I wish they never broke up) so I'm mostly talking about Eddie and Hen here.]
The writers just had to make it all about Hen, when Karen was grieving and staying in bed, all Hen did was complain about HAVING to do the things Karen usually does, Hen looked at it all like an inconvenience. The writers then made Hen accidentally kill that cello girl and justifiably Hen was wrecked with guilt and fear and didn't know how to handle it, can't blame Hen at all for the way she took it but I can blame the writers. Karen put aside all her heartbreak abd grief from her lost embryos and stood by Hen throughout, and I love her for it, Hen deserved Karen to be by her side at such a time, but just before that incident when Karen needed Hen to stand by her and support her emotionally, all Hen did was be impatient and basically tell Karen to wrap it up. The writers made a new emergency tragedy to make it about Hen and tossed aside Karen's grief and made her never talk about it again like it never happened. I hate the writers for that.
Again as a note, these are my opinions about the show, you're free to have your own opinions. I'm just trying to vent out my frustrations with the show on my blog. Don't come at me with your angry anonymous asks and justifications because at the end of the day it's a fictional show. I haven't spoken about what I love on this show yet that doesn't mean i hate it, I'm frustrated by some of the characters' choices because I love them. Viewers will have vastly different opinions about it, to each their own.
Do recommend similar shows to watch while we all wait for new episodes. Lone star is on my watchlist next.
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I guess it's that time of year, again, when I ask folks to send me prompts(text is link to my ask box) for the 800-2k word ficlets I send out with holiday cards. (For those new to this, ficlets will get publicly posted to AO3 in Feb/March of 2025. And I usually post the rough drafts to Patreon, if you really can't wait.)
Things to keep in mind about prompting:
I do not anticipate to write every prompt I get, and multiple people sending in the same or a very similar prompt will not make it more likely to get written. (This does not mean you shouldn't send in a prompt.)
I don't write in any of my existing AUs, because I don't want folks to have to be familiar with a longer fic or series to enjoy a little ficlet with their card.
I am not currently writing Harry Potter for personal reasons. Any prompts sent for this fandom will be deleted out of hand. (This does include crossovers.)
I will 100% write a ficlet for my own OCs. I am not comfortable writing a ficlet with another person's OCs unless their creator requests it themself, and are open to me pestering them for more information.
I will write both shippy and platonic ficlets. However, these do aim to be family-friendly, since I don't know who's opening anyone's mail, so we aim for a generalised Teen rating.
If you've never seen me write a ship, but you know I'm in the fandom, go ahead and prompt it. (If it's a ship that I have no intention to write, I'll just quietly delete it, not here to insult anyone's joys.)
Yes, anon is on. Please don't give me a reason to change that.
You can also send your prompts to either of my multi-fandom blogs (batsutousai and the back-up bats-batsutousai) or my twitter (LadyMarvolo). You can also send them through my cohost (batsutousai) or bluesky (batsutousai), but I keep forgetting to check both of those places and don't know what sorts of notifications are turned on, whoops.
BATS' SHIP LIST (text is the link. This is not all-inclusive, just the ones I am 100% comfortable with and down with writing. Yes, I know I said, last year, that I was going to try to put together a platonic 'ships' list. That clearly has not happened. I shall make an attempt again this year, but my promises are sand.)
PROMPTS (just gonna do links to some of the prompt lists I've reblogged previously, just please let me know which list you're pulling from?)
Bats' previously created holiday ficlets prompts list
Line of dialogue
Four word prompts
Numbered dialogue prompts
X Me prompts
I think there's one in my drafts that cuddling related? I'll see if I can't find that and post it some time this week.
And, no, you do not have to pick prompts off the lists. If you've got one you've been dying to send me, go for it. Just, please keep in mind that I'm only looking for short ficlet prompts at this time.
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dollypopup · 1 month
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I think it's interesting to look at the 'Mr. Bridgerton' scene as a backdrop for the eventual mirror scene. Firstly, in the fact that I think we've kind of misinterpreted it.
So many people are of the mind that scene's purpose to 'drag' Colin, but really, that scene has 3 primary functions. The first is to inform Colin that Penelope is aware of what he said of her, thus opening the door to clearing the air between them and providing an avenue for which Colin can apologize. The second is to establish the ground that they are currently on: Penelope has given up on the dream of Colin Bridgerton, in particular the perfect prince that can do no wrong, and has made it clear to him. It also creates distance between them that they will bridge.
But the third, and to me the most wrapped up in the mirror and the inner workings of their relationship is that it reveals how Penelope feels about *herself*. It's not necessarily an echo of what the ton considers her as, after all, we have a lot of evidence indicating that, for all intents and purpose, people aren't *unkind* about her, but rather that they ignore her. Audience members recognize this as Penelope's own shyness being the cause, she is often sitting off on the sidelines or not really talking to much of anyone, in the books she's referred to as the 'one who doesn't speak', and her LW business takes her away from being a character in the action of the ton to a bystander, kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts that perpetuates itself. Pen felt unseen so she became LW to have some power, but then LW herself must remain unseen and Penelope continues to be by design of her own making.
No, I think what it really reveals is that Penelope has incredibly low personal self esteem. We as a fandom has lauded that scene as her dragging Colin, saying that he's cruel and calling him Mr. Bridgerton is absolutely meant to create distance between them, but I don't think she's dragging him.
Because the person she is *actually* dragging here. . .is herself. And it is a general theme in her life. In Whistledown. Aloud. Even with Marina, when she complimented her, she assumes that she's lying. When Edwina says she's wearing a pretty dress, Penelope puts herself down and doesn't believe her, even when the compliment is genuine. In truth, Portia is not seen as being particularly unkind to Penelope. At least, speaking as someone who's mum was *awful* about my size and weight and outfits, Portia is. . .overall rather mild. She's not KIND and loving, not by a long shot, but she's also not targeting Penelope only. She's plenty mean and critical to Prudence, too, even to the point where she foists her off to her own cousin as a pawn piece. Penelope has low self esteem because of a lot of reasons, she's bullied by Cressida (I think a lot of girls are, she was pretty mean even to Daphne in S1) and her family isn't very tender to her, and she's not being pursued at every turn, but part of it is also her own perpetuation.
Listen to what she says "Of course you would never court me" "I embarrass you" "I am the laughingstock of the the ton". She sees *herself* as an embarrassment. She puts *herself* down. Arguably, more so than the ton does. She's meaner to herself than anyone else is, aside from Cressida. And honestly? Looking at Colin's face there. . .he is HURT that she considers herself this way. That she's projecting that onto him. Yes, he's hurt that he hurt her, of course he is, he never wants to hurt her. And yes, he's ashamed that he said he wouldn't court her the way he did and that in doing so, he validated her fears that she is unloved and unwanted, but also because. . .she already feels that way about herself. She's felt that way for years. And it's painful to care about someone, to see them as wonderful, and realize. . .they don't feel the same about themselves at all. I don't think Colin is out here feeling so wounded over the fact that she called him cruel and won't refer to him by first name anymore, but that he's most hurt by what she says about herself.
Because he *doesn't* see her the way she accuses. She says she never expected him of all people to be so cruel, but he feels the same way. He never expected her to be so cruel to *herself*. He wants to go somewhere private, not because she is an embarrassment, but because he wants to have a private conversation with her. Maybe assure her. Maybe explain himself. Maybe hash it out. But god Luke Newton's acting. . .he is *aching* for her. And it feels like he's going to do those lessons not in atonement for what he said (thank god) but to genuinely help his friend who thinks badly of herself. To lift her up. It's not about him at all, not about earning forgiveness, but about elevating Penelope. And that's. . .fuck, I just find that's just so heart stoppingly beautiful.
You can see, in that scene, how much he cares about her. How deeply and genuinely he adores her as a person. And just how painful it is for him to know he has validated, whether on purpose or otherwise, how poorly she feels about herself. How low her self-confidence really is. She is giving him a glimpse into the cracks of her heart, and when he sees them, he wants to reach out with both hands and make it feel better. Make her feel better.
After she says 'even when I change my entire wardrobe', he looks so fucking crushed. So 'don't say that'. So 'you really believe that?'. So 'God, I hate that you think that way'.
Because regardless of it all, he does love her. It's not romantic yet. It's not sexual yet. But he genuinely, truly, from the bottom of his heart, thinks she's wonderful. That was evident even in the 'purpose' scene. Every time Penelope opens up and reveals a facet of herself, he likes it. He likes her barbs and her dreams, he likes talking to her. He likes her. And he feels awful that he hurt her. And he feels awful that she's hurting herself. He loves her. He wants her to love herself.
And that's where the mirror scene comes in. Because the mirror scene isn't about sex, not really. Not entirely, at least. The mirror scene is about *intimacy*. The mirror scene is about being seen. Not just her seeing him, or him seeing her, but for Penelope to see *herself*. In a way, through his eyes. Because hers are biased rather negatively toward herself, which is evidenced in the 'Goodnight Mr. Bridgerton' scene, and in so many little moments we've already gotten where she's literally looking down on herself, feeling down. She doesn't necessarily *like* what's in the mirror, but he does. Because he likes *her*. And he wants to show her that he does. Show her that he finds her beautiful and have her recognize that in herself.
The 'Goodnight Mr. Bridgerton' scene is about Penelope revealing how she sees herself. The mirror scene is about Colin showing her how *he* sees her. The Goodnight scene is about Penelope thinking she means nothing to him, that he thinks of her the way she thinks of herself, that this is how everyone thinks of her, and the mirror scene is a direct response to that: No, he doesn't. No, he doesn't think she's embarrassing. No, he doesn't think she's a laughingstock. No, he doesn't think she's unappealing. And he doesn't think she should, either.
And he's going to show her that. Not just tell her, but show her. The mirror scene is so often a focus on Penelope, so much of Polin is in Penelope's focus, but approaching it from Colin's perspective and his motivations is so fulfilling, too. It's a glimpse into them in conversation, and a demonstrate of how Colin loves her. How Colin loves in general, openly and earnestly and altruistically. How he encourages her to be braver and more confident in herself, bolstering her because he just likes her *that much*. How he finds the most fulfillment and satisfaction in caring aloud. The mirror scene is a demonstration of his heart in reflection.
When Luke Newton said the first word that came to mind with the word 'Mirror' was 'Exposed', he doesn't just mean physically. He means emotionally, too.
God this couple is so fucking good.
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