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coffinclownery · 2 months ago

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Clinical Trial Impressions

Firstestly before spoiling the whole game here's my tl:dr

Unfortunately I think this is a great game. Like sorry, there's a lot of care and thought that's been put into this game that makes it difficult for me to dismiss it as simply a "barely disguised fetish" kind of game. There's a lot of details from the character-writing to the art to even the ways the dialogue works that's just...good. This is unfortunate because it means that instead of easily dismissing this and moving on with my life I'm left thinking about this game weeks after watching playthroughs and playing it myself. Lot of thoughts have been provoked out of me.

Is it perfect? No. There's things that definitely could have been changed and/or expanded upon. And I don't think it's for everyone. While nothing is shown or told in graphic detail there's things that happen to the characters that can be triggering because of how well-written it is and the events preceding it. And while I argue the endings both make sense for the most part I don't blame you for not vibing with them.

So yeah, need to stop checking out playthroughs from manlybadasshero because he keeps finding games to Haunt me and I don't appreciate it. I recommend playing it if you feel comfortable with the content warnings. It is a free game so the worst thing that can happen is that you'll be Haunted like I am without spending a dime.

The content warnings on the itchio page does not cover everything, so I'll put my list below under the cut before going into more spoilery opinions. A lot of the content warnings come from what happens at the last hour, so it's going to spoil you.

Content Warnings: Needles, Pixelated Gore, Mentions of SA, Mentions of Familial Abuse, Mental Health Struggles related to ADHD symptoms and trauma responses, Taxidermy, Stalking and Surveillance, Obsession, Theft of personal items, Mentions of Suicide, On-screen depiction of suicide in one ending.

If you think I missed any let me know. Now here's more spoilery opinions below the gif.

Hey here's a scorching hot take.

Stalking...

...

Is bad.

Thank you thank you I'll take my Nobel prize now.

This is still at the end of the day a free 3-4hr game, mainly made by one person. So I'm not going to dock points or demand an imaginary refund when I say it felt like there could have been more or things could have been slightly different. As a lot of folks mentioned this game starts at a nice slowburn but then things go at a breakneck pace right at the end. I myself think the pace is pretty good up until the big reveal. After that I think things get a little wonky.

I still think they have all the bones in the right place (which can't be said for Brandon huehuehue.) Both Lee's obsession with Angel and what he ultimately did for them needed to be revealed, and it makes sense that the shrine was revealed first. Because let's be honest here, in the realm of fiction killing a bastard is not that controversial. And here they made the bastard as unlikable as possible, where even the man about to kill him is uncomfortable touching him. Like he was such an unrepentant pathetic loser that it almost became comical. So if we discovered the body in the basement first I think it would have been very easy to go "good job!" and not really digest what else is going on here.

So having the shrine first is important, because it is an affront to Angel themself. He stole their jacket! He did something to it without their consent! Angel already went through a horrendous event, and now here's somebody they placed their trust in using them in another way. And even without the jacket it's creepy to collect someone else's body mass like hair or blood from tissues. It's up to Angel whether they can accept this, but it doesn't remove the fact that this is still A Crime done to Angel. It's what shaped why the murder was actually sorta bad? It's not the morality of it all, it's the repercussions Angel themselves might face because of what Lee's obsession led to.

So it's important for the shrine to be seen first so we know who we're dealing with. We might be cool with a bastard dying slowly in a dug-out basement (again in the realm of fiction blah blah blah) but not cool with someone stalking, stealing personal items, deifying someone and then no matter how unintentional incriminating someone for murder by not even cleaning up before inviting guests. Even if we somehow predicted this twist this is the creator's way of going "are you SURE you want to get down with this dude?" and I can respect that. Like yeah no Lee is unarguably a freak and ultimately you need to choose if you're cool with that before finding the body.

And I think the endings fit well enough. It's easy for folks to deem End 1 as the Bad Ending and End 2 as the Good Ending. And that fits if you think of Lee being the main character. Because he's ultimately the one who gets punished in End 1 for what he did to Angel. It's certainly his Bad Ending if he's rejected by the person he deified and obsessed over first and only later fell in love with. Things might have been easier for Angel if they cooperated with Lee, and it does look bleak if you believed everything Lee said. But that's the path Angel chose to take and I think the open-endedness of it is good. Neither us nor Angel know what'll happen when they leave, but that won't stop Angel from moving forward. No matter how bleak it is Angel still has a future, while Lee denied his.

And End 2 works as well, because it's still Angel making that choice to accept both his freak and his body count. Angel's the one who gets to choose what happens at that moment, with full* knowledge of what Lee's done. They're the one choosing to help cover up a murder, and they're the one who choosing to move in with Lee afterwards. Because Lee wasn't going to make Angel stay, he just needed Angel to cooperate so Angel themselves doesn't get into trouble. And even if they might live happily for awhile, I think the music at the end of End 2 hints at an eerie feeling. There's still a chance things can go very wrong down the line.

*Except maybe the jacket if you don't check the washing machine. I feel like that should have been discovered at the shrine before the choice.*

Although with End 2 I don't blame people for calling it the "canon" ending giving it has a more detailed cutscene. And if you look at the creator's game profiles you can tell they clearly care for the two as a couple, but they note anything they post that's not in the game is not canon so...there's that.

I still think the pacing could have been a little but different. Between the discovery of the shrine and the discovery of a basement there was a brief cooldown that I think messes with the tone. If the only two endings are going to be Accepting both discoveries or Rejecting both, I feel like this cooldown should be removed altogether. Have Lee only catch up with Angel after they discovered everything, then they can slowly digest wtf is happening and make a decision. Or make the gap between the shrine and the body wider.

I also feel like some of the dialogue could have been resorted. I think all the dialogue is important, and I'm against removing stuff that'd make Lee less of a freak (you cannot put the freak back inside the bottle once its out im sorry) but the order in which things are said felt a little off. It didn't cross my mind that Angel could be implicated until its stated after the choice to Accept or Reject, which is a weird priority when faced with a Body.

I feel like either:

A: The choice should have been about accepting or rejecting that Lee committed a murder first and foremost. The dialogue can stay roughly the same in the Reject, when Lee is trying to find a way to remain in Angel's life, but in Accept have Angel more blatantly offer to help cover up the murder themselves, since in this version Angel's priority is wanting to stay with Lee.

B: Angel should have had more time to process the body on the ground and come to the realization that they'd be a main suspect before Lee arrives, hear what Lee did and what steps he's already taken to avoid suspicion, and then make the choice. That way the choice is more focused on whether Angel cooperates with Lee or not.

Either way I also think in the Accept version of events there should have been a re-establishment of Angel's feelings. Like after Angel says they'd have to move of they stay will Lee have Lee go "wait, you still want to stay with me?"

Also, maybe in the Reject ending, have Angel call Adri. In week 5 Adri could have offered her number or Angel asked for theirs and let that be a Chekov's gun. You can still have Angel not receive messages (because Angel probably went awol on everything after what happened to them, so Adri assumed they weren't interested and gave up contacting) and make Angel choose to reach out to Adri. Angel refused Lee's help, so they're going to find help themselves. Would also give Adri's presence a more obvious purpose.

...But again this is a free game written by one person, so I'm not going to judge the creator too harshly for not doing things perfectly in a way that'd satisfy this specific stranger on the webs. Any of these changes would inevitability require more lines, more time, more programming, and maybe even more art be put into the game. Ultimately the creator put what was absolutely necessary for the story to work, which is what mattered.

This is all just me conjecturing on a remake in 5 years called Clinical Trial Ultra Mega Deluxe Remix 1.5 Medical Grade Edition you know?

I need to run errands so I'll be generous and let you be on your way here. On the next post I'll talk about the details I liked in this game and how it differentiates itself from other horror games featuring questionable and datable stalker killers.

#clinical trial game #clinical trial #indie games #games #horror games #indie horror game

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moonlitscales · 4 days ago

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Alright, boredom and procrastination are a powerful couple. So instead of drawing a ref for all my OCs like I should be, have a mini master list of all my OCs! Old, new, and ones I thought I forgot!

This will include a personality, sexuality, mini backstory, fandom (if in one), any other details I think are important, and a photo of said character! Also uh

WARNING: There is a lot, and I mean A LOT of writing so just know there will be a lot of reading if you are actually interested. I TRIED to keep it short and digestible but I love going extra. Oh also like possible tw if someone needs them: Death, Murder, Cult Mentions, and Abuse are talked about a lot. (IF I MISS A POSSIBLE TW PLS LET ME KNOW!!!)

Oh, also saying I have a Pinterest board/collection of each of my ocs!! Not every oc have a board though. (there are a few made by a friend in there so just don't touch them since they aren't on here lol)

Sia Mese Kitlen - The Main

Personality: Loud, expressive, caring of her older sister Nova, can have a short temper for people who piss her off, and listens to a lot of music. She's a very social person and falls in love easily but falls out of love just as easily.

Sexuality: Omnisexual with a preference for girls and Demigirl (she/they)

Backstory: A lot of stuff revolves around the cult chasing her and Nova. Her sister tries to keep her in the dark about her past, but piece by piece Sia connects dots of her dead dads and the reason her sister never wants to stay in one town for too long.

Other: Sia Kitlen is one of the OCs I've loved and been passionate about for a long time, but she's also gone through a lot of changes over time. She started as a welcome home oc but was still scene and was skinny (??). So since then she has her own story made and I gave her some body fat!!

Nova Lite Kitlen - The Secret Holder

Personality: Quiet, brutal and mean to anyone but her sister, will not talk to anyone she doesn't need to, wants to be a fashion designer because her Papa did, and only ever smiles around her younger sister.

Sexuality: Aro-ace (she/her)

Backstory: DEAR GOD IS SHE THE PUNCHING BAG. I won't go super into detail about her and I'll only give a base, but she seriously has gone through a lot. Her house burnt down with both her Dad and Papa in it, leaving her 7 year old self to take care of her new 1 year old baby sister. She moves around towns almost every year, finding some symbol of the cult that ruined her life in every town. Around 16-17, she found an old friend from when she was younger, Annie, and took refuge in her home but turns out right after falling in love Annie was a part of the cult too and Nova left in tears promising to never love again. Currently she's just in her late 20's and does her best to keep Sia protected, even if too much.

Other: Nova was created after Sia, and I don’t even remember why I made her but I do love her I promise, I just like punching and throwing bricks at her a lot.

Diana Ero Bunnston - The Lover

Personality: Around most people she's nice enough to pass by but not going out of the way for others; Unless she sees you as a competitor for Sias attention. If you're a person that Sia takes any form of interest to, Diana is more than brutal to you and makes sure your life is hell. To Sia she is a shy and nervous person, making it hard for anyone trying to tell her how horrible Diana really is.

Sexuality: Lesbian (She/Her)

Backstory: Diana is a cult member sent from a higher up/her mom (cult nepo baby) to keep watch over Nova, except she fell deep in love with Sia and uses her cult mandated camera™ and takes pictures of Sia instead of the updates on Nova she's supposed to, just giving basic updates on Nova when asked. Diana is Sia's closest friend that 'somehow' always finds what town she moves to.

Other: So the funniest part about Diana is the fact she was originally created from an OC playlist challenge XD. It took a little transforming but eventually she became Sias best friend/stalker/lover interest thing (I do wanna rework her charactera little bit I just don't have an idea how 😔)

Annie Nemis Bullstrong - The Family

Personality: Family first girl, whatever the girl version of a himbo is; strong and a little dumb. Her priorities are always for her family and cult first. She really did love Nova with all her heart but the people around her would never let her.

Sexuality: Closeted butch lesbian (she/her)

Backstory: She is also a cult member, her family car and trinket shop being one of the biggest 'cult meet spots' in a way. She was friends with Nova as a child and thought she was the coolest black cat on the face of the earth, only hearing a week after she disappeared that her friend ran away. When she came back Annie was over thrilled to see her again, getting so close and falling in love all over again until her mother told her she had to capture her. After the biggest fight she ever could've had with her mother, she knew she couldn't fight her. It was a night Annie got so close and confessed her feelings to Nova, only for her mother to strip her away. Even as she grows to an adult, she refuses to argue with her mother and forever wonders what could have been.

Other: So out of all of them, Annie was actually the FIRST first as a welcome home oc. She has gone through A LOT of changes, going from a shy painter puppet to butch pitbull in a cult.

Riesel Agate Darkwood - The Chill

Fandom: PJO/Percy Jackson

Personality: A very laid back child of Dionysus. She isnt a snitch unless there is a huge reason, you could probably tell her anything and she would just shrug and offer you some chips. She isn’t the best person for comfort and she has no idea how to comfort people yet somehow always finds herself a therapist. (BECAUSE OF SOMEONE. IF YOU ARE READING THIS YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE >:( /silly)

Sexuality: Lesbian and Demigirl (She/They)

Backstory: Her story does constantly get more and more lore with the more ocs SOMEONE keeps making, but her base story is similar to any demigod. Dionysus fell in love with her mother at a bar, her mother happening to be a worker in the local theater. Dionysus and her drink, do plays, ect ect, then Reisel is born. Dionysus leaves, and her mother never stays the same. Her mom becomes a horrible alcoholic that Reisel could barely ever see without a wine bottle in her hand. Reisel leaves the house at about 9, a satyr eventually coming across her and taking her to camp. Now, she has a best friend so close he’s a brother, Bee, and she spends her time at camp snacking and just being a chill friend to anyone that needs it.

Other: I love Reisel, I just haven't been super creative/active in the pjo community lately and I have a new pjo oc I kinda wanna play with, which is right below!

Lobelia Blooming Terriconn - The Flower

Fandom: PJO/Percy Jackson

Personality: Shy and quiet but blunt. She prefers animals over people and really doesn’t want to talk to people often but knows she has to. She knows she's not as ‘witchy’ as the rest of the children of Hecate but she does her best as she makes lots of herbal and floral things, bouques, teas, charms, and anything else she can put intention behind.

Sexuality: Unlabeled (she/her)

Backstory: Her father was a very nervous but kind man, always trying to have her fit in even with her always blue hair, lazy eye, and the fact she was clearly magic. Since she was young she always carried around a plush from a stray black dog she named shadow, and one halloween her worst bully tears it apart and that night she gets the revenge she didn’t want to do. Her fathers friend who was at the house that night, finds her in the cemetery and knew it was definitely time to take her to the camp whether her father wanted her to or not. Now, she spends most her time in the camp woods collecting flowers and spending time with the woodland creatures.

Other: I actually have a full story doc on her backstory so if we want me to drop it let me know! She’s my only other Pjo oc, most recent, and I love her with all my heart <3

Brimella the Witch Hat - The Witch

Fandom: Dandy’s world

Personality: She’s as kind as she can be but does have her limits and tries not to totally blow up when they’re crossed. She really puts others in front of herself but can be reclusive and want her time alone every now and then. She finds honesty very important, and is partly the reason she doesn’t like a certain someone too much.

Sexuality: Pansexual (she/her)

Backstory: She doesn’t really have one, so I’ll just give her relationships with the other toons. She’s closest friends with Connie and Flutter, close friends with Yatta, Finn, and Brightney. She also is friends with Bassie and Astro but doesn’t see them too often. She has a complicated relationship with Gigi, sometimes finding her bearable, other times wanting to wring her neck. As much as she hates it, she often is put near and around Gigi since Flutter is close with her.

Other: I know I just ranted about how much Brimella hates Gigi, but I love shipping them 😈. Kinda just enemies to lovers except if you still hated that person's guts while dating them (in a romantic way). I hope I dont have too many tomatoes thrown at me, but I like multishipping/poly shipping so I also just like making Brimmella kiss whoever and seeing what happens lol. My main poly ship with her is Connie x Flutter X Gigi X Brimella!

Electra Clawpaw - The Party Girl

(her last/second name is really pending but I have no other ideas T_T)

Fandom: Fnaf/Security Breach

Personality: A very playful and loud animatronic. She loves hanging out and dancing out with any kids and teens coming by the west arcade to dance or play games as she’s very energetic and Ke$ha coded. (Main character inspo think like Ke$ha, 6arelyhuman, and Catty Noir!!)

Sexuality: Pansexual (She/her)

Backstory: Not really any backstory for her either, so character relations! She, for some reason, isn’t a fan of Freddy. She doesn't hate him or anything, just not too interested in knowing him. She’s alright with Chica, and is pretty close with Monty and Roxy being the ‘edgest’ in the Plex. Her best friend is surely DJ Music Man though, as she spends all her day and night with him working in the West Arcade. Finally, of course, Sun and Moon because I’m a fangirl, shocking. She’s pretty close with Moon, the two pretty much immediately friends after she met him on one of his nightly patrols. Her and Sun however met a night when she was bored and explored the Plex, stepping into the daycare and finding him. Electra thinks of him as just some silly boy-failure guy, and he is completely head over heels for her Looney Toons style.

Other: She’s honestly just a character I made to channel my current interest in rave/scene/bright colors/club things and an excuse to oc x canon with Sun and Moon. Hehe.

Hazel - The Forgotten

Fandom: Fnaf/Security Breach

Personality: Calm and very kind, pretty motherly to all the kids she takes into her health room filled with tea and herbs. She really likes having tea with people, and I mean both types of tea because when it comes to the adults and others? She can be pretty mean and gossip about almost anyone or anything.

Sexuality: Bisexual (She/her)

Backstory: None, so character relations! Likes Freddy and Chica, good friends with them. Finds Roxy a little intimidating/scary but fine with her. Despises Monty. Like hates him with a burning passion that no one could ever tell you why, but he hates her just as much. And just a sassy sister to Sun and Moon.

Other: Can you tell I have a slight problem with making witch characters? She honestly was a character I just wanted to make a design for but I dropped her after like a week of having her. I might revisit/fix her up some later time as maybe a sona or something but for now she rots in the pages of my sketchbook.

Amber Stone Walklone - The Indoctrinated

Fandom: My mutuals oc lore

Personality: Not too social, prefers to keep to herself and a farm girl to the core. Despite not looking so she can actually do some pretty good heavy lifting. She is easily influenced and falls to pressure from others a lot. Not like you ask her to eat a slug, but she would run across a mile and back to grab you something you didn’t even need.

Sexuality: Lesbian (She/her)

Backstory: She was raised on a farm all her life, her and her mother and all the animals they raised. She was a bright and cheery child until she noticed her usually strong mom starting to look sick and pale. Her mother claimed to be fine, so little Amber didn’t worry too much. But after the night her mother wouldn’t wake up, the farm was all hers and twice as hard to take care of by herself. Somewhere along the line, she was promised a paradise and took that chance reluctantly but gladly.

Other: She’s for a friend!! And I like punishing gingers with trauma!!/hj

Clara Roslyn Cladwell - The Overlord

Fandom: Hazbin Hotel

Personality: Reserved, selfish, and prissy. She was from the 1800’s, so very proper and not too keen on anything overly sexual. She always stands tall and is blunt in anything she tells you.

Sexuality: Queer and Genderfluid (She/they/He)

Backstory: Growing up in a rich and royal house was not for the weak, and clearly not Clara. Ever since they were a child, they never felt how they were supposed to be; never fitting in with the other royalty she saw. Her mother was not physically abusive, but very verbally and mentally; one thing done wrong or a ruffle facing the wrong way and Clara was verbally beat down until he sobbed into his pillow. Since the obsession with beauty from their mother at a young age, they became extremely vain and did anything they could to stay good looking. The older she got, the more like their mother they became. Any butlers or maids near him, he degraded; telling them to lick the floor or slam into a wall, making sure he stayed the best looking. She died when one maid was fed with at all, pushing Clara off her balcony into the rose bushes below. Now, in hell as punishment for their vanity, their face so ugly and ruined they always keep a face covering on to never take off. Ever. She is an overlord that, ironically, runs a large make-up business.

Other: They also have rose thorn scars winding up their arms and legs, having them always wear gloves and stockings and has peacock motifs (for some reason). They present fem most of the time, but still feels nice being referred to as a boy once in a while. Also, running a make-up business and clothing going hand in hand with it so… She and Velvette are business partners! That hate each others guts. Clara sees Velvette far too modern, Velvette sees Clara too much as an old hag. Solution? Make them kiss. That’s right, more Oc X Canon because I love it!! Also an OLD oc.

Biana Mousé - The Model

Fandom: Hazbin Hotel

Personality: Sly, teasing, playful, and really flirty. She’s the type of person to never take anything seriously unless you happen to be a girl crying in a bar bathroom; then she is your sister until you stop crying. She’s really a girls girl but there's also a 50/50 chance she will ridicule you for no reason.

Sexuality: Bisexual (She/her)

Backstory: I don’t really remember much about her other than she lived through the 80’s and early 90’s with an absent dad and drug addict mother and was a stereotypical mean girl in school, so in the 2000’s spent her days as a very young sex worker. She died from a jealous coworker, having a horrible dispute and killing her. This coworker's best friend had gotten revenge by injecting rat poison into her veins, making her a rat in the afterlife but she prefers to be called a mouse.

Other: She was honestly an eh oc. Maybe I’ll revive her at some point in the future but I just remember making her for the sake of making a mouse oc and dressing her up cute. 乁( •_• )ㄏ

Naku Namida - The Cry Baby

Fandom: Mha/My Hero Academia

Personality: Very timid, shy, and obviously easy to make cry. She has a hobby of journaling similar to Izuku except she prefers noting her environments rather than people.

Sexuality: Pansexual (She/her)

Backstory: Nothing too traumatic really, just an absent mom and a loving dad, so here's her quirk! Crybaby: Naku can stream tears from her eyes and control them. She needs to stay very hydrated, always having water on standby, but can make rivers with her tears to push away or trap opponents; even holding herself up with them. She discovered her quirk when being bullied, her bully saying mean things until she cried, and cried, and she opened her teary eyes to find her bully suspended in the air with a stream of her tears.

Other: I made her with a friend for MHA ocs but that friend has since dropped MHA so now this oc might get revived from ANOTHER friend liking MHA! (She’s kinda basically Lobelia if she had a better life but shhh)

Kai Lapis Trigion - The Beach Girl

Personality: Chill, laid-back, and caring. She’s just some girl who likes to hang at the beach and her new and really odd friend.

Sexuality: Lesbian (She/her)

Backstory: Kai lives in a beach side town filled to the brim with tourists all summer. She owns a small trinket/second hand shop by the bay, living in the apartment just above. She woke up in the dead of night, hearing a shuffling in the street to find some girl wandering the streets looking naked and terrified. Kai quickly left outside and took this girl in, inviting her in for food and clothes. The girl barely talked, but seemed to accept the offer of living with her. Now, they’re close friends that run the shop together. At first this girl seemed scared to even go near the beach, which was a little hard since thats all Kai liked to do, but eventually they started to spend some days there.

Other: She was originally just an oc I made for a friend because they wanted a beach lesbian lol. But now, because of boredom and ideas stirring in my brain, she has a story! (and a girlfriend)

Anisa Morrow - The Siren

Personality: Quiet. She doesn’t talk much, if at all to the point people wondered if she spoke English. Kai eventually got her warmed up, speaking often but only to her. Anisa sometimes has a nervous small tap in her fingers or shakes in her legs, looking around paranoid only for Kai to calm her down.

Sexuality: Pansexual (She/her)

Backstory: She is a siren, but not one her pod wanted to accept. While her sisters kicked around sea creatures with their fins and ate any human in sight, Anisa helped the animals when they were injured and resisted as much as she could from eating people. One night a ship is overturned and Anisa finds one man not dead, taking him to a special cave to save him. She couldn’t stay with him often, but tried as much as she could without being suspicious to leave her pod to feed and talk to him. They fell in love, even with her knowing he was supposed to be dead forever ago. One horrid night it all fell apart for her. Anisa swam back to his cave only to find the water and rocks nothing short of pure crimson, finding her sisters covered in his blood and skin. They chewed her out, calling her a disgrace and traitor, scratching and biting her bruised. Her mother, leader of the pod, shunned her away and said if her face was ever found again in the water she would be torn just like her lover. She swam away, knowing the way to a human town. She walked the streets bloody, bruised and soaking. Then she had a saving light, a woman who took her in and cared for her.

Other: She is my most recent oc and I really like her story, especially for summer and all!! And I just like yuri.

So uhhh yeah! That was 15 of my ocs and their backstories! If you, by some miracle, read all 15 oc things and made it to the end, or if you read half of one and got bored, either way

THANK YOU!!! <333

I'm SO glad I finally got to give some form of outlet for all my OCs! Just keep in mind this WILL be edited in the future whether I'm adding a new oc or removing/adding info to someone. Seriously, I cannot thank anyone who reads even just a little enough, I only ask if you read even a little to leave a comment, reblog, or even just a like!

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ganondoodle · 1 year ago

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(OC art)

kinda needlessly redid Eadrya's (they/them) demon form design instead of working on any of the other things (why am i like this)

more info (hahaha .. ha .. long post woops); their jaw is unhingable and their mouth can technically open all the way past their gills (?) with the lighter colored part being an extra flap of skin they are widely known as the most powerful demon to exist (not counting their dead demon god who is only very rarely able to possess shargon if given right circumstances but otherwise dont exist anymore) to the point that they generate so much coreblood/energy that excess is constantly being emitted to the environment around them giving them an aura felt even by humans (it generally has no drawbacks ... unless you later have to deal with demon hunters that use devices to detect demonic energy bc it kinda turns you into a lighthouse for them..) that fact also means they pretty much never have to eat or rest, though they are one of the very very few demons willing to eat other livings things and able to digest it (most demons cannot)

they are one of seven Lords, the Lord of Water specifically, and are very proud of that and, while acting like they dont care about anything or anyone, do probably the best job at keeping their world intact and other demons safe than anyone else- Eadrya is also kinda obsessed with strength and thus hates Shargon to the point of having attempted to murder him several times, not just bc he is so weak but mainly bc they think he selfishly took the title of King to essentially doom them all (since that title, only able to be given of demons with the core element of lightning, means that demon must be the one to go into battle alone for the protection of their world as the first line of defence, bc if the strongest demon, able to invoke their god, can defeat a threat alone theres no need to endanger anyone else, and if the king fails and the six remaining Lords cannot do the rest it was a lost battle to begin with--- the six Lords (not counting the King who starts as a Lord if none of the other accept them) also serve as a sort of council, and to put it bluntly, 'battery' for their god-

see, every demon naturally only has one main element, the Lords, if they accept the King as such, can lend the King part of their power enabling them to use more than one, with each acceptance their gods connection to the King gets stronger, and if it is summoned, will constantly siphon off (?) the strength of the Lords- which can kill them if its active for too long

MEANING that with Shargon being so unfit for that role it not only puts them all in danger, it also means all responsibility falls on them) a title like that cannot be undone once one accepts it, so alot of them, while not actively wishing harm upon him, hope a little that Shargon dies and a better King can be chosen

Eadrya, especially for the first part of the story, is an antagonist, and kinda an ass to everyone, the typical powerful, loud and mean guy that despite being never nice to anyone still does good, the only ones they really care about is Thor, an almost equally strong lightning demon and childhood friend who is also the only one Eadrya will listen to and due to Thors pacifist ideals always stops their outbursts, and Jyothi, Shargons daughter, who is a prodigy of a wind demon and has started to learn from Eadrya, much to Shargons dismay

generally they are way less mean to children and a surprisingly good and patient teacher ... if they are willing to teach you

(alot of their problems stem from a deep fear of being powerless and left alone- they dont think of themselves as highly as it seems and are actually very lonely- thinking that no one could actually genuinely like them for who they are and just does their bidding bc of their strength, of the fear they can instill in others-- they became a Lord at a horribly young age, not even having learned how to change form yet, and saw their parent, the previous Lord of Water (titles are not inherited, this was coincidence), slowly waste away with a strange disease, not even really understanding what was happening and after their passing spend months at the side of their corpse all alone)

they later have a character arc (that is horribly underselling it but i do not want to make this post any longer lol) and join the main group, one of my fav OCs of them all and the most detailed story and arc (god its so good i wish i could just show you all the movie in my head argh) besides Shargon :3

#ganondoodles #art #artists on tumblr #ocs #original character #oc art #monsters #i spent an hour writing this all #who even reads this #just wanted to give some character details and BAM devolves into short versions of alot of lore and story #its so late........... i wanted to get the other painting done but then suddendly #did this instead #my other oc blorbo ............ my dearest big baby lad #long post #sorry .........................................

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jazeswhbhaven · 9 months ago

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Guidebook to the First Hellspawn: Cain

This is just a silly little thing on Cain's upbringing and how his life stages are:

Infant stage

-Doesn't have horns just yet there are tiny nubs of flesh on the top of his head though, and they get massaged gently

-For the first 50 years he's an infant (birth to age 1), literally screaming, crying, not talking, slobbery infant

-Food during this time is a mix of devil's essence pumped from Levi (yes devil breastfeeding) and mashed whatever, he can have solids right from birth

-He needs a little less supervision than human babies, Cain can be left in the middle of a nursey by himself and he will only cry if he's hungry. Or...uh needs to be changed.

-Wears diapers just like any other baby. But phew...if you thought changing baby boys without them peeing everywhere was hard...

-Teething starts around 25 years in to his infancy, poor babe has Satan's teeth grinding habits and well devil teeth growing in at this age is horrible for everyone involved.

-Cain has successfully chewed up pretty much everything in the palace and slobbered on everything. He gets super cranky, and the only way to soothe his gums is literally everything they tell us not to do for human babies. Satan rubs rum on his gums, Leviathan has Morax give him numbing agents. Good thing this doesn't effect his growth since he's not human.

-Toys are to be replaced frequently. With Cain's spit and biting they are pretty much destroyed. Like think of the thickest liquid you can and try to clean it and it won't come off. Devil baby slobber.

Toddler Stage

-From 10-30 (ages 1-5 in human years) Cain is now in toddler stage. For now he's aging slowly to give his body time to catch up with his powers and other devilish developments.

-For Cain, he only crawls if he's being cheeky or lazy. He's been able to walk on his own for a while and still does the cute waddle.

-First words are whatever he hears the most. Since he's in both Hades and Gehenna his vocabulary is quite colorful. He will pick up curse words mostly from Satan who says it around him on purpose.

-Levi has now allowed Cain to be babysat for short periods of time by other nobles. Satan is the one that still refuses for now. He's always on Daddy duty.

-Fun fact: Satan has Cain in one of those baby carriers strapped to his chest while he's out doing stuff. Cain learned to growl because Satan would do so when people got too close ;w;

-Since Cain can walk, this means he also can open doors, climb stairs, climb the ceiling (i'm not joking). Also it has been found by Leviathan that he befriended the creatures in his coffin.

-Cain also has to learn potty training, it's only difficult because Cain hates having his butt wiped. Peeing is also a challenge because when he doesn't like certain people or is mad, whelp...guess who's getting pissed on.

-Levi is perfect for potty training. He's never done it in his life but his strict teaching gets Cain into shape fast. But...our little hellspawn is defiant when it comes to his babysitters.

-There are accidents, but it's no big deal. But devil baby messes are potent because his digestive system is excellent.

-Toys have upgraded, he's no longer teething but it's important he sees Morax often for dental checkups so he doesn't end up like his dad and having get several teeth pulled from being broken or fucked up in some way.

-Cain's first pair of shoes were little black boots. They kinda look like Satan's boots, which clash with his distinguished clothing from Hades. But he likes them, alot.

-His powers are still limited but his strength is wild. He can lift the dining room table in the palace. In both Gehenna and Hades.

-Naps are important. Cain is starting to eat more solids, therefore having a ton of energy to play but also gets exhausted easily for now.

-No nap time equals a very cranky Cain. Terrible twos? Try terrible hundreds

Child Stage

-30-50 (5-13 in human years)

-Cain could speak in full sentences in Toddler stage, but by choice he didn't want to talk much. Now he's talking nearly non-stop due to questions and curiosity.

-Has picked up art and other extracurricular activities. But he makes art at "human college art major" at this time. It is the same as his other academics.

-All of his teachings are from Leviathan but his math is from Gusion who comes highly recommended. He's the star pupil actually.

-Combat training has begun during this time. He goes to the gym in Gehenna, and learns how to fight with his own coffin. Though, due to his special abilities he rarely uses his strength or his coffin.

-He can dress and feed himself on his own with very little help. His social interactions are a bit rough, since he seems to insult everyone. He also has a nasty attitude. Everyone just deals with it for now.

-Discipline has begun as well. Levi's approach is having him hung from ropes by his wrists until he stops cursing and thrashing. Satan gives him the same treatment as he does his subjects and nobles...a swift kick in butt. (disclaimer, I am 110% against physical correction/abuse for kids, however I assume in hell punishments are harsh even for children)

-Cain's appetite is also higher, he eats about 10 pounds of food a day.

-Growing pains have started, including his horns growing and shedding. The pain is bearable, but the base near his scalp needs to be massaged and oiled.

Teen Stage

-50-108 (13-18 in human years) Cain is now going through "puberty" during this time and it's not just simple things as fluctuating hormones, squeaky voices, and acne.

-Cain's appetite has upgraded...He pretty much needs to eat at minimum 40 pounds of food no matter what it is daily. Thankfully, Tartaros is the best place where he can eat that and then some...suggested by Eligos and offered by Mammon.

-Cain's moods are balanced for the most part unless something pisses him off. Unfortunately since he has Satan AND Levi's temperament that could mean anything is bond to irritate him.

-These "mood swings" last for weeks at a time. They are only subsided when he decides it is.

-A "gross" thing that happens is his horns excessively leaking devil's essence, he's begun producing it so it's pretty much just flowing everywhere.

-Sexual maturity will happen as well. In Hell there really isn't a "safe sex" talk. Cain is left to his own devices, but by choice he'd rather be by himself to explore his body and urges. (best thing for him really)

-No need for him to worry about hair in strange places, most devils are smooth.

-In also terms of sexual maturity, there is something only special to Cain that must be followed carefully. There are certain cycles of the moon/sun in Hell that effect his urges think of "heat/rut". This time period Cain must be isolated, his pheromones' are haywire and attract all kinds of trouble (even angels).

-Academics and other education is advanced. His brain is now that of a Doctorate level if we use human standards. He will surpass that in adulthood.

-Cain's muscles are similar to Levi's, lean and athletic. Though they must be maintained with exercise. Cain currently runs everyday around Hades and Gehenna interchangeably and when in Tartaros getting his fill of food, he frequents the gym there. (he can open Mammon's door by himself btw)

Adult Stage

-109+ (Pretty much outlives us so any age after 18 in human years)

-The "puberty stage" has completed. No more inconsistent mood swings, excessive essence leaks, etc. Good for you Cain!

-His skills in combat are precise, faster, and agile. He can spar with the Kings one on one without being assisted by a noble.

-No more being supervised, though Ppyong follows him around as per Satan's request (can't let his bby son go huh) Also, there are times where Foras tracks Cain is Levi thinks he's sneaking off somewhere.

-As a teen, he only shadowed helping in battles against the angels, but he's now able to handle them alone or with the respective military of whichever country he's in

-Adult responsibilities for Cain now consist of paperwork, learning about how each country runs, frequent trips to each one to observe the culture and subjects. He is going to be the ruler of Hell, so it's essential

-For reaching adulthood, he's received gifts from each King that will be of some use. He also now has horn jewelry, bloody pearls made from marine-like angels that have been harvested by Adrealphus and Ronove. Levi commissioned this for him.

-Now he is of age to get a piercing, but since Beelzebub has babysat him, fed him, pretty much "annoyed" him for the majority of his life he gives Cain a sternum tattoo. His ears are pierced. Cain won't let him pierce anything else.

-He isn't required to go for checkups with Morax anymore, but he does it anyway because he likes visiting the healers in Paradise Lost.

-Appetite has balanced out substantially. He eats until he feels okay, no set dietary rules.

-Sexual maturity and essence levels are steady. There are many devil suitors wanting to be in his bed chambers, but Cain is picky (like Levi).

-Cain's new hobbies and activities are a wild card. You can see him riding motorcycles in Gehenna or quietly studying in Hades.

-He still has heat/rut cycles, however they are far and few in-between.

-Asmodeus has provided Cain with special custom sex toys for those times. He's so considerate.

-Cain lives alone. Nomadic even. Some say he got that from a certain flighty devil

-He still does not have a favorite parent. Lol

Thank you for reading btw this was fun to write out Cain's life stages. I feel that in this universe growing up a child devil is very different than it would be for a human. Even though I am aware there's probably more sex education put into practice for younger ages for my own reasons ofc I did not go into detail for this little post. Just assume it happened ya'll and Cain knows what he knows. Parenting is parenting in Hell. (edit: I just realized that canonically, 109 is considered an adult in Hell for WHB, so I adjusted Cain's growth cycle here to reflect that! and so the timelines in my au kinda make sense)

#whb #whb oc #whb fankid #fankid headcanons #cxc mentions/implied for Cain's parents

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popchoc · 6 months ago

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"I think Mika made the correct decision for herself and for her career, and for her mental health. But they were falling in love and building something that’s meaningful, something real that could’ve potentially become a significant relationship for both of them. So, when the rug was pulled out [from under Jules], it resonated because there’s the potential of something — the right person, wrong time — and then the future and the world being so incredibly unpredictable. I thought that was really beautiful and really heartbreaking and really true."

"We’re gonna be coming in pretty hot post-heartbreak. There’s not much of a time jump, so Jules is still in shock. It wouldn’t surprise me if she does a knee-jerk “okay, well, back to business as usual” thing. She can be quite avoidant of big, uncomfortable feelings. But that level of emotional distress has to display itself somehow, and I think she’ll be really struggling to fully digest the fact that this person who has come to mean so much to her has just left her high and dry."

"I’m interested to see how that plays out story-wise. Is she going to cope with this the way she’s coped with similar heartbreaks in the past? Has she learned from past mistakes now that she’s a little older? How is this going to affect her relationships in the future? Is she going to become more closed off to emotional connection and love? Or now that she’s had a taste of what it could be like, could this heartbreak potentially soften her to search for that connection again at some point?"

#adelaide kane #jules millin #midori francis #mika yasuda #grey's anatomy #just some extracts; full interview is worth the read

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literary-illuminati · 1 year ago

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2024 Book Review #11 – The Maya (10th Edition) by Michael D. Coe and Stephen Houston

My second proper history book of the year, and significantly better than the first! This existed on the happy intersection of ‘the r/AskHistorian’s big list of recommenced works on Goodreads’ and ‘stuff my public library inexplicably has a copy of’. It’s dense and more than a bit dry reading, enough that I read it over the course of a week as a side-dish to more digestible fiction. Still, fascinating read, and a book that left more far better informed about the subject than when I started it.

The book is more or less what it says on the tin – a survey of the history of the Maya (or at least the current state of what’s known about it). The book opens with an explanation of the Maya language family, the relevant geography, the characteristics of the high- and lowlands, and the division into northern, central and southern area the field seems to use generally. The better part of it is then arranged chronologically, beginning with the Archaic Period, through the Pre-Classic and Classic, then then Collapse and the Post-Classic. The Spanish Conquest and history since gets a very abbreviated epilogue, ending with a few micro-anthropologies of different contemporary villages and then a five-page travellers’ guide to the most important sites and how to access them.

It’s all, as I said, quite dense – the sort of book where every paragraph adds at least one new important fact and very little time is spent on repetition or review. Combined with the usually very dry, expository tone, it feels much more like a textbook to be read with a lecturer or group to break down and dig into each section than something that was really written to be read alone and for pleasure. Which you know, makes sense, given that this is the tenth edition of a book originally written several decades before I was born.

Now, I say this is a history book, but that’s honestly a bit of a kludge – better to say it’s an archaeology book or, failing that, about anthropology and historiography. There is very little narativizing, and it is very much told from the point of view of the present. That is, the sections are organized chronologically, but within them the unit of analysis is the archaeological site, with every supposition explained as emerging from the analysis of some ruin or artifact or fragment of text. Far more time is spent on the architecture and layout of Mayan cities than the people who actually lived within them, simply because the author’s have so much more to say about them.

It’s only really in the chapters on the Classic (and, to a much lesser extent, post-classic) periods that the book goes from theorizing about building and pottery styles to speaking more confidently about royal courts and high politics and dynastic grandeur, and above all the attempts to give specific particular people a sense of personality and personal biographies that you generally expect out of a pop history book. Which does make sense, given that those are the only periods where we really have enough textual evidence to confidently name and ascribe significance to any particular people – overwhelmingly dynasts and war-leaders, because of course those are the (almost invariably) men who constructed stelae and covered the walls of temples with testaments of their own greatness.

This means that you do get more of a look into nuts and bolts of knowledge production that you do in most histories – a passage about the development of chocolate drinks as elite consumption is framed with the discovery of cocoa residue on preclassic ceramic vessels, one about human sacrifice by the discovery of skeletal remains in cenotes near major architectural sites, that sort of thing. Similarly, just about every single discovery or theory is credited to one or a few specific academics who initially made it. Which will be either incredibly interesting or the dullest thing in the world, depending on one’s tastes.

The text is mostly incredibly dry and expository in tone, which makes the points where a real sense of personality and subjective opinion leaks through interesting. And endearing, at least to me, but I just find there to be something instantly likeable about the sort of academic myopia which considers human sacrifice and mass famine from the point of view of the universe but is roused to passionate rage by suburban sprawl building over unexamined archaeological sites.

I knew little enough about the specifics of Maya civilization going into this that just relaying everything that struck me reading this would turn this review into a novella. But the way that lowland urbanization and agriculture were based around, not rivers like just about every other culture I’ve read on, but cenotes (and artificially constructed simulacra thereof) in the limestone to capture enough rainwater to last through the dry season was just fascinating. The fact that, the region’s reputation for inexhaustible lushness notwithstanding, the soil the Maya relied upon was very thin and in most cases totally degraded after just a few years of agriculture as well. (Speaking of, the theorizing about how diet changed over the ages and how this related to population movements and density was just fascinating).

The book really wasn’t that interested in the specifics of mythology or divine pantheons beyond how they showed up on engravings and ornamentation – there’s no bestiary of gods or anything – but there’s enough of that ornamentation for it to be a recurring topic anyway. I admit I still find the fact that there’s this great primordial pre-classic god-monster which in the modern era is just called ‘Principle Bird Deity’ deeply amusing.

The book is deeply interested in the Maya calendar and time-keeping. Along with the monumental architecture it’s pretty clearly the thing that the authors find most impressive and awe-inspiring about Classical Mayan culture. There’s enough time dedicated to explaining it that I even pretty much understood how the different counts and levels of timekeeping interacted by the end of the book.

One beat the book kept coming back to (which I admit suits my biases quite well) is that there’s just no sense in the Maya were ever isolated or pristine. Cultural influence coming down from the Valley of Mexico waxed and waned, but on some level it was constant – Mesoamerica was a coherent cultural unit, and the similarities in philosophy and culture (not to mention material goods) between cultures within it are too blatant to ignore. The book theorizes that the population levels reached in the Yucatan before the Spanish Conquest really couldn’t have been supported by local maize agriculture, and instead cities were probably sustained by harvesting and exporting from the salt flats (among the best in the Americas) they controlled access to.

Even beyond trade, there’s several points where ruling dynasties were toppled or installed by armies ranging down from Mexico. The Olmecs and Toltecs make repeated appearances. Even the conquistadors conquest of the Highlands was really only possible because the few hundred Spaniards who got all the credit were marching alongside several thousand indigenous allies.

Speaking of – it’s really only an aside to an epilogue, but given I mostly know the Anglo-American history here, it did kind of strike me how...traditionally imperialist the Spanish were, compared to the more-or-less explicitly genocidal rhetoric I’m used to. If you were an indigenous potentate or ruler enthusiastically selling out to the Spanish Crown was significantly more likely to actually work out for you than trusting a treaty with the US of A, anyway (well, for a while. Smallpox comes for everyone),

Then again, the book does mention that the newly independent Mexican and Central American states in the 19th century were actually significantly worse for the Maya than the Bourbons had been (with things reaching their nadir with the genocidal violence of the 1980s in Guatemala), so maybe that’s it.

Anyway, the book is illustrated, and absolutely chock full of truly beautiful photography and prints on just about every other page. Even if you never actually read it, it would be a great coffee table book.

#book review #history #The Maya #Michael D. Coe #stephen houston

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snazzyscarf · 2 years ago

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[vibrating at a rate that shatters glass] is anyone going to talk about the new marionetta chapter.

EP 36 DISCUSSION AHEAD

OKAY WHAT IS THROWING ME FOR A LOOP ABOUT THIS is that everything we’ve seen up until now has made the idea that anthonn works for an existential spider creature SO believable. like it’s practically spelled out.

the spiritual thread is silk

the circus members are “tied” together, essentially bound to the same web, restricted movement

the giant bug reveal this chapter using said thread to pull finnegan back and (safe to assume) wrap & consume him

this playing into both the common myth of how spiders feed AND the reality of their behavior. the former being that they drain fluids straight out of the body, leaving a husk leftover vampire style (the bodies of the circus members being left behind & only their souls consumed), and the latter being an external method of digestion via liquifying the body while it’s wrapped in silk (the huge conglomerate of viscera that makes up the entity in the attic)

everything about this concept fits thematically with the circus & what we’ve seen so far. especially with the blatant view of the spider that we got this chapter right?

WELL.

there’s one problem with that.

this isn’t a spider.

it’s convincing enough at first with its behavior. the framing alone makes you want to think it’s one (the way it hangs & appears to dangle above its prey)

but it’s got compound eyes. and only two of them. it only has six legs instead of the signature eight. it tries to look and behave like a spider, tries to convince us that it is one, but it’s just… not?

now I’m willing to suspend my disbelief if this is an art decision factoring in, as it opens up the potential for fascinating inspection on how this universe operates. because spiders famously have multiple sets of eyes, right? it’s one of their defining features! what kind of world could exist that would be able to impose such a harsh limit of eyes onto a spider of all creatures?

a world with the ah’kon would.

i find it interesting that—if this is an artistic decision, and this creature we see is in fact a spider—the deliberate choice to only allow it two eyes gives us a very fascinating look into how the spirit world operates. planting the idea that even native beings of that world do not possess the amount of eyes necessary to see into anything beyond it. because two eyes are limited. in humans, and in this creature.

the only people capable of seeing into both are the ah’kon, and the ah’kon possess more than two eyes. one of which, very pointedly, is incapable of blinking.

the spirit world appears to be inhabited by bugs and fish. we get a glimpse of a fish at the start of chapter 3, and we get a hint of a centipede at the very start of this chapter’s sequence (as well as some other arthropod-looking creature that I’m unsure of)

well. one key feature of bugs and fish, is that their eyes are incapable of blinking. they have no eyelids! these spiritual creatures have the same characteristics in their eyes that the ah’kon do in their third one. human eyes—earthly eyes—on the other hand, can fully close. and the ah’kon have the ability to do that with their lower set.

however, while they do possess eyes from both worlds, each can still only see into their respective ones, never the other.

so it’s interesting that a spider-like creature would be very pointedly limited to only two, unblinking eyes. it drives home the point of just how separate these worlds are. however powerful this creature may be, it is still held back inside its plane of existence. it doesn’t have a place on earth.

well, then what does that mean for this?

i honestly don’t know yet. it’s very clear that eyes are a running motif in this story; they have been since the very start. but this tidbit of information that we’ve received via the “spider” adds more to the puzzle & gives us a little more understanding into how all of the pieces could fit together in the future. :D

#scarf.txt #marionetta #marionetta webtoon #absolutely fascinating chapter that is quite frankly catered to me specifically as a guy who adores bugs #i hope we get to see more of these creatures they’re so cool

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wanderstarr · 2 years ago

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𝐀 𝐋𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐜𝐤 𝐏𝐮𝐩𝐩𝐞𝐭'𝐬 𝐀𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐬 : 𝐈𝐈 ‧₊˚✩彡

wanderer x gn! reader

[[ prologue || ao3 ]]

2. Your thoughts seldom matched his own.

This was no overstatement, nor was it an exaggeration, mind you. The Wanderer could not for the life of him understand the way you came to your conclusions, why you made the decisions you did. He didn't understand how he saw himself in you, when you couldn't be any more different to what he was, as a person. Of course, this was most likely accredited to the simple fact that you were of different natures, he'd decided.

He never expected to see you again after what happened at the Zubayr Theatre. Well, he didn't expect to see you again before that either, but you had a knack for surprising him like that.

Regardless, he's been avoiding the Grand Bazaar like the plague, choosing to coop himself up in the Sanctuary of Surasthana instead. On the rare occasion he did leave, it was only to submit his papers to the Vahumana Darshan, and he immediately left once he was done. It's not that he was afraid of confronting you, or being confronted by you; nonsense, he was just… focusing on his duties, as an efficient aide should.

Buer didn't share his ideology.

"You haven't gotten me Candied Ajilenakh Nuts in a while." she says one day, in that matter of fact tone of hers. He was writing at the time. He's been doing it more often lately.

"You didn't ask." he replies, and dips the nib of his pen into the ink jar.

"I never had to ask before." she muses, and sits down next to him with her tiny arms folded on her lap. The Wanderer sighs. When Buer sits down like that, it usually means a particularly lengthy lesson for him.

"I forgot, then."

"You didn't forget." Buer shakes her head. "Is something the matter, Hat Guy?"

"No." he says, staring intently at the paragraphs in front of him.

"Does it have something to do with the person who brought us Havalmadz?"

"I-" he presses down too hard, and ink sprays all over the page. He groans. "Lord Kusanali, have you been spying again?"

"Not at all!" Buer smiles innocently. The Wanderer can never tell if she's bluffing it, whenever she pulls that look. "It was just a guess. Was I right?"

He says nothing, though that in itself was answer enough for Buer.

"I see. Did you two disagree on something?"

"..something like that." he sighs. He can never hide anything from Buer for too long when she gets curious.

"Sometimes, a Rishboland Tiger might eat a fox and get diarrhea. You can't really tell whether the diarrhea was caused by eating the fox itself, or something inside the fox's stomache." Buer says all this in a rather contemplative tone. "Does that make sense?"

Not at all. A little bit? He just tends to lose focus whenever Buer chooses to use nature's digestive waste as a subject for her analogies. He's yet to find it in himself to talk to her about it.

"I don't see how a Rishboland Tiger has anything to do with me, Lord Kusanali."

Buer gives him a look. He winces at his mistake; he only ever called her by that name when he was keeping secrets.

"Well," Buer smiles, "The Rishboland Tiger wouldn't know why his belly is upset, but you could find out, couldn't you, Hat Guy?"

Buer stares at him. He stares at her back.

He looks away first.

His quill and parchment lay abandoned on the table, and he finds himself locked out of the Sanctuary for the rest of the day.

He clicks his tongue. What does it matter if the Rishboland Tiger doesn't know, anyway? It would still have to suffer for its foolishness, in the end.

He summons a rush of Anemo, and heads in a direction completely opposite from the Zubayr Theatre. He was no tiger, and you were no fox, and he certainly wasn't having an upset stomache from eating you. He wasn't about to open that can of worms any time soon, thanks.

Surprisingly, he does not hear Buer's chiding voice in his head. Really, that should have been his first hint.

He goes where the rising winds lead him, and when he lets his feet touch the ground at last, he finds himself on the outskirts of Vanarana. He doesn't enter the forest, and instead treads on its borders.

And because fate most definitely has it out for him, who else would he find but you, standing in the distance. Surrounded by Rishboland Tigers. Because of course life would shove this kind of thing, this painfully obvious lesson on morals or whatever, in his face.

He wonders if Buer knew. A faint giggle in the back of his mind tells him she most definitely did.

He calls on that familiar rush of Anemo once again, and races headfirst towards you.

He should have known better than to underestimate your capabilities. You mow through all three of the beasts before he even reaches you, pummeling them into submission. You move with the elegance of an elephant traipsing through a field of mice – that is to say, none at all. But what you lacked in grace, you made up for in sheer ferocity. Your vision crackled with a wild glow when you fought.

As relieved as he was that he didn't need to save your ass from danger, he's starting to regret rushing in, because now you've turned around and spotted him too.

"Oh." you shuffle your feet, lowering your weapon. It still amazes him, how quickly your demeanor shifts. "Hello, wanderer."

Has the air always felt this suffocating?

He wants to run. He wants nothing more than to return to his life behind the walls of the sanctuary, safe from whatever's stuck in his damn chest that goes wild in your presence. But he can't. Not when you looked so.. disappointed.

"Hello," he says, and mumbles your name.

"What brings you to this part of town?" you try to joke, but it comes out rather depressingly. He winces.

"I could ask you the same thing."

You sigh. "Y'know, just gathering wood and stuff. For the.. puppets."

You say the word like it's forbidden. You both fall into momentary silence.

You speak quietly, tugging on your satchel. "I could still show you them. If you want."

"...okay."

You smile just a little when he nods. You open your bag, and gently pull out a wooden doll, no bigger than your torso. The clothes it wore were dyed in soft hues, and it looked a little bit like you, he thinks, a warm smile carved into its face.

"I made this for a family member." you tell him, cradling the puppet with care. "They're not around anymore."

He doesn't speak, and steps closer towards you. His fingers reach out to brush against the puppet. You don't make any move to stop him.

Buer was right. He would never admit it, and he would continue to argue with his own opinions, but she was always right. Foolish little feline, Rishboland Tiger he was. A hypocrite, for ever shunning you, the way his creator shunned him. For something you didn't do.

"I don't know why I upset you the other day," you whisper, "But I'm sorry."

He thinks you were as much of a fool as he was, for accepting him. For apologising when he should be the one to do so. Your mind, your heart, far too kind, too human for him to comprehend.

But perhaps something could be forged in your differences. Buer once said he wasn't as heartless as he thought. Perhaps she could be right.

"..don't be," he whispers back, "..it wasn't your fault to begin with."

©wanderstarr

they made up finally!! also hehe new header

#kunikuzushi x reader #wanderer x reader #scaramouche x reader #genshin x reader #genshin impact #kunikuzushi #genshin wanderer #wanderer #wanderer drabble #wanderer fanfic #scaramouche #scaramouche fluff #wanderer fluff #kunikuzushi fluff #wanderer imagines #azai's

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dwobbitfromtheshire · 2 years ago

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Part 1

Part 2

And now the finale. . .

Once they got done freaking about the fact that Steve’s teddy bears were sentient, they accepted the fact pretty quickly. In fact, Eddie was pretty excited about it. Steve was just as excited, but he was surprised to learn that his grandmother had been a witch.

"Berry, is it possible that I could become a witch too?" Steve asked as they sat on Eddie’s bed.

"I don't see why not. Her blood runs through you," Berry said. "There's some of her stuff in the attic with a black book full of her contact information. I'm having trouble remembering his name, but there was a witch friend of your grandmother's who could help you if you're interested in becoming a witch."

"Steve," Eddie said as he stopped talking with Teddy. "Not to put pressure on you or anything, but if you don't become a witch, I'll stop being your friend."

So, now here he was a couple of months later, and he was making progress thanks to his grandmother's friend, Benjamin. He had given Steve all the witchy stuff that she had left with him, including the spell that created Berry and Teddy. It had given Steve an idea.

"Do you guys want kids?" Steve asked Berry and Teddy as they sat on the floor of his house in the living room.

"We're happy with one, sweetheart," Berry grinned.

"Yeah, I know," Steve said. "But would it hurt to have kids that are a little more like you?"

"I suppose it wouldn't," Teddy said.

"I thought it would be nice to give you kids that I promised you," Steve said.

"Oh, that's lovely. You're such a sweet boy," Berry said. "Yes, I would love to have more kids."

"Me too!" Teddy exclaimed.

"I'm so glad you said yes!" Eddie exclaimed. "I made you guys something!"

He rushed out of the room and came back with a bag. He emptied it out on the floor.

"What do you think?" Eddie asked.

"They're perfect," Berry and Teddy said.

A little while later, the spell was complete, and they were now waiting for it to work. Eddie and Steve watched eagerly as they watched them. They started to wake up, their eyes blinking rapidly as they yawned. The three dragons burped as they stood up on wobbly legs, their flickering back and forth. One of the dragons looked at Berry and Teddy.

"Are you our parents?" the dragon said in a small, childish voice.

"Yes, sweetheart, we're your daddies," Berry said tearfully.

"Daddies! Daddies!" The dragons exclaimed before jumping into their arms.

"I'm grateful we don't have balls," Teddy said.

"Theodore! Not in front of the kids!" Berry scolded.

"Are we going to have names, Daddy?" One dragon asked.

"Um, who likes the name Drake?" Teddy asked.

"Really, Drake?" Berry asked.

"I like it! Can I have it?!" the green dragon asked.

"Your turn, dear," Teddy said.

"Um, does anyone like Lucy?" Berry asked.

"I do!" The red one said, her tail thumping against the floor.

"Okay. . .I'm thinking. . .," Teddy said. "What about Dori?"

"I love it, Daddy," the blue one said.

"Chase us, Daddies!" The dragons exclaimed and flew off.

They didn't fly very high, just a foot off the ground.

"We're in for it," Berry grinned as they chased off after them.

"We did that," Steve said.

"We did," Eddie said, fondly, as he rested his chin on his shoulder. "Teddy's right. I'm not going anywhere. I love you."

"I love you too," Steve said softly and kissed him.

A week later, Eddie and Steve decided to let the kids in on their little secret. They invited them over to hang out and to make introductions. Just as Dustin stepped through the door, Lucy came flying by, giggling. Berry chased after her.

"Lucy Bearington! Just because we have consciousness and can move around doesn't mean we can digest things! Spit it out!" Berry shrieked.

Dustin yelled.

"STEVE! WHY IS THERE A SENTIENT TEDDY BEAR AND DRAGON RUNNING AROUND YOUR HOUSE?!"

"Turns out I'm a witch," Steve said casually. "Oh, by the way, I'm also dating your dungeon master."

"WHAT?!"

#stranger things #eddie munson #stranger things s4 #joseph quinn #eddie stranger things #eddie munson lives #steve harrington #steddie #steve x eddie #steve harrington x eddie munson #steddie fanfiction

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cutel3wdstuffz · 12 days ago

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Ykw here, have a post running down the gist of hypermobility, at least everything I can remember at 1am, you wanna know more? Please look it up yourself lol.

So first off, the main thing hypermobimity causes is issues with joints, generally over extension, joints being likely to slip out of place, etc.

It can also cause you to be prone to strains and the like (which may never fully heal YAY 😭)

It also causes fatigue, explains my near constant sense of exhaustion

Speaking of fatigue, a flare up can make that worse, cause pain and stiffness in joints, muscles, tendons, etc, dizziness, nausea (or other digestion related problems) and risk of fainting.

Flare ups made me realise I need a walking stick so I now have a collapsible one so it's always with me when I'm out just in case.

I may have mentioned to some of you before, but I randomly gag, and once it starts it doesn't stop for a bit until I drink something fizzy, don't know why that works but guess what causes that? Hypermobility.

And as I mentioned in my previous post, being prone to overheat is part of it too.

Oh you have anxiety? And hypermobility? Talk about a double whammy of anxiety there, it makes it worse.

No, hypermobility does not mean I'm flexible, in fact I'm far from flexible.

Casually popping joints that have slipped out of place a little back into place becomes pretty common (doesn't hurt if it's only a little slip thankfully, kinda satisfying instead)

Side note as a kid one of my knuckle bones in my pinky finger didn't sit in place, I wasn't aware, played with it for weeks and weeks (did not hurt) until oke day it popped back into place and never popped back out, however the movement of that pinky finger is not normal, it clicks up and down instead of.moving normally

Oh and aside from the overheating, hot weather can make it worse, so can cold weather, basically no point in the year is thay great aside from maybe 3 months. (This means despite needing a fan blowing on me it's causing my left shoulder and wrist to hurt really bad rn, must suffer to stay cooler)

There's also bladder problems it can cause

Oh and it can cause insomnia due to the pain you can be in at night.

Did I mention it can be chronic pain? Meaning it's constant even if at times it's more bearable than others? I have it, constant pain, but I'm used to what the usual constant is so it doesn't register as pain in my brain anymore, doesn't mean I can walk normally tho, permanently have a slight limp now.

Can't think of anything else off the top of my head but might add to this in the future, again if yoy want to know more feel free to do research into it yourself, hypermobility has no cure, I will not get better, in fact according to my doctor it's only ever gonna get worse over time, I have stuff that can slow down that process tho but idk how much it'll slow it down

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steppingstonesuniverseguide · 3 months ago

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One More Step Out of the Pit: Chapter 20/26

Summary: It had been Tommy and Tubbo for practically forever. They clawed their way out of hell together. They discovered their superpowers together. They started working for the Superhero Guild together before even coming of age. Tommy probably owed Tubbo his life ten times over. So, when the three supervillains he’d been assigned to bring in managed to take Tubbo hostage, well, there was really only one thing to do.

He knew, of course, he was signing himself up for torture and death by offering that trade, but that was okay.

It’d have to be okay.

AO3 Link (See AO3 for Warnings.)

(This story is finished and has been posted on AO3 for a while, but I’m posting it on Tumblr so it’s somewhere else too. The author notes will all be kept as well. If you are following the blog and don’t want to see these posts, block the tag #backlog.)

“No, no, no, give me that,” Wilbur said snatching the contents of Phil’s hands away unnecessarily violently. Phil glowered at him, but he didn’t seem to notice, too busy stuffing the socks Phil had been about to put away into the drawer to the left of the one Wilbur was putting them in.

“I think I can handle putting clothing into a dresser,” Phil said dryly. His son glanced at him, but then dismissed his words, going back to pulling different articles of clothing out of one of the many, many bags they’d carried into what used to be Phil’s office from Wilbur’s room. Phil sighed at him and sat back on the floor. He didn’t bother to pick anything else up to store away. Wilbur had not allowed him to do anything but breath in the past 20 minutes. “The kids could probably handle putting clothing into a dresser too,” he mumbled.

“But it has to be perfect, Phil,” Wilbur stressed. It was not the first time he’d expressed the sentiment today.

“I doubt the organization of a sock drawer is going to impact any decisions going forward,” Phil argued. “In fact, they’ll probably just think it’s creepy that you know how they organize their clothes.”

Wilbur frowned at that. Probably because Phil was right. “Tommy likes Ghostbur. He’ll probably be fine with it.”

“And… the other one?”

“We’ll just let Tubbo think Tommy organized it.”

“Uh, huh,” Phil replied. “And what happens when he learns about that lie of omission?”

“Hmm,” Wilbur said. “I’ll make a note to not swallow any watermelon seeds in the foreseeable future.”

Phil winced at the implications of that statement, though Wilbur seemed more amused at Phil’s reaction that worried about the violent possibility. “You think he could manage to grow partially digested seeds?” Phil asked, morbidly curious.

“Exploding trees, Phil,” Wilbur made an explosion hand gesture. “What about exploding trees kicking hero ass all over the city did you not understand?”

Oh, Phil understood it perfectly despite not having seen it for himself. Even just from his one interaction with Tubbo in the lab, he’d been able to tell the boy was powerful even if his full potential was untapped. Well… perhaps it was getting a little tapped now by the sound of it. “He has quite the power.”

“You adopted a being that can reverse time to prevent his own and occasionally other’s deaths.”

“I can still be impressed by someone’s powers, Will,” Phil rolled his eyes. “Actually, his power’s not so different from Techno’s. They both deal in bringing about life.”

“And they can both be used to fucking destroy a city if you give them a reason,” Wilbur snorted. “He’s a good kid, though. I mean, I haven’t actually spoken to him other than the car ride, but Ghostbur’s watched him a bit. He’s pretty friendly and loyal as long as people aren’t horrible to him. I think he’s one of those people who would be an optimist if life ever gave him a good card. Somehow, he’s more stubborn than Technoblade. He does not budge on some things. Honestly, I’m surprised he didn’t get fired for insubordination already, but his mentor was a bit laxer than some. He’s a bit overprotective of Tommy which, as we know is mutual. It’s a good thing most of the time. I don’t think they’d have been able to push through without each other.” He frowned. “Neither of them deserves the life they’ve been living. I wish…” he trailed off.

“You wish what?” Phil prompted when he didn’t seem inclined to finish his thought.

“Wilbur sighed. “Ghostbur’s a fucking idiot.”

Phil raised an eyebrow at him. “Wilbur…”

“He is!” Wilbur insisted. “He’s known what the Guild’s been up to for months and he didn’t… I didn’t…”

Oh. Phil sucked in a breath. “That’s not something you can blame yourself for. It’s not your fault.”

“Then whose fault is it then?”

“A lot of people’s,” Phil answered, “but not yours.” Wilbur looked away, hands holding a sweatshirt (that was surely too large for either of the children it was possibly intended for) but not moving to put it away. “Things are different when you’re asleep, Will. You know that.”

“Are they?” Wilbur asked skeptically.

“Would you have flooded my bathroom to make a ‘mansion’ for a fish you found only to realize you couldn’t get the fish through the door you sealed up with towels and plastic wrap because it was entirely corporal, so then you logically opened the door and flooded the hallway, while you were awake?”

There was a struggle on Wilbur’s face as he tried desperately not to allow Phil to lighten the mood. “It…” he said, “exam weeks are stressful.”

“The point is,” Phil said. “People’s sleeping minds are weird. We just usually keep those things to ourselves. Ghostbur’s different. A little more aware, but he still processes things differently. You can’t hate yourself for not reacting how you would have if you’d been fully conscious of it.”

There was a pause. “He’s still a passive idiot,” Wilbur grumbled.

Phil surveyed the mostly put together new bedroom. “He certainly managed to buy a lot of things for a ‘passive idiot,’ he commented.

“It’s all extremely necessary, I assure you.”

“Even the customizable Lego night light?”

“Especially the Lego night light, Phil. Are you really so very, very old that you can’t recognize its awesomeness?”

Phil narrowed his eyes and leaned over to bump their shoulders. His son, however, did not take this as the intended admonishment; instead, he took it as permission to lean over himself and settle his entire body weight onto Phil’s shoulder. Phil rolled his eyes at him but brought the wing on that side down to curl around him.

“Plus,” Wilbur continued, “it’ll be enough of a novelty that Tommy will forget to complain about us getting him a nightlight ‘like a baby.’ He’ll probably make it look like a dick but at least he’ll be able to sleep in peace.”

Phil frowned and felt compelled to lean slightly to the side to kiss his son’s forehead. “He’s afraid of the dark?” Phil asked, unreasonable heartbroken at the knowledge.

“Well, he’s never said it out loud in front of Ghostbur, but I don’t think Tubbo ‘accidently’ leaves the bathroom light on for himself at night.”

“He works the night shift,” Phil said in distaste. “We’ve chased a kid that’s afraid of the dark through alleyways at night.”

“Yeah, well, we can put it on the list of grievances with the Superhero Guild,” Wilbur said. “He also doesn’t like loud noises and small spaces, which is why this room was a better choice than the ‘library’: no closet.”

“You thought of everything, didn’t you?” Phil asked.

Wilbur pushed himself closer and Phil allowed it, setting his head down on top of Will’s. “I really want little brothers,” he said.

“Wilbur,” Phil warned. “What have we said about pushing labels onto people?”

“I don’t know,” Will said, a smirk in his voice. “I stop listening anytime you start talking about it.

“Little shit,” Phil said mildly.

“It worked with Techno.”

“No,” Phil replied. “It really didn’t.”

“Did so.”

“It worked out with Techno despite your antics and that’s only because he’d know me for years and was under the impression you were a normal 8-year-old who couldn’t know he was in his 20s.”

“And now I have a baby brother.”

Phil just shook his head. In truth, he knew it was useless. The two of them were an unstoppable force and an unmovable object. Wilbur had decided Techno was his little brother years before Techno even knew Wilbur’s name, let alone before they met in the flesh. Meanwhile, Techno refused any labels that infantilized him more than he’d already been given the circumstances and being claimed as a ‘baby brother’ by someone who looked and acted like an 8-year-old (even if he only kind of ended up being so) annoyed him to no end. Besides, firm relationship labels just made him uncomfortable in general.

Neither of them would ever give in to the other, that much was clear. (Phil would never say it out loud as he respected Techno’s boundaries far too much to undermine him in that way, but the ensuing conflict that would come when the word brother was thrown around always did remind Phil of bickering siblings.) Still…

“Be a little less pushy this time, please,” Phil pleaded. “Techno was always going to stay.”

Wilbur leaned his head into Phil’s shoulder a bit harder. “I know.”

“I know you, Wilbur. I know you have your heart set on a certain result, but you can’t force something like that. It’s not fair. We won’t leave them to The Guild no mater what, but we can’t force them to stay.”

“I know,” Wilbur said. “I want to, but I won’t.”

Phil rubbed his shoulder soothingly. This was why they’d already decided Phil would be the one talking to him once the room was done. Wilbur had always had trouble with the ‘if you love it let it go,’ lesson, and they all knew he wouldn’t come into the conversation with the right attitude.

“Let’s just finish getting the bedroom ready,” Wilbur said after a moment. He pulled away, shoving the wing away from him a bit rougher than necessary. Phil smacked him lightly with it in reprimand before pulling it away fully. It had the desired effect as a smile tugged on the edges of Wilbur’s mouth at that. He grabbed a stack of shirts out of a bag near them and handed them to Phil. Phil nodded and took the shirts, preparing the put them in one of the open drawers. “No, not there!” Wilbur exclaimed and Phil groaned.

“Do you just want to do it all yourself?” he asked. “Is that what this is?”

“No offence, father mine, but you’re a shit interior designer.” Phil reached over and ruffled his hair as much as he could before Wilbur squeaked and shoved him away. “Why the hair?!”

Phil just pushed himself to his feet. “Text me if you need heavy things moved. I’m going to go check on Tech and Tommy.”

Wilbur shot him a thumbs up and Phil turned to leave the room. He winced as his back cracked a bit. He’d been sitting on the floor and leaning in awkward positions for too long and while the jokes thrown around the household about him being old were greatly exaggerated, he was not blessed with a 20-year-old’s spine. Though, he did not have too much to complain about. He knew that his back could be a lot worse by this age if he, say, slept in an old train car for half a decade with what barely passed for a mattress.

He passed by the kitchen on his way downstairs and noted that it was about time someone started to cook dinner, and by someone, he of course meant either Techno or himself. They were trying to not scare off Tommy.

He made it to the cell door and pushed in the code to open it. He had to take a moment to absorb the sight in front of him once the door opened mostly because it was a bit of a shock. Somehow, Tommy had managed to end up sitting in Techno’s lap. He had the golden crown that belonged to the man’s alter ego tilted slightly to the side on his head since it was too large for him. Phil’s first thought upon seeing this, admittedly, was him wondering if his friend had somehow been replaced by a clone at some point without Phil realizing it.

His second thought was that the tilted crown, the blue stains, the far too big sweater, and the fact that Tommy was sitting on Technoblade’s lap to play a video game was an adorable sight to behold.

However, then there was his third thought. Which was, ‘Oh god, Techno’s introduced him to video games. Oh god, please don’t be like Technoblade when it comes to video games.’ Yet, his prayers probably weren’t going to be answered considering neither of the normally rather jumpy individuals even glanced his way when he entered the room, too engrossed in their game to care. Why, oh why had Phil ever introduced Technoblade to video games? He’d been an oblivious fool who’d wanted to give him something to do, and Techno had responded to the moving things and flashing lights in ways he didn’t respond to anything else. Yet, later, Phil would learn that this was not a good thing. How could he have known that the boy whose only interest at the time seemed to be staring at walls was deep down incredibly competitive and a completionist at heart? The world had never been the same as soon as Phil gave him a bright colored flashy scoreboard and he learned he could win.

“Hello?” Phil tried after a full minute of being ignored.

Tommy glanced over at the sound of his voice, but Techno just grunted a “busy.” At Techno’s dismissal, Tommy returned his attention to the screen where he was scrolling through a list of attacks in the battle he was in, seeming to debate which option was best.

“It’s almost dinner time.”

“M’kay. Either will work fine right now, Tommy.” Tommy nodded and pressed a button. An anthropomorphic frog’s tongue shot out at one of the on-screen enemies.

“You should probably cook something.”

“Mhmm.”

“I’m cooking just steamed cauliflower for dinner if you leave me to my own devices.”

“Sure.”

“The house is on fire.”

“No. It’s not.”

“Technoblade, please. We have things to do. You can’t do this again.”

Techno titled his head, finally looking at him. “We’re in the middle of the game.”

“It’s a 20-hour game.”

“Actually,” Techno said with a smirk. His arms snacked loosely around Tommy’s waist: a clear message that said, ‘You aren’t going to make me abandon the poor sad child who just wants to play video games to cook dinner, are you?’ “He’s still learning the controls, so it’ll probably be more like 30-35…”

“I’m not that bad,” Tommy said, reaching over idly to smack Techno’s knee without even seeming to think about it. He was too focused on the screen as one of his enemies fell.

“You haven’t made it to the rat chase yet,” Techno replied blandly, ignoring the light physical assault.

“I can catch a rat! I’ve caught so many rats before. You just watch me Technoblade! I will get that rat so fucking fast!”

“You also can usually walk without bumping into walls in real life,” Techno pointed out. “And yet…”

“Fuck you! Fuck you! Fuck you! That corner was impossible to get out of.”

“I was able to get out of it just fine when you gave up.”

“You cheated!”

“And how exactly did I do that?”

“I don’t know! There’s probably a secret button you didn’t tell me about! Like what’s this one?” Techno slapped his hand away when it went to press a button.

“That turns it off, which I’m pretty sure you don’t want to do unless you want to lose an entire hour of progress.”

“Likely story,” he hissed, and then, quite suddenly, Phil was being legitimately perceived for the first time since entering the room, because the boy turned his bright blue eyes on him with what was probably meant to be a hurt and mournful expression, but the bright spark of mischief in them gave him away. “Phil, he’s cheating!”

And, really, there was only one logical response given the situation. “Oh Technoblade, how could you?”

Technoblade huffed and rolled his eyes with an expression that said ‘Really?’ but was also slightly bemused.

Tommy gave a delighted gasp when Phil played along. “Technoblade’s in trouble!” he crooned.

“He has no authority over me,” Techno said.

“Isn’t he, like, your dad.”

“I fucking hate Wilbur,” Techno deadpanned. “No, Phil isn’t my dad. I already said.”

“Well,” Tommy replied, contemplatively. “He’s still your supervillain boss, or whatever. You still have to do whatever he says.”

“That’s not exactly how the three of us operate, kid,” and Phil was sure that Techno had no idea the depth of the conversation he’d clearly just invited by the look on Tommy’s face as he processed that.

Tommy’s brow pinched in confusion immediately, which did make sense considering the very strict hierarchy the Guild operated under. Even among two heroes of the same rank and job description, there was always some factor that gave one of them a higher position over the other be that time on the field, the rank of the person who’d train them, or a thousand other little things that separated people from each other. There were never equals in the field and that was by design. When fighting, everyone was expected to know the chain of command and follow those higher in the hierarchy unquestioningly. The practice had made sense once upon a time to Phil, and maybe it still did for an organization the size of the Guild.

Phil was pretty sure neither Techno nor Wilbur would have lasted a day working at the Guild. The number of times they’d said something to the effect of ‘Shut up old man,’ and fucked off to do whatever they liked was uncountable.

“But Philza’s the boss,” Tommy said with a frown. “Everyone knows that.”

“Everyone does not know that,” Phil said. “They assume that because I’m the only one with interpersonal skills and by extension the only one who ever talks to the public.”

“If Phil was the boss, we’d all be in prison,” Techno said. “The number of times I had to drag that bird brain away from a fight he had no business getting into…”

“Hey…”

“So, you’re the boss then?” Tommy asked Techno.

Techno’s lips twitched in discomfort. “No, I’m not the boss.”

Tommy frowned. “Then Wilbur’s the boss?”

“Kid, I really don’t think you’re understanding what I’m saying,” Techno said, his tone as steady as ever. He glanced at Phil with a pinch between his eyebrows that said, ‘I’m getting out of my depth. Help.’ Phil just tilted his head just barely making Techno’s mouth pinch in a ‘No, I’m not fine. Stop laughing,’ expression.

“…Is there a fourth person I don’t know about then?” Tommy asked.

“No,” Techno said. “There just is no boss.”

“But how does that work, then?” Tommy asked.

“We just work together.”

“Well, what if you don’t agree on a plan? Who decides?”

It was a good thing Tommy was in a position where he couldn’t easily look at Techno’s face because Techno’s eyes were boring into Phil with desperate resentment at being forced to have this conversation. Phil normally only got that expression when he asked the man to fold the socks. “We talk, I guess, until we agree. We’re normally on the same page or it’s just a little thing.”

Tommy was clearly skeptical of this. “What if something goes wrong with a plan? Who takes control?”

“I… again, we just talk. We have different strengths so sometimes someone takes charge based on that. Like, if it has to do with talking to people, Phil leads, but I’ll take charge if we need to fight someone and Wilbur’s better at figuring out how to get out of shit.”

“What if one of you messes up?”

“…Talking again.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“What do you mean?”

“Like, do all three of you talk or just the two that didn’t make the mistake?” he asked, “Because if I was part of the decision when I messed up, I’d just decide not to get punished for things, and that wouldn’t work. Or, I guess maybe if we had to compromise, it’d be something easy like extra paperwork or having to work a bit extra, but I don’t think that’d help me learn my lesson.”

Phil could tell that Techno caught the implications behind that statement as well. There was silence in the room for a moment and as much as Techno’s eyes had been saying he didn’t know what to say for the entire conversation that came before, it hadn’t actually been true until now.

Phil moved over to kneel down in front of them both. Tommy watched him come down to his level with curious eyes and Phil smiled back.

“We don’t do that sort of thing to each other,” Phil told him. “Even before… even when Will was younger, it was always a conversation, not something to hurt.”

“But how do you learn not to make mistakes by just talking?”

“Well,” Phil said. “I think we all know when we do something wrong once it’s pointed out to us and why we should correct and make up for that thing. If it’s a mistake, it’s not something we meant to do or wanted to do. Or, even if we did, we didn’t want whatever consequences came from it. We can just talk it through with each other and figure out the best way to make sure something like it doesn’t happen again. No punishing necessary.”

Tommy seemed to roll this over in his head for a moment. “Well, I’m stupid,” he said casually, and Phil physically flinched. “That wouldn’t work on me.”

“That isn’t true,” Phil replied.

“I can’t even learn with punishments,” Tommy scoffed, his tone still worryingly blasé.

“Then maybe the punishments are the problem,” Phil said darkly. Tommy just squinted at him.

“Uh,” Technoblade said after a moment. “You said I should cook dinner.”

It had actually been a joke, but Phil could tell Techno needed an escape from the uncomfortable situation. “If you wouldn’t mind,” he said.

“Yeah, I got it,” Techno said. He reached forward to take the controller from Tommy’s hand. “Let’s save your game so we can finish up later.”

“Tommy can keep playing while you’re gone, I don’t mind,” Phil said.

He noticed Tommy twitch.

“Nah, I need to make sure he has the correct opinions about it,” Techno said, but he was clearly leaving something out. Phil didn’t push.

Tommy nodded seriously. “The frog man is the best character because he has a big sword and does something later.”

“Good,” Techno praised, pressing a hand briefly to the top of his head. The crown was jostled out of place and just about blinded Tommy. He evaded the hands trying to smack him away and shoved himself to his feet. “I’ll be back with dinner.”

Phil turned back to Tommy once Techno had gone, shifting to sit instead of kneel next to him. His back protested just a bit. “What are you doing on the floor?” Phil wondered out loud. He could easily have played the game from the bed. In fact, the television was set up where it would be easier to see from the bed.

“The bed is evil. I’ve decided.”

“I see,” Phil said with a chuckle. “You got bored?”

“Yeah,” he said. His hands were wandering as he spoke now that he didn’t have a video game to keep them occupied. He started to fiddle with the blankets around him.

“Not used to standing still much, huh?” he asked. It was an obvious fact even if Phil had never seen him in his normal day to day life. His fighting style was constant movement relying on being faster and more flexible than his opponent. It was not a stretch to assume he was much the same when not fighting.

“No,” Tommy groaned. His hand found the stuffed cow Wilbur had given him and that seemed to snag his interest a little bit. He pulled it into his lap and began fiddling with its ears. “It sucks.”

Phil felt a moment of guilt for keeping him all cooped up the last few days, but then quickly remembered that Tommy had a hole in his stomach so he wouldn’t have been bouncing around anywhere anyway. “I know it sucks,” he said, “but you do need some time to heal.”

“Ugh,” he replied. “Usually I’m fixed by now.”

“Well, you do have a stab wound,” Phil pointed out.

“It should still feel better by now. I’m a quick healer.”

“Do you have super healing?” Phil asked.

“Nope,” Tommy said. “I’m just a manly man!”

“Are you sure?” Phil asked, hands already twitching with the urge to take off the power suppressants if that were the case, consequences of moving too quickly be damned.

“Yep. I think it’s Wilbur’s fault,” he said.

Phil raised an eyebrow, “and why is that?”

“He’s all fussy about it and I think that makes my body think it’s okay to be a little bitch about things it’d usually let me shrug off.”

Phil frowned at him. “That’s a concerning mindset,” he said.

“You’re a concerning mindset,” he shot back.

Phil chose to ignore… whatever type of insult that was. “Do you need pain meds?”

“What are you all, drug dealers?” he groaned. Phil scrutinized him. “Wilbur made me take some before he went upstairs.”

“And are you lying?”

He scrunched his nose up at Phil. “Not this time.”

Phil was going to text Wilbur just in case, but for now he said. “Fine.”

Tommy had learned that he could push the stuffed cow’s nose in a bit only for it to slowly pop back out and he was mindlessly doing the action over and over with one hand while the other fiddled with the small tuff of hair on the edge of its tail. Maybe he should get the kid a fidget cube… assuming Wilbur wasn’t already way ahead of him. Wilbur was probably way ahead of him.

“What’s its name?” Phil asked after a moment.

Tommy blinked up at him and then looked at the cow in his hands. His fidgeted pausing. “Oh,” he said. “He doesn’t have one.”

“Well, he has to have a name,” Phil said with an encouraging smile, but Tommy didn’t respond to the urging as he might have hoped.

He grimaced and squeezed the cow in his hands, shaking his head.

“Why not?” Phil asked confused.

“Naming things always ends badly. It’s worse when they go away.”

Phil felt his heart squeeze. There was something deep and rotted in that statement that Phil doubted he could even come close to touching let alone uprooting after only a few days. Yet, he also couldn’t just let it be. He let his hand reach forward to rest on his cheek, pulling the boy’s gaze to him. Tommy seemed to hesitate for a moment, eyes blown a bit wide as he stared at Phil’s face, but then he pressed back into the touch. Phil smiled at him gently. “He won’t be going away,” he said.

“You can’t promise that,” Tommy said with a frown. Perhaps that was true.

“Well,” Phil replied. “I can promise that Ghostbur would murder anyone who tried to take him from you after he gave him to you.”

Skepticism chiseled lines onto his face. “Ghostbur couldn’t murder anyone,” he stated, and he was right… about the version of Ghostbur he’d met.

“I… wouldn’t be too sure about that,” Phil said and almost laughed when Tommy rolled his eyes. “He gets rather overprotective of certain people.” Phil’s thumb brushed over the blue fingerprint over Tommy’s eyebrow. There were two reasons this color might end up on a person’s skin. The reason for this stain was soft and adorable and it was also a promise of blue stained corpses if anyone laid a finger on the kid.

“He’s a dork,” Tommy huffed.

“That is also true,” Phil said with a grin. Tommy grinned back at him seeming delighted that Phil was willing to pick on his own son with him. “Come on,” Phil encouraged. “He deserves a name.”

Tommy still hesitated, emotions flashing through his eyes too quick for Phil to catch. “Henry,” he finally said, and it came so effortlessly that Phil had to wonder if he’d secretly named it already but hadn’t wanted to admit it out loud. He wondered why if that were the case, though he was sure he wouldn’t like the answer.

“That’s a great name,” Phil said, knowing he would have said that about any name that came out of his mouth.

Tommy looked at him, and he couldn’t help but feel like he was being tested for something. “Thanks,” he said.

Phil reached up to move Techno’s crown into a better position since it was at risk of falling off still from Techno messing with it and Tommy readjusting it. “Of course,” he said. “Now, would you like to play a different game or watch a movie until dinner?”

#backlog

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msmk11 · 1 year ago

Text

Girl Crush

James Potter x Regulus Black

Word Count: 1.3k

CW: Angst/ Hurt no comfort

Summary: Regulus journals once again about a certain someone- someone he can’t seem to get his mind off no matter what he does. (Song fic!)

A/n: Hello, hello! I hope you enjoy this angsty fic that’s been sitting in my WIP for literal months. I did not originally intend for this to be a Jegulus fic, but when I was listening to this song (the Harry Styles cover) the other day, I suddenly became inspired. It’s sooooo post-Jegulus coded it hurts. This is also my first Jegulus fic so I hope it’s good! Lots of love <333

February 07, 1978

I've got a girl crush.

I hate to admit it but…I got a heart rush and it’s not slowing down.

It’s been 9 months since we broke up, and 3 since you got together with her. So you think I’d be over it all by now. But every time I see her, I feel my heart quicken. Not out of love, no. But of jealousy. My heart is green and my stomach aches from how it longs every time I see her- Lily Evans.

I wish I could say that I hate her, because rage is much more digestible. But I can’t. I can’t hate her, and I can’t hate you. There’s no one to blame but myself for everything.

I understand why you left.

I mean, I get it. There’s me…and then, well, there’s her. The Death Eater vs. a Flower. The choice is painfully obvious. And while you may be an idiot, you’re far from stupid. I know she’s the right choice, and I think you know it too. And that’s why

I got it real bad and want everything she has- that smile and that midnight laugh, she's givin' you now.

I can remember it clear as day, how Lily used to hate you. I remember when she’d deduct points for your uniform being messy, or scold you after another one of your many pranks. Anytime she looked your way, she’d roll her eyes a little and grimace. Anytime you were paired together for projects she’d groan and glare at the teacher. I remember it all too clearly. That’s why I also remember when everything started to change. When you came back this year, for your seventh year, you were different. More…grown up I suppose. Maybe it was the war…maybe it was our breakup…or maybe it was your parents getting sick…but you had changed. There was a little less pep in your step, less of your loud laughter in the hallways, and more solemnity in your eyes and tension in your posture. You became Head Boy, to everyone’s surprise, but to Lily’s the most. Maybe it was your sudden forced proximity, or your new maturity, or even the fact that you had become more handsome than the year before (not that I thought that was possible), that made her opinion change of you. Slowly, I watched how her scolding turned to teasing, her stares turned fond, and how she began to laugh at your jokes. Maybe it’s because I was once the recipient of your affection that I noticed your growing attraction to the redhead…how you could often be caught just staring at Lily for long periods of time, not saying anything (even though you love to talk), how you started carrying her books as you walked to class together, and how you waved proudly at her when she started coming to your quidditch games.

When you two finally got together, everyone was shocked. I mean, Lily had always hated your guts, and now she was dating you?

But not me. No, I only knew it was a matter of time.

Watching you two together is more painful than I thought. Every time I see you with her, talking to her, holding her hand, kissing her…I am painfully overcome with a sense of deja vu.

But while the memories are there, your physical presence is gone.

Admittedly, I wanna taste her lips.

Her strawberry, freckled lips, so irresistible, that when she breaks away from your lips, I watch as you chase after hers, hungry for more.

With as much time as you spend chasing them, I know they taste like you.

The mintyness, due to all the tic tacs you eat, always worried you have bad breath.

How they’re always slightly chapped, because you chew on your bottom lip when you’re focused.

The vanilla chapstick you use because you like the way it tastes.

When I catch you kissing at a Ravenclaw party one time, I can’t help but notice how totally enraptured by Lily Evans you are.

The loud, upbeat music blasts through the cacophony of voices. Everyone is sweaty as they dance to the music, and the sickly, sweet buzz of booze vibrates through the student body. Horny teens grind on one another and laugh. But not you. No, you’re clung to her waist, seeming to move in slow motion. Your head is buried in her neck, your brain clouded by the warm vanilla scent that clings to her being.

Oh how I’d kill for you to do that to me. I want to drown myself in a bottle of her perfume, so that maybe you will.

I want her long red hair…

Hair that, when your hands are in it, make it seem as if you’re playing with fire. I notice how when you twist her hair into a braid under an oak tree on the grounds, or tug her pigtails in a teasing way she sighs or laughs, reveling in your touch as you braid and unbraid, over and over, mesmerized.

I want her magic touch.

A touch that is so addicting to you, I assume you two are glued together, the way you’re always touching her. A hand around her waist as you eat in the Great Hall. Your fingers intertwined and hands swinging as you stroll down the hallway. Her hand on your thigh as she takes notes in class. The playful fighting in the common room. When you lay in her lap as she combs through your hair, your eyes closed in content.

Yeah, 'cause maybe then, you'd want me just as much. I've got a girl crush.

Everyday as I look in the mirror I pick at more parts of myself. I remember how you used to love me so much. My pale skin and dark curls. My constant glower. How my hands were always cold. Seeing myself is a painful reminder that you don’t love these things anymore. That you don’t love me anymore. And it makes me wanna rip myself apart limb by limb. I wanna replace each part of myself with Lily Evans, til you love me wholly again.

I don't get no sleep. I don't get no peace. Thinkin' about her, under your bed sheets.

I don’t sleep much now. For a multitude of reasons, but one of the biggest being I’m not falling asleep in your arms anymore. The bed feels cold without you and the nightmares come much more easily now that you’re not there to fight them off. It’s oddly quiet, far too much for my liking, without your soft snores filling the air or unconscious contented sighs.

And I’m kept awake too by the thought that you probably hold her tight at night now, wrapped in her embrace.

Do your bed sheets still smell like me? Or has her flowery scent taken over? Does she have cold hands that soothe your always warm body? Or soft touches that lull you quickly to sleep?

The way that she's whisperin’…The way that she's pullin' you in. Lord knows I've tried, I can't get her off my mind.

Maybe Hogwarts is a small school, or maybe it’s the fact that I see you everywhere, figments of what was, that makes me so consumed by thoughts of you and of Lily. I’m sure I spend more of my days thinking about the redhead than not at this point. It’s become an obsession.

I’m not surprised you fell for her. She’s magnetic. I see the way she draws you in. I can’t escape her force either. But her pull on me is so strong I feel I could merge with her and become one.

I wanna taste her lips, 'cause they taste like you. I wanna drown myself in a bottle of her perfume. I want her long red hair. I want her magic touch. Yeah, 'cause maybe then you'd want me just as much.

Oh James Potter, how badly I want you.

Oh Lily Evans, how badly I want to be you.

I've got a girl crush. I hate to admit it but, I got a heart rush and it’s not slowin' down.

#marauders fanfiction #james potter x regulus black #jegulus #marauders fandom #the marauders era #james potter

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