#And I was able to buy a steam deck | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

conchcronch · 6 months

Text

Sword Swallower - Part 2

LA!BuggyxYou

You're left feeling confused, heartbroken, and needy but before you can go to port to 'blow off some steam' there's something nagging at you. And that something hasn't spoken to you since kissing you in front of the whole crew.

NSFW under cut.

Spotify Playlist for the Vibes

You hadn’t seen Buggy in almost two days. After he had left the party you had drunk everything in sight. Leading to a very hefty hangover the following day. Thankfully for you, and most of the other crew, Buggy had deemed the day at sea as a rest day, something that he did as an unspoken praise to the crew for a raid well done. You had spent about 90% of that rest day heaving over the side of the ship, unable to keep any food down.

Thankfully that was a few days ago and today you were feeling better, still only able to keep small things down and even the smell of beer caused you to gag. You had spent the better half of the day preparing the ship to be docked at a pirate island to restock and gather information, also giving the crew some time on land to blow off steam as they put it.

You had been feeling antsy since that kiss, taking any opportunity to try to satiate your sexual urges yourself. But by the third underwhelming orgasm in the shower you realized you were probably going to have to join the crew at port and find someone who can help you out.

You threw on a pair of plain black underwear, with a matching bralette, something easy to take off and throw back on to avoid that awkward post sex dynamic. On top of that you pulled on a long black flowy skirt and a black and white striped tank top, carrying your boots with you as you headed out to the deck. The sun was just beginning to dip, and the air was cooler than you expected. Just as you were about to climb the ladder to the dock you threw a look over your shoulder and noticed a light coming from the captain’s quarters.

Something tugged at you, telling you you should at least go tell him you’re popping out for a bit. Even though he had been held up there since the party, not even coming out for meals and specifically requesting Cabaji bring him food. You drop your boots on the deck and pad to his door, knocking and half expecting him not to answer.

To your surprise, the door is pulled open by a detached hand, retracting back to the wrist of its owner without so much as a glance in your direction. You step inside his office, closing the door with your foot and taking him in. You missed him, you weren’t going to tell him that but the sight of him felt the same as seeing land for the first time after weeks on the sea. His jacket and hat were thrown on a chair in the corner of the room leaving him in his striped vest, gloves and his hair was tied up in a loose, low bun.

You catch him glance up at you through his lashes before turning his focus back to the map he has covering his desk, a compass and a sexton sitting within reach. The silence stretches around you, making you fidget in the doorway. You walk towards him, leaning over the map to try and see the cluster of islands he’s got his eyes locked on. “Can you move those, they’re blocking my map,” He makes a swiping motion at your chest that had spilled a touch and was blocking a few of the islands he was looking at. You laugh, standing up so you’re not blocking anything.

“I’ve barely seen you lately. '' You say, crossing your arms over your chest.

“Someone has to get shit done on this ship.” He doesn’t look up at you.

“Nope, I’m not buying that,” You shake your head even though he’s not looking at you.

“Don’t care if you do or not.”

“Something’s got you acting weird.”

“Maybe it’s the fact I can’t get any peace and quiet ‘round here, ever think of that?”

“I don’t think that’s it,” You walk around the desk, wanting to get close to him, hoping you can read his vibe.

“I think I know what it is,” You stare at him, studying his every move. The way his gaze flicks from the compass to the cluster of islands, how his gloved finger tries to map a path from where you are to where you’re going, the way his biceps tense and relax as he shifts his weight.

“Don’t care.”

“We never talked about the other night.” If you hadn’t been watching him so intently you would have missed it. The way his whole body freezes for half a second before shifting his weight onto his hands that are planted firmly on the desk, his fingers digging into the wood just a bit more than before. You can see his painted jaw tighten and untighten, something you know he does when he’s thinking harder than normal.

“Didn’t think you’d want to, or that you’d even remember.” His words are cold, you’d only ever heard this tone when he brings up Shanks.

“Why wouldn’t I want to?”

“Dunno.’” He shrugs, eyes practically boring a hole through the map. “Didn’t want it to change things.” For a moment you let the words hang there. Let them solidify between the two of you. You nod, taking the statement in, accepting it. You wouldn’t risk your friendship over anything. You had been traveling together for years, bickering at each other like an old married couple but never crossing the unspoken line. Always returning to your own beds after nights of deep conversations when no one else was around, kisses only ever lasting a second and exclusively on noses, hands and cheeks. Anything more would be too intimate. Sure you thought he was handsome, he was practically oozing charisma. But you never let that thought linger, worried you would allow your attraction to evolve into something more. You’d be lying if you hadn’t thought about how much easier it would be if you could just come to him rather than having to find someone at a port when your fingers are no longer enough to satisfy you. But you weren’t going to cross that line…you weren’t…

You force a smile, sling an arm around his neck and pull him close as you look down at his map. You feel him relax into your embrace, pulling the compass closer to him before he gives you a side glance. “Your big head is blocking my light,” His tone’s lighter than before.

“You’re very boring, you know, I came to you for entertainment and this is all I get?”

“You have an uncanny ability to bother me whenever I’m trying to do something.” You let your arm slip from his shoulder and you step around to the side of the desk so you can watch him,

“Come on, can’t this wait?” You pop up onto the edge of his desk, kicking your feet.

“Go bother someone else.” You grab your chest, wheezing out a gasp,

“Oh captain,” before laying back across the whole map, “you wound me so! I could be out on the town but instead I chose to come and spend my day with my very favourite clown on the high seas!” You grin up at him, seeing the corner of his lip upturned,

“We both know your ego is too big to be hurt by that,” He smiles with an eye roll. “But unless you want to stay at this port forever, I gotta figure out where we’re going next.” You gracefully roll off the desk, landing on the balls of your feet before shrugging at him,

“Guess I’ll just go to port early,” You say, smoothing down your skirt before turning and reaching for the door knob. You heard him scoff, almost as though he didn’t actually expect you to leave.

“You never go to port.”

“I go sometimes,” You say, looking over your shoulder at him.

“Not without me,” He’s looking up at you, still bent over his desk, a piece of hair dangling in front of his face.

“I just got something I gotta’ do,” You look away from him, knowing if you held his gaze much longer he’d know you were up to something. That was the only downside to being so close to him for so many years, he could read you like a book.

“Like?” You stay silent, hoping he’ll grow bored of this conversation and wave you off to go find someone in a tavern who can at least make you cum. “Oh hoho!” He almost giggled “Now I have to know!” You turn to face him, refusing to meet his gaze, opting to look everywhere else but him. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you like this,” He brings a hand to his chin, his eyes scanning you up and down. “Should I just start guessing?” You shift your weight from side to side, your skin feeling weirdly tight all of a sudden. You know your cheeks are burning and the longer you go without looking at him the guiltier you look.

“C’mon, don’t make me say it.” You finally meet his gaze through your eyelashes and watch the realization hit him.

“Oh…OOOOOOHHHHH!” His cheeks rouge and he looks away from you, rubbing his hand across his face. “Didn’t realize you…did that…” You can even see the tips of his ears are red.

“Have sex? Ya Buggy, most adults do. Only so long I can avoid it before it gets distracting.” You turn around, deciding this is more than enough embarrassment to last you a lifetime, you grab the knob and just before you can pull it over you hear him speak, his voice softer, more delicate.

“You know, I can always…” He trails off, probably hoping you can fill in the words he doesn’t want to say. You let go of the knob and turn back around to see him staring holes into his desk, his hands in tight fists on the map.

“Always… what?” You walk closer to him until you're across the desk from him. You bend down, trying to catch his eye line but he purposely avoids it by looking down at the forgotten compass. When he doesn’t look up at you or make any signs that he’s planning on finishing that sentence you reach out, tucking that piece of hair behind his ear, racking your nails behind his ear, the tips of your finger grazing his pierced lobe. You watched as a shiver passed through him before he was able to hide it.

“Forget I said anything.” He sighs heavily, “Go off and find some crab addled sailor.” He waves his hand at you, trying to shoo you away, “Have fun.” He’s trying to resume his jovial tone but you can hear it crack, which churns your stomach.

“What if I don’t want to forget what you said?” You snatch the compass just as he goes to pick it up and resume his charting.

“God, you’re a pain in the ass!” He finally looks and you smile at him.

“That may be, but you didn’t answer my question.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” He says calmly, sitting in his neglected desk chair. “You’re probably still hung over from the other night.” He pulls open one of the desk drawers and starts digging around in it, probably looking for a backup compass since you still have his in your hand.

“Come on Buggy,” you walk around his desk, grabbing the back of his chair and jerking it to face you, you lean it close to him, your forehead almost touching his. “I just want to hear you say it.”

“Are you just trying to make me look like a fool?” He accuses, browns knit together and a hard frown on his lips.

“Bugs, I’m being serious,” You reach out and touch that piece of hair behind his ear, “I just want to hear you say it.” His head drops so he’s looking down at his lap, your hand on his shoulder.

“If you wanted, I could…we could always…ha…have sex…just to avoid outside people, no strings just fun,” He roughly rubs the back of his neck, surely leaving red irritated skin.

“That’s quite the proposition, Captain.” You lean forward, pulling his chin up with a finger, smiling at him for a second before closing the space between your lips and his.

You had exchanged small pecks over the years in times of stress or drunken excitement, but never before had your lips slotted together in such a perfect way. His hands immediately found your hips as his mouth opens with a small moan, your tongue sliding along his. You can feel him very gently lead you forward, slowly inviting you to straddle his lap. Your knees fitting perfectly on either side of his thighs as your fingers tangle themselves in the hair at his neck. His hands move from your hips to your long skirt that’s constraining your thighs, pushing it up just high enough you can move freely without the chiffon digging into your thighs. His hands drag out from your thighs to the bottom of your tank top, pulling it up over your head, your lips parting for just long enough to get the shirt over your head and tossed somewhere else in the office. He pulls his lips away from yours, a small whimper leaving your lips before you can stop it.

“Damn,” He breathes out, barely loud enough for you to catch it as he looks at you. You were only wearing that simple bralette that did your chest very few favours. The longer he stares the more you want to make excuses about your choice in underwear, you bring your arms up to cover yourself.

“If I had known it was going to be you seeing me, I would have worn something nicer,” His hands come up to your arms, gently pushing them away.

Without realizing it, you relax your thighs that were growing a bit sore from holding yourself up in such an awkward position. Your full weight falling on his lap, feeling his bulge right against your wet core, only a few layers of fabric were separating you. His head leaned back a bit and a breathy moan fell from his open mouth. When he is composed enough to look back at you – his eyes lidded and full of lust – you reach behind you, unclasping your bra and letting it slip off your arms and onto the ground next to you.

“Holy shit,” He breathes, eyes glued to the small silver barbells that accent each of your nipples, catching the light in such a way that he swears they sparkle.

“Don’t start, I was 18 and felt rebellious,” You try to stop the jokes before they start but they never come. For once in all the years of knowing Buggy, the Flashy Fool, the Genius Jester, he was at a loss for words.

“Stop staring.” You’re suddenly very aware of your lack of clothes in comparison to him.

He blinks a few times, before pulling his gloves off and dropping them on the ground. You furrow your brow, trying to think if you’ve ever seen him without his token white gloves. Without much thought you grab his bare hand as he’s pulling his second glove off, looking at his black painted nails and feeling his calloused hands. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you without your gloves on,” After allowing you to inspect every part of his hand he reaches forward and cups your cheek, you allow yourself to push your face into his touch, looking up at him to see a gentle smile on his lips. You were both thinking the same thing, how nice it was to finally cross that line. He draws you in, kissing you softly, his hand moving to the back of your head to tangle his fingers in your mused hair. You break apart but just enough that he can speak, “Wanna’ move to my bed?” You nod but back peddle as you remember something.

“Do you mind if I shower first?” He nods, smiling that familiar smile.

“You’re telling me, you were going out planning to get laid and you didn’t shower? That’s gross, doll.” He helps you get up before adjusting himself so his aching erection isn’t quite as apparent, but it’s still very apparent. He stands up, looking you up and down before starting to roll the long forgotten map on his desk.

“I did shower, thank you very much! But it’s different when I’m with someone I actually care about.” You see him pause for a second before continuing to roll the map up and slip it into its bronze tube.

“Aw, I’m flattered,” He puts the tube into a locked chest next to his desk, your eyes trained on his every movement. “You can use my bathroom, if you want?” He says, going about cleaning his office as you stand there leaning against his desk, still topless.

“Now I’m the one who’s flattered. You don’t let anyone use that, I don’t think I’ve even seen it in all my years here.”

“Better get used to it ‘cuz you’re not using the crew shower anymore,” He says, seemingly pleased with his office and turning to you.

“What?” He clears the space between the two of you in a few steps before he pulls you close to him, his hands sliding up your sides, his thumbs grazing your nipples making you all but whine wishing he would give you more.

“I don’t want anyone else to see you like this,” He puts two fingers on either side of one of your barbells and tugs, forcing a breathy moan from your lips before you could stop it. His eyes meet yours and you can tell that for once he’s being serious. All you can do is nod, loving the way he’s seemingly possessive of you now.

He ducks his head just low enough to make you think he’s going in for a kiss but just as your eyes flutter closed his lips graze your’s before pulling away, an embarrassing whine leaving your throat. Your eyes open to see him smirking, which only widens when you grab the front of his vest and yank him down, hoping he’d get the message. But he expertly dodged your lips aiming for your neck instead, his lips latching onto your exposed skin, surely leaving a trail of hickies and red grease paint. You couldn’t stop the moan as he nipped at the crook of your neck, his hands sliding down to grope the meat of your ass. As his lips and tongue glide along your neck and his hands explore your bare skin you find yourself melting into his grasp, barely able to think clearly enough to string words into coherent sentences. “B-Buggs,” He hums into your skin, you can feel how hard he is against you. You crave him in a way you’ve never experienced. You don’t want him, you need him. You’ll take anything he offers and still beg for more.

“Don’t you want to go shower?” He asks smugly, lips never leaving your body.

“I do,” His arms fall away from you, no longer keeping you from leaving and yet you make no move to leave.

“Then go,” His lips drag up your neck, until they finally meet your own for a quick peck before pulling back just enough that you lean forward in search of them, your eyes meeting his sea green gaze.

“I-I don’t want to.” He smiles before wrapping his arms back around your waist, pulling you flush against him, his bulge pressing into your bare stomach, the heat radiating through his pants.

“Then don’t.” His words are simple and in that moment you know you’re caught. You lean forward enough to press your lips against his, feeling your lips become stained with his. A laugh barely leaves his throat as your hands greedily claw at his vest, trying to get any sort of contact as you nip at his lips until he parts them. In most circumstances you’d be embarrassed by the level of neediness in this kiss, but with Buggy you couldn’t care less. All you knew was that you had to have more of him.

It takes all your strength to pull away from his lips and push him back, hearing him groan a bit. But before he can complain more, you drop to your knees, guiding him to lean against the desk for extra support. You work his button and fly open, pulling his pants and boxers down just enough that you can fish out his cock. You had always avoided thinking about how big he could be, feeling like it was crossing a line and knowing that once you thought about it, it would plague your mind more than you were willing to admit to yourself. So you just avoided it.

But now that it was in front of you, you were forced to admit that you knew it was going to be big, but not like this. Buggy couldn’t help but smile as you wordlessly stared at his cock, and just as he was about to crack a joke it died in his throat as you licked a long strip along the underside from base to tip. You encircled the head in your mouth, sucking on it hard and smiling to yourself as you felt his hips jerk from the sudden overwhelming pleasure. You flick your gaze up to him to see his hands are on the desk, supporting himself, his head lolled back as you slowly take more of him into your mouth. Once you find your rhythm you bob your head, beginning to let your hands wander in hopes of getting him to be more vocal. Your hands slide up his covered thighs until they reach the warm bare skin of his lower stomach, slipping further under his vest then around to his lower back, dragging your nails along his skin. He isn’t even looking at you.

You pull off, gaining a whine from him but he still doesn’t look at you. “I want you to look at me, Bugs,” You say, dragging your mouth along the side of his shaft, sloppily licking as you go.

“Don’t wanna-’” You pull back completely, shrugging even though he’s not looking at you.

“Guess I’ll just stop then.” He whines out a no, jerking his hips forward a bit. He finally looks down at you and you can see his painted smile is smeared all over. “I don’t want you to take your eyes off of me.”

“I won’t last,” He drags a hand over his face, smudging his makeup even more.

“Then don’t.” You watch him huff out a sorry excuse of a laugh at you using his own comeback against him. His hand reaches forward, carding through your hair before grabbing a handful, pulling a moan from your lips.

You watch his erection jump in your grasp, your grip on the base tightening before licking a long and painfully slow strip along the underside, playfully flicking your tongue on the head, all the while staring at him. You see his Adam’s apple bob as he swallows hard, his jaw clenching and unclenching when you repeat the action.

“Buggs,” You whine, stroking his member slowly as you lick the head of his cock, repeating yourself when he doesn’t look at you. “Buggs, please.” You had never acted like this for anyone before, you’re sure you’ll overanalyze it later but all you could think about in this moment was how badly you needed him. “I need you,” Breathing deeply through your nose you swallowed as much of him as you could, pausing about half way to inhale again before pushing yourself to take all of him. Your eyes squeeze shut for a moment, just long enough to force your focus away from gagging and back to him, opening your eyes again to finally meet his. This gave you the fuel you didn’t even know you needed. Pulling off of him, the head of his cock resting heavy on your tongue before you swallowed him again, nose nestled in his neat blue curls. You pulled back but not off, deep throating him again, your heart pounding as a deep groan blesses your ears.

Before you can even start to pull off of him again you feel his detached hand leave your hair. He drags the tips of his fingers along your bare back, running along your hip before ducking under you to touch your belly just before you feel the fabric of your skirt getting tugged around. You pull off his cock as both your hands grab his just as it was pulling your panties to the side.

“Why,” Is all he says, his cock twitching at the sight of you half naked and kneeling between his legs.

“I…” Your cheeks burn hotter than they had this entire exchange. “I haven’t shaved in a few days…” Your grip on his hand loosens enough that he can squirm out of your clasped hands and it flies up to pull your chin up and force you to meet his eyes.

“Is that why you wanted to wait?” His voice is almost breathless, his lips parting and you can just barely see his tongue dart out from between his teeth as you nod. “Seriously?”

“Normally all I’m looking for is just a fuck, and not a fuck with my captain!” He starts to laugh, tossing his head back and grabbing his stomach. You grab the hand from your chin and throw it at him, standing up.

“Don’t be a dick!” He grabs his hand, gently leading it to his wrist before dramatically wiping fake tears from the corner of his eyes.

“You’re just so cute.”

“Oh, fuck off.” You start looking around for your tank top, doing anything to avoid looking at him. Before you can peek around his desk you hear his chair scrap against the floor and feel both his hands grabbing your waist, he presses his body against your back, feeling his warm breath on your neck as he speaks.

“I couldn’t give a shit if you shaved or not,” He presses open mouth kisses from the crook of your neck to just behind your ear. You could hear just the faintest snicker when you lean into him more, allowing him to hold you up when your knees falter. He takes his chance, leading you into the chair he was just sitting in and crouching between your knees like you had been just a few minutes ago.

He pushes your skirt up to your waist, sucking in a breath when he finally gets a glimpse of your plain black panties. It takes a lot of his self restraint not to comment on how boring those are, but he knows one more joke could be the difference between sex and no sex so the the joke dies in his throat. He glances up at you, waiting for you to give him permission. “Fine.” You say, looking away from him but scooting your butt forward on the chair to make it easier for him.

He runs his thumb over the fabric, humming as he feels the dampness against his skin. “God, I can’t wait to hear you moan my name,” He says, surprisingly without a shit eating grin. He applies just enough pressure on your covered clit for you to whine, bucking your hips up wordlessly trying to tell him to hurry up. With both hands he slowly pulls your panties off, tossing them over his shoulder before leaning forward, his nose nudging your clit in the perfect way, earning him a breathy moan from you already. “You’re so wet,” You can feel his breath on your core, and before you can say anything he licks a long strip along you, flicking the tip of his tongue against your clit before watching as he slips his middle finger into you, his other hand grabbing your leg and guiding it over his shoulder allowing him to get closer.

Almost on instinct you tangle your fingers in his long hair, not moving him but silently encouraging him. He begins to obscenely lick at you, moaning as he stretches you out with one finger, then two, then slowly three.

You had never really thought about what Buggy would be like in any sexual situation, but you definitely had never thought about how his nose would nudge your clit in the best possible way, or how easy his hair would be to grab or how perfectly he would fit between your legs while being held in place by your thighs. “Wouldn’t it-“ He pulls his mouth away, still roughly fucking you with his fingers while now smiling up at you, “wouldn’t it be so funny if I stopped?”

“If you stop,” You whined as he flicked your bundle of nerve endings with his long tongue as you spoke. “If you stop I swear to god I'll never swallow another sword on your stage ever again.” You ball his hair in one hand, shoving him back down where he immediately went to town on you, you could feel him say something against you but you were so crazily close you couldn’t give a shit about some joke about swallowing his sword he couldn’t resist saying.

The wave of climax crashes into you so hard you can’t even consider controlling your moan. Your thighs lock around his head, your fingers contract roughly pulling at his blue strands harshly as you moan out his name accompanied by a string of profanities. He slows his minstraction but doesn’t stop until your body goes limp against your control and your vision spots. You barely register him moving from between your legs while peppering the insides of your thighs as you come down.

“Fuck,” You huff out, he has his gaze trained on your every breath, his chin glistening and his makeup smudged. “This is already better than anyone I’ve found at any port.” You push your hand through your surly wild hair as you tuck your legs in front of you. He sits back on his ass on the floor, wiping his face on the back of his hand,

”Glad I could help.” He pushes himself up, adjusting himself in his pants as he leans back against his desk. “So,” He looks down at his boots as though they’re the most interesting thing he’s seen all day. Clearly trying to act nonchalant. “Did you still wanna’?” You were surprised he managed to ask that without a waggle of his brows.

“Of course I do,” You wrap your arms around your legs, bringing them against your bare chest as if you were attempting to have some decency but you could tell by the way his eyes scan your legs that there’s no point.

“Wanna’ head to my room then?” He starts looking around for his discarded vest, clearly not wanting to walk across the ship in only his tented pants.

“God, yes,” The words left you the way air leaves your lungs after holding your breath.

#buggy smut #buggy x reader #buggy x you #buggy the clown #buggy one piece #one piece smut #one piece x reader

84 notes · View notes

annakie · 4 months

Text

I do not, in fact, have the power.

You may have heard there were pretty bad storms that camd through Dallas Tuesday morning.

I haven't had power until about two and a half hours ago... about 125 hours.

Warning: Very, very long.

TUESDAY

First of all, I was dumb. I was real dumb. I got woken up by the cats and a neighbor's dog at about 5am Tuesday morning, but I mean, that's not unusual. I came out to the office, did a little gaming, and was going to head back to bed around 6.

I heard a little thunder when I was about to head back, and then the warning sirens going off.

I checked text messages/phone calls/emails for any of the THREE weather warning services I use to see if I'd missed any notifications. I hadn't.

I then pulled up the actual weather report just as the winds really started slamming into my area.

A minute or two later, when it was already hitting in force, I started getting notifications. I peeked out a window and holy shit.

I grabbed Fry and threw him in the hall bath. Pemily figured out something was up and ran under the couch. I spent the next like two minutes trying to get to her. Just as I grabbed and started lifting her, the lights flickered, then went out. Plunged into total darkness.

I managed to grab her and my phone... and then in trying to get us INTO the hall bath, in the pitch black, Fry got out. And when I tried to get him to come in, Pemily almost got out and... I settled on hoping he'd run under a bed or do something safe because I could only get one or the other in there. The wind was RAGING and the house was creaking a little. I heard cracks and booms booms that weren't thunder.

I was seriously scared that the roof would fly off. It's old, and was going to need replacing soon anyway.

And there I was in PJs and no shoes with just a cat and a phone in the bathroom. Not exactly the model of preparedness.

After awhile, the wind subsided. I crept out of the bathroom and looked through a few windows. I used my phone flashlight to look for ceiling damage/water and thankfully saw none.

After a bit I put on jeans and shoes and went outside.

Tons of shingles all of my yard from my house.

Then looking up... the one remaining tree in my yard was uh... angled. Greatly. Resting on the chain link fence between me and my neighbhors yard. It had taken down a big branch on one of their trees and... oh great.. the top branches were tangled in the power wires.

In addition to this, I had a couple of lines yanked partially from my house and laying across my yard, with some of it still attached to my house.

My neighbors across the street had their big tree in their front yard laying into the street and covering one of their cars that they street park.

I texted/checked in with my neighbors, and everyone was OK. I put in a ticket with my city's utility company, though that took about a half hour to get through. I logged onto Teams on my phone and told my bosses and team what happened and sent pictures. I expected it might be awhile til I got power back.

I would have no idea how long that would be.

I contacted my handyman and he said he'd be able to get some guys to help with the tree when it was safe to do so.

I'd needed a plumber to come out for a couple of days and confirmed with them that they can't come out til we have power.

I texted the roofer my parents had used a year or two ago and he said he'd be out the next day to take a look.

Annnnd... then I waited. Ate some protein bars, didn't open the fridge. Internet sucked so I played on my Steam Deck some.

After the Great Freeze of 2021 I'd done some stuff to be more disaster prepared including buying a 500w high capacity rechargable battery, some LED headlamps, an extra phone charger, etc. I could run a small hotplate that I bought off of the big battery and recharge most anything.

Day one passed, the 5G was terrible on my phone since everyone was using it, but that's fine, still no power. Our city utilities has a power outage map that I started refreshing nigh constantly. I started playing Hades on my Steam Deck and sat outside for awhile..

Eventually it was bedtime. It wasn't too bad, though I missed my white noise. Kept the spare bedroom window open for air and got through it.

WEDNESDAY

Day two the 5G was better. I spent a lot of the time sitting outside letting my big battery recharge via solar panel.

I felt pretty genius for thinking that far ahead. It worked pretty well. Played more Hades, the roofer came and evaluated things. Helped me file a claim with my insurance.

I started trying to figure out a solution for the two lines laying in my yard, still attached to the house.

Eric helped me figure out via pictures that they were old telephone and internet lines and were no longer in use. I called the power company, they said they didn't own them and couldn't touch them.

So I called an electrician to come out and take a look. He wouldn't get there til Friday.

The other thing that happened Wednesday was that... during the storm my cattycorner-alley neighbor's fence blew completely down in the storm. And then... he just left it there.

Look, my tree was half blocking the alley, but I was told by the city not to touch it. But like... this guy's fence was laid out in the near-center of the alley. and he Did Not Care to move it I guess. Like my dude, take some pictures for insurance and then stop blocking shit. You Could drive around/next to my tree OK, it was very difficult to ignore his fence. You can kinda see it in the solar panel pic a little bit above.

There are only 2 or 3 houses that use that alley, I had driven down it maybe once or twice in the 21 years I've owned this house, but those couple of houses NEEDED IT for access.

So like, the white truck that I most often see driving by it stopped on Wednesday night, and just picked up this dude's fence and moved it himself. And he was not gentle. There was wood cracking and the fence was pretty much non-functional.

I was outside for the whole thing and heard the homeowner come out and start yelling at him.

My next-door neighbors had their generator going and it was kinda far away (and in Spanish which, well, I am not so good at anymore) but the argument was pretty clear.

Bonus appearance in the pic by my feral friend Peter.

About ten minutes later... they were laughing and slapping each other on the back. I had to leave before it was all over but it was an entertaining few minutes.

That night I went to my buddy Eric's place. He let me store my meds in his fridge, throw a protein shake in there to cool as well. He let me leave my Steam Deck charger there to charge and lent me his phone charger.

I stopped and got fast food for the first time in awhile on the way home. Grilled chicken, but still. I was tired of plain Protein food.

THURSDAY

Thursday it was overcast. But it looked like a HUGE number of people had gotten power back in the last two days so I was hopeful.

Got some well wishes and funny memes in Teams when I didn't make our Thursday staff meeting.

And then it started raining at 10 and didn't stop til 4.

Not a lot got done that day. From the city or from me. There wasn't much to do. I mostly sat/laid in bed. Played Hades a little, but mostly scrolled Reddit and checked my city's Twitter.

Two great things happened not long after though. First, my boss told me that he and his boss had talked and told me not to put in PTO for this week. It was out of my hands, they didn't want me to stress about it. I just got the week for free. I love a lot of things about my job, tbh.

I'll be honest, I'd started feeling pretty low that day as the rain went on and I knew that not much was getting done in the city. Most people who live here have municipal power, including me, so I just kept refreshing the map and taking screenshots two or three times day so I could see progress. I cried when my boss told me that, it was so kind and such a relief.

And then, an hour or so later, the Conviction happened, 34 for 45... it turned out to be a pretty great day after all.

And our across the street neighbors got their power on Thursday night! I was very happy for them, but sad ours didn't come with it. I knew for sure the Tree was the problem.

On the way to Eric's I saw work trucks in my neighborhood for the first time. I took pictures and texted both sides of my next-door neighbors. They didn't come to my house, though.

I left my big battery at Eric's overnight to charge since it couldn't solar charge. I also went to Sonic and got a Big Bag of Ice and a little food I did not enjoy. But the ice kept the freezer at refrigerator temperatures and I filled all my smaller thermal mugs with ice, so I had cold water with no worries from then on out.

By then I'd maxed out my Data plan for the month and the rest of the data would be free, 5G was working great by then, so I just watched the Taskmaster Season Finale and TMAustralia S2 E2... ending the night on a high note.

Until it rained for several hours at night and my across-the-alley neighbor let their dog bark for two hours straight because its terrified of lightning.

FRIDAY

Surely, I thought, today would be the day.

I was wrong.

Anyway, Friday I had an electrician out to the house. The city twitter said that if there was damage to the meter, that we had to get that fixed first. I had also been hoping he could help fix the two downed cable/phone lines running through my yard and all yanked out at the house.

First, he said that my power lines are completely fine. He also took a look at my neighbors who's yard my tree is in and he said theirs are fine, too. He also said he couldn't help with the lines, but to call my phone company. I've literally never had a landline, at this house, he said to try Verizon since they serviced the area when I bought the house.

Kindly, since he did no actual work and said I had enough to deal with, he didn't charge me. I plan on giving him some work later, anyway.

Called Verizon, they no longer operate in Texas.

I called my current internet provider, they have someone coming out this Wednesday, hopefully they can fix them. And by fix I mean just remove completely.

It's a mess. And still Like That.

Well that was a project that took like half the day. At least it was something to do.

When he left, I went to Eric's and spent about an hour working. Convenient since Eric and I work at the same place. We've worked together at four jobs since 2020. Basically my career path is "Eric finds job, Eric convinces people to hire Tori". We met at the first job in 2020. He left in 2006, I stayed. In 2012 he got me a job that we were both at from 2012 to 2018. I had a job I got WITHOUT his help 2018 to 2020, and then he and our old boss got me a job where they were. Then Eric left job #3 and in 2023 got me to move over to where we are now. He also lives like a mile away.

So after working I got lunch, got to keep the leftovers in the freezer-fridge, and cleaned out the fridge a bit. I need to do more of that. It's super annoying because trash day is Tuesday and ours didn't get picked up on Storm Day Tuesday so now my trash can is very full and I don't feel like I can put any more fridge stuff in there. Bleh.

I truly cannot think of anything else that happened Friday. It was in the high 80's and I mostly just closed up the house early (because it's actually well insulated) and stayed in bed all day refreshing Reddit.

I went back to Eric's that night to swap batteries and grab a protein shake I'd put in his fridge and on the way out there were a ton of work trucks in our neighborhood. I took pics. I texted people, I showed Eric and his family, I was SO excited.

SATURDAY

SURELY, I thought, Saturday would be our day for power. The power outage map said all of the big outages were taken care of, there were just a couple of medium sized ones left and a bunch of small ones like ours... about 5 - 10 house outages. The nicer neighborhood to the west now had NO outages big or small, and there was ONE small outage in the north side of our neighborhood now (also nicer than our side. Hmmm...) THIS was surely OUR DAY.

I spent a couple of hours that day out of the house. I met my friend Stephen for lunch and to loan him a bunch of D&D stuff halfway between his house and mine.

When I left my house to meet him it just started raining.

I drove up to meet him in the rain. It rained the entire hour+ we were in the restaurant. It rained most of the way home.

Not much got done in the nearly 3 hours I was gone.

I got home and drove around the neighborhood when it hadn't been raining in awhile looking for work trucks and there were none.

I'd gotten like 4, maybe 5 hours of sleep every night that week.

I was hot, tired and exhausted. I felt very... done.

I looked for work trucks when I left to go to Eric's and only saw a couple of brush clearing trucks trimming trees in an area that had no outages.

I was tired, y'all. Real low energy when I got to Eric's. They were really nice to me.

I went home, got more Sonic ice and cried as I refilled the stuff in the freezer with it.

Pretended I felt fine when I gave my updates to friends and family that night and that all was well. Truly, I didn't feel all that well. And there was one friend kinda snarky, saying more or less that I was soft and asking why I didn't go to a hotel. I was just like... find me a nearby hotel where I can take my cats and OK. Maybe. I'd looked into a few. Then he wanted me to abandon my cats there and just go myself.

No, I don't think I'll do that. I wasn't even whining in that chat, just giving updates as to the power situation in the city and me specifically. Pretty rankled about that still.

But I didn't feel like arguing, I didn't feel like gaming. I just caught up on Hacks, glad that even after maxing out my data plan the free 5G was holding up well, and went to sleep right after.

ANNND I finally slept decently even though it was the hottest night yet (high 70s which still... wasn't bad.)

SUNDAY

Woke up around 8 and felt... better.

I just spent the morning in bed, not really hoping, watching the map, seeing that some of the outages near me had been resolved. Wondering if my job would be cool with me missing more work and now thinking about tethering my phone to my work laptop, or just seeing if I could work half the day at Eric's tomorrow.

And then around 11 I heard work trucks.

Not unusual, lots had driven by my house many times a day almost every day.

But these were close. And they stopped.

Hoping against hope I looked out my back door and... there they were.

The most beautiful thing I'd ever seen.

I put on shoes and went out to ask them if they needed anything from me. They said nope and that they'd have us back up soon. I thanked them from the bottom of my heart.

I went inside. Texted people. Cried a tiny bit in relief.

About twenty minutes later, I felt a cool breeze... and heard a buzzer going off.

Air conditioning and haha.. my stove timer. I turned it off then went back outside and thanked the workers again, sincerely. I wondered if they were just happy that they weren't being yelled at.

After getting my PC and internet back up and letting just about everyone know the situation, I headed to Eric's one last time to get my meds and shakes out of his fridge and give him his charger back.

It's over, here I am, sitting enjoying the full spoils of civilization again.

So here's a few lists.

Things I'm grateful for:

Eric & family, first and foremost. This would have been a lot rougher without having him to rely on for even the small stuff and he really helped keep my spirits up.

Honestly, the Tree situation could have been worse in SO many ways. It's something I'm still dealing with and will be for a couple of days -- the workers detangled the branches IN the wires but the rest of it is still there. But it fell on the shared fence and not into the alley, not onto the neighbor's shed, not on anyone's house or other people's property except that most of the tree is, ya know, IN their yard.

The roof looks ROUGH, there are a LOT of missing shingles and damage but it's still whole, as in, no leaks into my house. That is a FREAKING miracle to me. I've checked the ceilings and see no damage and I think by now I'd know. IDK if it'll withstand another storm like that but... it's fine for now.

I have good tradespeople who were helpful and I think will do a good job when I can employ them fully soon. My parents really liked the roofer and if my dad likes him, he's a good one.

My neighbors are being very kind and patient about the tree. I am of course going to take on all the expenses above what the insurance will pay for (and will be paying out of pocket for it and getting reimbursed for a lot of it.)

TBH I've been wanting to put up a sturdy wooden fence for as long as I've owned the house. Now I have a reason to and hopefully at least some seed money to do so from insurance.

The weather could have been a lot worse. At night it was in the low 70's most nights and stayed in the 70s until late morning almost every day. Today it's 86 out but overcast... this is the hottest day we've had I think. Maybe Wednesday it was like 88? But not that bad, for Texas this time of year. We could have done without the extra rain delays but... at least the temperature was decent most of the time.

Like I said earlier my house is well insulated so it never got too bad even on the hottest days. Later this week it's getting into the 90's though. Hopefully EVERYONE is back up by then.

I had plenty of nonperishable food and water to get me through the week if I wanted... and more. But honestly, gladder it didn't have to.

Lessons Learned:

Even when you look at the tree and think "Nah it's fine, it doesn't need to be trimmed this year." maybe think again. Of course... that no longer applies to me because I now have ZERO large trees on my property. When I bought the house I had... four. I'd like to plant another one where that one went down and one in my front yard to replace that one I had cut down several years ago but just... keep them relatively small this time.

Had to order batteries for the headlamp Friday. Keep more batteries in stock. The LED Headlamp is extremely useful and maybe I should order another one or two.

Keep rechargeables charged. I mean, I did well with that this time! Also I still have plenty of candles. Probably need another lighter.

I definitely needed to be more prepared at the very beginning. I didn't really take action when I heard the sirens go off for too long. I think I could have gotten both cats in the hall bath, clothes on, shoes on, supplies and a heavy blanket in the bath much sooner. In fact, I should keep some supplies under the cabinet in that bathroom in the future, and maybe a collapsible cage so I can get one cat secured while I go get the other one.

Stuff to do:

Call Plumber. The sewer situation isn't great but it's still moving. That just added to the stress this week but it was manageable.

Get garage door serviced. I didn't realize how much I needed to. My garage door is solid wood with real glass windows and it is FREAKING heavy. It's not bad when it's serviced and the springs are tight, but nigh impossible to open when it's not... and right now it's not. I can barely lift it. And now I can't get it back on the track to lift automatically.

Have already texted my handyman to take care of the tree, idk when he's coming though. May be a day or three =\ I don't love that.

Insurance called like Friday just to tell me they got my claim and are assigning an adjustor, but since my house is habitable and I'm not in immediate distress, I'm lower priority. I get it, but I don't love it because another bad storm and I may be in distress. But for now, just deal with all that.

I need to talk to my neighbors about the fact that I'm going to get a wood fence put up to replace our chain link one. It's time. They are lovely but I want the security of having my back yard fully fenced in. I've never done much with it back there and have shitty furniture because I'm like ehhhh.. it'll just get stolen if I put anything nice out there. I want the security and privacy of a full heavy fence. Gotta find someone to do that, too.

Get the electrician back to wire up the house for a generator.

Buy a generator (and gas cans) to run the fridge, an outlet for charging things, and either a window AC unit or space heater depending on season. That's all I need.

Clean out the garage, for real. This might wait until fall when it's cooler out. I can park my car in it but it's otherwise filled with clothes and just... stuff. I need to do a major wardrobe purge soon anyway. Need someplace to store the generator that I can easily pull it out and get it to the porch next time this happens.

So yeah, there's still a lot of work to be done.

This week sucked, but also it coulda been much worse and I had a lot of people being very cool with and/or concerned about me and that made it a lot easier.

And now I'm tired of typing. I hope anyone who actually read all this had a much better week. :D

#personal post tag thingy #disaster preparedness

10 notes · View notes

cirilla-fiona-riannon · 1 year

Text

Secret in your Heart

These translations are not intended as a replacement for the game. Please support Cybird by buying their stories. Expect grammatical errors. Not 100% accurate.

Kate: "Here's today's report."

Victor: "Thank you, Kate. I received it as instructed."

Seeing Victor's smiling face didn't make my heart any lighter.

(Maybe it's because the mission I accompanied him on today was so gruesome. I should get back before I worry him.)

Kate: "Then, I一"

Victor: "Kate, I actually have a new magic trick I want you to see."

He cheerfully cut me mid-sentence, and I nodded.

Victor: "Really? Then, let me show you."

Victor: "Pay attention, okay? Here's an empty teacup."

Kate: "It's empty."

Victor: "Right? But when I hold out my hand like this..."

Victor: "Ta-daa! There's now a hot coffee inside!"

Victor's teacup was indeed steaming hot, but一

Kate: "Um. It's tea, not coffee."

Kate: "But it's still amazing!"

Victor: "Ah geez! I've made another mistake!"

No matter how many failed magic tricks he performed, Victor's cheerfulness still made me smile.

Kate: "Fufu. Can I have this? So it won't go to waste."

Victor: "Yeah, that would make me feel better."

As I sipped the warm tea, my heart felt a little relaxed.

(Speaking of which...)

Kate: "Why did you start doing magic tricks?"

Victor: "Hm?"

Kate: "I was just wondering if something triggered it."

Victor: "Yeah. Actually, Her Majesty was the trigger."

Victor: "When she had just ascended to the throne, she secretly visited the slums."

Victor: "I heard that Her Majesty decided to learn magic tricks to make one child there smile."

Victor: "Not sure if she was able to make that child smile, but she still does magic tricks from time to time."

Kate: "Why is that?"

Victor: "A country is made up of a group of people."

Victor: "She told me it was to help her remember how difficult and important it is to make one person smile."

Victor: "As her right-hand man, I, too, must not forget that. So, I do magic tricks to imitate her."

Victor: "Also, if I learn some magic tricks, I might be able to attract everyone in the crown and you!"

Victor: "I rarely talk about this stuff, so keep it a secret, okay?"

(I see, so she was the trigger.)

At that moment, a frustrating sadness welled up in my heart.

Victor: "Kate?"

Kate: "I was just feeling a little jealous."

Victor: "Jealous?"

Kate: "I'm always learning things from you."

Kate: "That's why I envy Her Majesty for teaching you something."

Kate: "Wait, it's disrespectful to have these feelings for the Queen."

Victor: ".........."

Victor: "Kate, you've taught me so much."

Kate: "----?"

Victor: "Cheerfulness, earnestness, diligence一"

Victor: "And the way you try not to let people know you're struggling after a tough mission."

(No way.)

(Did he see through all that?)

Smiling at my surprise, he offered me a set of cards.

Victor: "Now, here's a quick fix for that magic trick I did earlier. Draw a card from this deck of cards."

From the 52 cards lined up in his hand, I pulled one out, and the card I chose was一

Kate: "Ace of Hearts."

Victor: "Oh? I've got proof that you stole my heart."

As I grew even more surprised, his jewel-like eyes sparkled, and his mischievous and charming smile deepened, making it hard for me to resist.

(I wonder what kind of person does this guy love from the bottom of his heart?)

I started thinking about that.

Fin.

#ikemen villains #ikemen villain #ikevil victor #ikevil #cybird #ikevil translations

98 notes · View notes

chrisbitchtree · 1 year

Text

Feels Like Home

For Harringrove Flip It Reverse It - Day 2

Prompt - NSFW - Stripping

1k - G

***

Finally, after years of saving every penny they could, passing on nights out at the bar in favour of sharing a cheap sixpack of beer at home, only making the expensive trip back to Hawkins once a year, and working two jobs each, Steve as a receptionist at a dental office and a barista, and Billy a mechanic and bartender, they’d saved enough for their own little house near the ocean.

Saying house might be putting it too kindly, though. It was really more of a shack. Sturdy but tiny, one bedroom, a tiny kitchen and dining room combo, and a living room making up the whole place, sand dusted on every floor, the scent of sea salt filling the air. And horrific, 70s era wallpaper covering nearly every wall. It wasn’t ideal, but it was within their budget and allowed for easy access to surfing and swimming, so they gladly snatched it up.

***

They’d put in a lot of work over the past few months, refinishing the floors, replacing the rotting boards on the deck, and replacing the ancient, pea green toilet and tub, and now it was time for the final task: stripping the wallpaper so they could paint the walls in a rainbow of colours, from sky blue to sunshine yellow.

They’d rented a contraption that promised to steam the wallpaper off almost instantly, but neither had any clue how to use it, and it wasn’t going well. Billy’s curls were a wild mess because Steve kept accidentally aiming the steam at him, the few times they could magically get any steam to come out at all, and Steve’s face was bright red from a mixture of embarrassment and frustration from not being able to figure out this seemingly simple task, even after the clerk at the paint shop had given him a demo.

Billy had unfortunately had to miss out on the demo due to work. He was always the handier of the two, but he had to rely on Steve’s memory and an instruction manual that left a lot to be desired in terms of detailed descriptions of the steps to get him through. They had always made a concerted effort to not raise their voices at each other, but they were not successful that day.

“How can you not remember, Steve? You said the guy showed you how to do it, like three times! Is it not this button?”

“Which button?” Steve shouted.

This button! This button, Steve!” He jammed his thick finger into one of the three buttons on top. “The button I keep showing you! Is this the button?”

“That’s not the button you were pressing before!” Steve roared, dropping the nozzle and storming out of the room. He stepped into the bathroom, the only room with a lock, and sat on the lip of the tub, fuming.

It was just like Billy to pin this on Steve when he knew that Steve had a terrible memory. He should have gone to the paint shop instead of Steve, but he just had to work an extra couple hours of overtime, even though he’d promised Steve he’d slow down with it now that they’d bought the house.

They had both agreed that they’d cut back on their hours so they could enjoy being here together, but only Steve was keeping that promise so far, and it felt sometimes like he was doing all the heavy lifting on the new house himself.

Billy banged loudly on the door. “Steve, can you please come out here?” he called. “So we can talk about this like adults?”

“No,” Steve replied. “I need a minute to myself to calm down.”

“Ok,” Billy sighed. “Good. Take a minute to get your head out of your ass, then we can talk.”

Steve huffed an incredulous laugh. “Get my head out of my ass? How about you get your head out of your ass? If you hadn’t insisted on taking on that extra overtime, you could have been the one to go to the paint shop for the tutorial, and we wouldn’t be in this mess!”

“Well, I’m so sorry for trying to make some extra cash, Steve! Sue me for not wanting us to be poor!”

Steve stood, flicking the lock, and flinging the door open, standing face to face with Billy. “Money won’t buy us time together, Billy! It won’t buy us memories and happiness.”

It was Billy’s turn for his face to go red. “I know that asshole, but it can buy us a future. It can buy us safety. It can buy us financial security like I never had growing up. I want to take care of you, Steve. I love you so fucking much, and I want to give you the world. Is that so bad?” Tears were now leaking from the corners of his eyes, and Steve brought a hand up, trying to wipe them away.

Shit. He’d never thought of it like that before. He knew that he took for granted sometimes that he’d have his parents’ money to fall back on if things really got rough, so it had never truly occurred to him what money might mean to Billy.

He grabbed a tissue from the back of the toilet and handed it to Billy before pulling him to his chest and holding Billy tight in his arms. He rocked them softly, back and forth, shushing Billy as the tears continued to flow.

“Don’t cry, baby. I’m sorry. You’re just trying to take care of us. I know that now. I’m sorry that I didn’t see it before but thank you. You’re always looking out for me. For us. How about we just take another minute to calm down, then I’ll treat you to an ice cream cone, then we can go back to the paint shop to have them explain it again. Ok?”

Billy nodded, letting out a wet whimper.

Steve continued to hold him in his arms, running a soothing hand down his back. Fuck, he was lucky to have Billy, have him care so much. He made a silent promise to himself to let Billy know more often just how much he appreciated his love.

#harringrove #harringrove flip reverse it #flip reverse it 2023 #billy hargrove #steve harrington #billy x steve #harringrove fic #chrisbitchtree writes

46 notes · View notes

sylvyspritii · 9 months

Text

The Steam Deck

So i got the Steam Deck now, the cheapest one, and it's really fun It's particularly fun for indie games such as roguelites and tower defence games I've been particularly enjoying Hades, Kingdom: Two Crowns, and Dorfromantik But to my surprise, it was even able to run games like Mordor: Shadow of War at 60 FPS (albeit with some small hiccups when loading some stuff)

The Steam Deck is basically replacing my Nintendo Switch as my indie machine now, and the Steam sales (such as the winter sale right now) make buying games for it a lot easier It also comes with the benefit of having my 12 year PC backlog, for the most part, and let me tell you, it is really strange being able to play Sonic Adventure 2 on the go, i mean, that was my childhood game, and yet, this device can just...do it, it's nice, it's very versatile

#steam #steam deck #kingdom two crowns #hades #dorfromantik #indie #indie games #steam sale

13 notes · View notes

videogaems · 3 months

Text

Steam Next Fest - June 2024

Dungeons and Degenerate Gamblers It feels easy to say 'Balatro Clone'. BUT if you say that about this game, you are openly admitting that you only see playing cards and have no nuance, just like everyone said. Dungeons and Degenerate Gamblers (Or D&DG as I'm going to refer to it, to save my little fingies the typing) is a roguelike blackjack battler. Those words feel confusing to stitch together but just follow me.

You choose your suit (different suits have different abilities, and the game equates this to difficulty) and begin playing blackjack against an opponent. You are always able to see their cards, unlike regular blackjack, and whoever of the two players wins does damage to the other players health pool, amounting to the difference between your final hands. Going over 21 results in your hand value being reduced to zero, in which case be prepared to take 17 full points of damage to the face.

As you win against opponents, you will acquire new cards for your deck, much like Balatro. Your opponents will also be acquiring these cards, much unlike Balatro.

There is also a mechanic of some cards being manually 'Exploited' (Read as: Activated), but in order to Exploit a Card, you must have Advantage (Read as: Points). This isn't explained well in the game *at all* in my opinion, but as you can see I figured it out using my brain and eyes, much to my chagrin.

I don't think I'll be Wishlisting D&DG, but it does the thing I like: It's a weird spin on a concept you know. And it works! I'll be curious to see if this catches on with the Balatro crowd, but I will certainly recommend it to roguelike and deckbuilding fans.

Dungeon Clawler I won't lie, when I saw that this was a dungeon crawler where you play a crane game to fight people, I automatically assumed this was my shit. I will say that it's kind of my shit, but it's not as 'my shit' as I originally thought it would be. Gameplay is cool and straightforward, you get two chances per turn to drop a claw into a claw machine and pull out symbols. The symbols you pull out will have some kind of effect (swords do damage, shields block damage, etc). By winning fights, you amass coins and new symbols to add to your crain machine that have varying effects.

By and large, the game is a cool idea but I'm not wild about execution. Now, Baron Mind® that this game is still in development so the following critiques may not apply someday BUT:

The art style is that kind cel-drawn images squash and stretch to imply movement, but it ends up kind of looking chinsey. It was the first thing I noticed, but maybe that's just because of how offput I am by that artistic choice.

Second, a banger of a soundtrack, even if it is just a remix of the Type B song from Game Boy Tetris, it's pretty good. But, zero sound effects. None at all, which filled me with discontent. I'm seeing attacks, I'm getting shields, I need noise.

Again, probably not a Wishlist for me but good execution on a great idea.

Tactical Breach Wizards

This was probably the breakout hit for me this Next Fest, and I will absolutely buy this day one (And hope the demo works after the fest is over). The third in the Defenestration Trilogy by Tom Francis - Which also includes Heat Signature (maybe one of my favorite games of all time) and Gunpoint (A game that, years after it came out, I found out I have a friend whose brother did the music - small world).

In Tactical Breach Wizards, it is the modern world, but magic exists. You are a team of magic users who are also a SWAT team. And when I say SWAT, I want you to imagine all the straight-to-DVD action movies that are marketed to the people who are military nerds, but never actually joined the military - It's that. I mean, one character is effectively Gandalf in Desert Camo with an M14 that has a staff sticking out of it, another has a wand with a laser sight and a silencer. It whips ass.

Gameplay is a lot like XCom, with one cool feature being that your wizard can see one second into the future, so after finishing your turns, you can forsee how the enemy will react, and rewind your turn as far back as you like, as many times as you want in order to achieve your desired outcome.

Honestly, I could rave about this game for a while. The gameplay, the style, the writing, everything is just aces, and this immediately breached the door to my Steam wishlist and killed everyone inside. Can't wait for August.

Caravan Sandwitch

I was unsure how to feel about Caravan Sandwitch. You play a girl who is returning to her hometown after a long time away, and reuniting with friends while driving a van.

The art style? Fantastic. Really just an absolute dream to look at and play. The setting? Eh... Now, don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of games that don't hold your hand to explain the world lore, and just kind of let you figure it out through context. Caravan Sandwitch does try to do that, but it falls short, and you end up feeling like a third wheel to these characters, rather than being in the shoes of the character you're playing.

While you explore, the game will have pillows sitting about in hard-to-reach places that effectively serve as collectible lookout points, where your character will just chill and observe the surroundings. These moments are peaceful, and personally I'd love to see more games do something like this, in an effort to make the player really observe the effort put into the environment (A thing I fail to do often)

However, other than that, Caravan Sandwitch didn't really grip me and I probably won't keep up on it.

Dustborn

Another entry in forgettable-single-name-game-titles-that-are-portmanteaus. Dustborn has you follow a group of characters in a band, traveling across the country on a tour in an effort to get to Nova Scotia, which seems to be some kind of safe haven in a military-state America.

Again, the Art style in this game is fantastic, everything is very comic book stylized, even the button prompts, but the demo jumps between moments in the first couple hours of the game without giving you a lot of info as to what is going on. I was surprised when combat was introduced, and thrilled when it included a baseball bat that you can throw and retrieve like the Leviathan Axe in God of War. Well, not quite like the Leviathan Axe... it's posited that way, but ultimately ends up being a ranged attack that just automatically returns to you. Combat was very floaty and just didn't have that je-ne-sais-quois that makes combat feel good.

The game also contained a rhythm action sequence that was reminiscent of Gitaroo Man, another fave of mine, but that wasn't enough to make me want to follow up.

BUS: Bro U Survived

I dislike this game on name alone, and playing it didn't really help much. Points to it for having customization options to let me have a handlebar mustache, but this game just kind of boils down to a co-op zombie survival game in a cartoony style where you have to drive a bus sometimes. I only clocked 26 minutes in this game, and to be fair, I was playing solo (What, I'm supposed to make friends?), but this game didn't hold me for very long. Even as I write this I'm trying to remember much about it, and it just ended up being very forgettable.

Wizard of Legend 2

Hell yeah. HELL YEAH. I forget how I even found out about the original Wizard of Legend, but it's a fun roguelike that I recommend. I was unaware that a sequel was even in the works, so this was a delight to find out about, and an even bigger delight to play.

Players will play the role of a wizard attempting to complete a legendary challenge, with the idea that each run is a new wizard's attempt, since the last one died. Choose spells of different elements, speed, and power, and try to find combinations that mesh well together. I had a lot of fun using a wind vortex to pull all enemies to me, and then hitting the lot of them with chain lightning. Even for a demo, I could see myself sinking a lot of time into this (and I'm hoping it's still playable after Next Fest). This one makes the Wishlist for sure, and I'm looking forward to the release.

Aloft

I found Aloft very disappointing. Yet another first person crafting survival game with the hook being that eventually you make a glider that you can use to zip around the world.

The demo is in Alpha, as the devs will make known quickly, and the game made known to me quickly, since I encountered a bug early on that I had to visit the steam forums to make sense of. While going through the tutorial prompts, after collecting leaves and wood and shit like that, I was prompted to craft a Glider at the Glider station. Oh boy, it's finally my time to fly! But wait, I don't have a Glider Station. What's more, I can't build a Glider Station. Where is the Glider Station? Is this 'Glider Station' in the room with us right now?

Eventually I learned that this is a bug - the game is supposed to give you more prompts to guide you up the mountain in the game, where you will learn how to make the Glider station, and THEN you are supposed to get the prompt to build your glider. To drive that point forward: The. Tutorial. Is. Bugged. The thing that teaches you how to play the game does not work correctly. I know it's Alpha, and I know I don't make games, but this seems like such an oversight.

Finally, I made my Glider, and took off. It was... fine. The camera cuts to third person when this happens, but your character is so stiff and rigid flying around. It felt cool to zip around, but it didn't feel good if that makes any sense.

Maybe I'll circle back around on Aloft when it's in Beta or 1.0, but this just wasn't it for me.

Goblin Cleanup

But this was!!! Play as a goblin henchman whose job it is to clean up and reset all the traps in the dungeon before the next group of heroes arrive! For some reason, gamified mundane shit always gets me, and this game was no exception.

Goblin cleanup is almost beat-for-beat a reproduction of Viscera Cleanup Detail. Instead of a mop, you stab a slime and poke bloodstains with it until it soaks them all up (and dies?!). Instead of washing the mop, you feed the slime to a mimic, so on and so forth. Some improvements include:

Structure. You're given a list of tasks to complete, and they are checked off as you complete them. As a person with ADHD Inattentive Type, lists are key for me, so this was a big improvement over Viscera Cleanup Details approach of 'Clean until you're done and we'll tell you if you did good'. I'm neurodivergent with a praise kink, you've gotta tell me I'm doing good while I'm doing good.

Scanning. Hitting Q at any given point will highlight on your HUD where there are still items to be cleaned up. Massive improvement over Viscera Cleanup Detail, where you just have to kind of eyeball it.

I liked this! A lot! I could see myself buying this, or even just going back and trying to finish the level proper before NextFest is over.

Pawn Planet

I'm a massive mark for shop-owning games, and even more so if the game has a mechanic for haggling. Pawn planet has both, and by and large, I enjoyed it. The premise is simple, you run a pawn shop on a remote planet. Aliens come in an buy the stuff you have, or try to sell you things. When they approach the register you are given stats on the customer, like Anger, Knowledge, and Greediness. Using this, as well as the condition of the item you are buying or selling, you haggle on a price until one of you coughs up the cash. After the day is over, you can buy supplies to repair the items to make your money back.

Some days, there will be an auction at a storage planet where you roll the bones and bid on a Storage Locker of random items, storage wars style. Not going to lie, this had me hyped until I got fleeced on a board game I paid way too much for.

Other days, you will travel through a portal and ostensibly raid an alien base in order to murder civilians and take their stuff to sell. Okay, so the game doesn't say that, but the game also doesn't explain who these people are or why you are shooting them in the face. This section was underwhelming - The shooting isn't super tight, and you just sort of strafe and click on the aliens until they blow up. Not to mention there was some confusing placement of items in the alien base; Why are you putting what is obviously a safe in this room if it is not intended that I should try to crack it open and steal the rest of whatever was left in these creature's will?

Other bugbears included the fact that when you buy an item, only that item will come to your shipping bay, and you must remove it before you can buy another item. So in a situation where I needed three separate items, I needed to leave the computer, go to the shipping bay, retrieve it, and return to the computer... three separate times. Also, when traveling to the storage planet, I had to click where I wanted to go on my computer inside, then go outside to the spaceship to leave. These are small grievances, but the question and the sometimes vowel remains: Why?

This one gets a rec from me, I didn't spend too much time with it but I did enjoy it overall. Hoping that the finished product has a bit more polish.

The Alters

From the trailers I've seen of this game, it seems cool, but I didn't get far enough in the demo to really see the meat and bones. Which is to say I didn't get far enough to see any of the titular Alters. I, instead, ran headfirst into some radiation at some point, and lost about 10 minutes worth of progress that I just didn't have the nerve to redo, so I bailed. Luckily, these NextFest demos seem to not have expired, so maybe I'll go back and give it another shot.

In the meantime, there are a lot of Death Stranding vibes, a game I loved, and a base building mechanic similar to XCOM, yet another game I like. I think this has legs, and I enjoy the idea of alternate versions of the main character helping him out, but again - I didn't get there.

I dunno... seems neat.

Demonschool

This came at the recommendation of a friend, and I simply could not wrap my head around it. I'm a real sucker for teenagers at a weird school doing paranormal stuff, but the combat system felt very obtuse. One character only buffs, and two characters only attack. You choose the actions they will take but just kind of clicking around (not actually selecting the skills, just sort of running the character into targets), and then they play out those actions once your turn has concluded. Which I sort of get why, but it's still very disorienting. I only stuck around for two combats, so I can't say this is for me, but if you're into visual novelesque storytelling with Into the Breach Combat, this may be your cup of tea.

Reka

I think I remember seeing a trailer for this game during the Wholesome Direct or Cozy Direct or whatever the hell in 2023, but it seemed cool, and it is. This is effectively a base building game, except you're a young witch training under Baba Yaga and the base is a giant chicken house that you can drive around. It's pretty tight. Your character only looks like a haunted doll, regardless of what features you choose, and the controls are very floaty but I think this has a lot of potential. My first action once getting my Bird House was to see how big I could make the platform it sits upon, and the answer is 'pretty big'. This was one of a few demos that I actually saw through to the end, so I think that says quite a bit. Hoping the full release has some meat on these Chicken House Bones.

Thank Goodness You're Here!

I'm going to file this one under Biggest Disappointment of the Fest. I typically try to give games about 15 minutes at least so I can get a feel for what they're doing. This demo was 13 minutes long. It being by the creators of Untitled Goose Game had me excited, but ultimately you just kind of run around and slap things and everyone has a funny British accent. I was very un-wowed by the game, and very wowed when the demo ended so abruptly. Oh well, I suppose.

Tiny Glade

Not so much a game as it is a toy, but oh boy is it a fun one. Intuitively whip up little castles with no problem, and then walk around with them in the first person. I was so charmed by this that I called my artist wife in to sit down and take a look at it, and I didn't need to explain anything about it before she had build herself a little castle. You build little castles! What's not to love? I'm hoping there's more to it in the full release, or at the very point that the price point reflects what it is exactly.

Tiny Bookshop

Another one I saw in a cozy direct that I had my eye on that ended up kind of falling flat for me. This game boils down to a shop simulator, which I'm a huge fan of, obviously. But then there's the whole aspect of have percentages of book genres, and how many books you have affecting your likelihood to sell... it just didn't hook me in the way I hoped. The art style, however, was very good, and it's a delight to look at. This might be another one I take a stab at when I'm in the right headspace.

Wild Bastards

I heard Void Bastards was good, but I never actually played it. Wild Bastards seems pretty neat though... you are a couple of Wild West Robots (hell yeah) who are venturing across the galaxy and resurrecting your dead team members with a magic ship. Levels consist of beaming down to a planet and taking out enemies meticulously while not being killed yourself. You can only take down two team members at a time, but you can hotswap between them which is a neat mechanical way of changing weapons. Unfortunately, once I got my third team members, I was summarily shithoused by a bunch of plants and my run was ruined. Still, I had a lot of fun and I will be keeping a close eye on this one. Maybe not a day one buy, but certainly something to pick up.

That's my NextFest, folks. Love it or hate it, I love videogames and I like that demos are coming back in vogue. Til next time.

2 notes · View notes