#Otter best player of the night

[compo67]

STARS WIN STARS WIN

[krovscastlerpg]

It’s a special Valentine’s Day Ask Wednesday! To participate, just reblog this post and remember to send asks to the other players participating!

Romantic Headcanon Meme

Send a number (and, optionally, a ship) and I’ll describe:

How my Muse acts differently around their love interest(s)

What my Muse admires about their love interest(s)

What sort of daydreams / stray thoughts they have about their love interest(s)

Their worries/insecurities regarding their love interest(s)

How they express their interest/affection prior to a relationship

How they go about confessing their attraction

How they respond to a confession of attraction

How they respond to an anonymous love letter

Any physical/emotional/mental/spiritual feature(s) they find attractive

Personality traits they find attractive

How my Muse handles date night preparation

Ways my Muse goes out of their way for their love interest(s)

Ways my Muse seduces (or tries to) their love interest(s)

My Muse’s attitude towards sex and when/how to bring it up with their partner(s)

The differences between lust and love for my Muse

My Muse’s kinks and how they would bring them up to their partners), if at all

My Muse’s sexual fantasies regarding their partner(s)

How my Muse shows their love for their partner(s) non-verbally/through actions

What my Muse says instead of the words ‘I love you’

Any pet names my Muse has or would call their partner(s)

How my Muse would comfort their partner

How my Muse would tease their partner

My Muse’s thoughts on marriage and their position as a spouse

My Muse’s thoughts on starting a family and their position as a parent

My Muse’s thoughts on their experience / skill in bed

My Muse’s favorite part about having sex with their partner(s)

My Muse’s go-to gift or treat for their significant other(s)

My Muse’s favorite way to spoil and/or pleasure their partner(s)

My Muse’s preferred method of being spoiled / pleasured by their partner(s)

Ask any other question you can think of!

Punny Pick-up Lines Sentence Starters

( in the spirit of Valentine’s day, here’s a compilation of various funny & punny pick-up lines !  Feel free to adjust them to better fit your muses and/or add more context. )

🚪  ❝ I a-door you ! ❞

🍵  ❝ You’re a cute tea ! ❞

🧁  ❝ You bake me crazy ! ❞

🫁  ❝ We belung together ! ❞

🐚  ❝ You’re very spe-shell ! ❞

🧈  ❝ You’re my butter half ! ❞

🔥  ❝ We’re a perfect match ! ❞

🍲  ❝ You make miso happy ! ❞

🥕  ❝ I carrot live without you ! ❞

🐻  ❝ I love you bear-y much ! ❞

🍌  ❝ I find you very a-peeling ! ❞

🐳  ❝ I whale always love you ! ❞

🍞  ❝ You’re the loaf of my life ! ❞

🦦  ❝ There’s no otter like you ! ❞

🦐  ❝ You’re shrimply the best ! ❞

🍉  ❝ You’re my one in a melon ! ❞

🍕  ❝ You have a pizza my heart ! ❞

🐰  ❝ Nobunny compares to you ! ❞

🪵  ❝ Wood you be my valentine ? ❞

🍋  ❝ This is my best pick-up lime... ❞

🍅  ❝ I love you from my head to-ma-toes ! ❞

🌮  ❝ Can we taco ‘bout how cute you are ? ❞

🍄  ❝ You take up so mushroom in my heart ! ❞

🍍  ❝ If you were a fruit, you’d be a fine-apple. ❞

🗼  ❝ Are you a tower? Because Eiffel for you ! ❞

🌽  ❝ I know it’s corny, but you’re a-maize-ing ! ❞

🍩  ❝ I donut know what I would do without you ! ❞

☕️  ❝ Words cannot expresso how much you mean to me ! ❞

🧀  ❝ This might sound cheesy, but I think you’re really grate ! ❞

Ask meme credits: x x

[awesomefroggy]

Mighty Nein's Favorite Board Games

Fjord- Scythe

It's the crunch, the strategy, the 2+ hour play time. This man is nose to the board, into it. Most of the Nein grumble about it, but Beau and Essek will play it with him and get far far too into it.

Beau- Red Dragon Inn

This appeals to the Beaurebar in her. On the surface, she's got the silly drinking gambling party game. Deeper, she knows how to meta and has a hero that she's very very good with. She excels at stacking everyone else's decks against them. Making it an actual drinking game is a favorite, and she supplies really awful shots when called for.

Caleb- Root

Not only are you the resistance to the Cat overlords, there's resources! Strategies! Conniving! And adorablely vicious forest creatures! Caleb gets very attached to his factions. He likes playing with the Riverfolk expansion as the otters.

Veth- King of Tokyo

Yahtzee but with Kaiju. Veth will rule over Tokyo with an iron fist. There is now a rule that dice rolls that land on the floor don't count. Yeza is always apprehensive when she and Luc want to play, but he tries to be a good sport about it.

Jester- Unstable Unicorns

Fast paced, full of cute unicorns and puns, and there's an NSFW expansion. Jester is here to slam down some cute unicorns, shut down your combos, and cackle maniacally over pumpkin spice Basics.

Yasha- Cascadia

Puzzling together habitats for wildlife. It's lowkey, and Yasha likes to try and make the most realistic ecosystems she can. She'll play it alone for hours, but sometimes she can drag Beau or Caduceus in to playing with her.

Caduceus- Everdell

A sweet game of woodland creatures, resources, and collecting through the seasons. It's a pleasant game to him, and he sometimes he plays single player as a way to connect with the Wildmother. He has all of the expansions and the Kickstarter exclusives.

Molly- Mysterium

A ghost uses dreams in the form of surreal art to point mediums to solve their murder. It's the absolute cold reading bullshit Molly loves. If he's one of the mediums, it's just interpreting tarot cards. He loves helping everyone else interpret their cards and make up bullshit stories about how and why and where and who. If he's the ghost, he equally tries to help people and fuck with them.

Kingsley- Pirates

Stack up crews, steal other people's crews, blow up bases and collect pirate ships, loot, and glory. Kingsley is delightfully vicious at this game, and much like the man who taught me how to play it he wears his big pirate hat and coat whenever they play.

Essek- Sagrada

Sudoku, now with pretty dice and modifiers. The stained glass motifs remind him of Rosohna in the best way, and he finds it soothing to put it all together. Everyone is shocked the first time he swears in Common over someone taking a die that he needs.

Other related headcanons:

Beau, Fjord, Caleb, and Essek get together and play some of the crunchiest Warhammer you've ever seen. Jester paints Fjord's armies and Yasha paints Beau's, Caleb and Essek have dedicated weekly paint nights.

Essek hate drafts during Sushi Go.

There was an attempt to play The Mind once. It was never played again.

Caleb and Essek have fierce Scrabble games. Everyone made fun of them until Beau asked to witness one, and realized they play with four different languages at once and do not hold back about it.

Yasha has the Stardew Valley board game and plays it as often as she can.

Essek and Fjord play chess together. It freaks people out sometimes because they will sit in silence for a very long time until one of them swears violently.

Throw Throw Burrito is only allowed every once in a while, and they "burrito proof" the house first every time after they broke a vase at Beau and Yasha's.

[talenlee]

Game Pile: Gay Sauna: The Board Game

I love board games. I love that you can make board games about anything. I love that you can make board games about the same thing. I love that you can take the mechanics of Dominion and repeat on it a dozen times and that’s different every time and it’s still a game. Game rules are these beautiful gaseous forms of art that you can run your hands through and create shimmering trails of rainbows. There are so many train games building on one single period of history we’re running out of dates to set them in.

Board games are amazing.

Anyway this is a board game called Gay Sauna: The Board Game. It’s about going to a gay sauna.

I don’t actually intend to go into too much juciy detail here but I still want to provide a Content Warning. This is a game about gay sex in a public shared location. This includes a lot of information about gay cultural intersection and its common lexicon but also that means we’re going to talk about dongs and butts and things that go into and come out of and come over those dongs and those butts. Okay? If you’re not ready for a former Churchboy to talk as awkwardly as possible about gay sex stuff, you shouldn’t read this article.

I think this game is interesting! I think it’s interesting in how it seems to be reasonably well designed and really willing to be honest and vulnerable about its subject matter! But again, go into this being mindful of what you’re about to read.

First up, the players have gathered at a Gay Sauna, they get a persona to play, their own individual player board, some horniness tokens and then the Sauna is filled out with spaces where people can go, hang out, and meet people.

And then, in those places, you find people you want to try and bang.

Each encounter has compatibilities and optimal strategies. Each individual player has unique needs – you don’t choose them, they’re dictated by the game at random at the start – and then players spend their time, on their turns either preparing for a big turn later (haha) or taking targets in as optimal a way they can with their starting resources.

In its purest sense, Gay Sauna: The Board Game is a dungeon crawler. You’re all in a closed space, you get to choose targets and encounters based on what’s best for you and what’s best for other players, and then you roll some dice to see how good a job you do getting close to them, and then you get to roll based on how good a job that went. Then there’s rewards (or possible penalties!) based on how that encounter resolves and then, based on how well you’re doing, you recover or you consolidate your advantage and pursue more advantages. Players acquire stuff to make them better at future encounters, they choose encounters based on opportunity and availability – wanting to make sure that other players don’t take things they want – and the whole process is then modulated through random chances based on dice results.

And this is a game where there’s a lot of conversation about opportunity and availability. Characters have specific preferences, they have types they’re into, and those types are expressed through the art and stance of the characters. Instead of a chest or a slime or an ogre or a bear, you’re talking about a slimy otter or a chesty bear, and the encounters are deliberately one-on-one —

Er, wait, there are in fact ways to get multiple partners at a time, but that’s okay, because you have to satisfy all of them. Rolls could go badly for you.

Real high risk, high reward there.

Ironically, one of the things about this game that stands apart of its genre of dungeon crawlers, is that it’s got an actual reason for the players to be competing: because the characters are competing. The characters are friends, they came here to get laid, and they are all keeping track of who in that night they get to be with first. The game even specifies that sloppy seconds don’t count; other encounters might be happening, but characters are focusing on each characters’ first time.

I haven’t played this game. I did want to, as a matter of writing this article. When I started this year I imagined I’d be able to find a copy reasonably conveniently, with its successful kickstarter. Turns out, nope, not in any of the conventions or game libraries I saw. Made sense of course – after all, this is an adult-audiences game and the conventions I’ve gone to have been all-ages.

Which is part of it.

Part of this game’s theme is a thing that dictates how and where it can be played. It is a game whose whole frame

This isn’t to tritely point out how we culturally dismiss rough gay sex and anal fisting when actually, we tolerate representations of colonialism and isn’t that so much worse. Like yeah, duh, that’s a known thing, it’s a very present cultural affect. We know that depictions of violence, especially extremely abstracted violence, are permissable. The violence of capitalism is part and parcel of so many games. It’s boring to even point out that hey, isn’t it funny we can do slavery but not rimjobs in games?

That’s not the point. That’s a social norm that you should be familiar with at this point because part of it is how the game presents those things. Rather, that this game is a dungeon crawler about doing something where you are meant to want to do the thing. The acts have inherent enjoyable meaning. The violence of a dungeon crawler is rarely specific, rarely realistic, rarely meant to be real or feel real. You revel in the challenge and the overcoming, you revel in the risk, but the actual experience of sliding a sword into the meaty body of a zombie is not itself meant to be deeply satisfying.

We are not often taught, in games, to love processes as much as we are taught to strive for results.

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

[the-nosy-neighbor]

TV from the Period of Welcome Home

TV from the period, continued.

There is a part 1 on the blog if you are interested.

So, three channels on a good day, and there were local TV shows, news, but also like around noon there was like a Farm and Ranch Report and some show I remember being suuuuper boring where old ladies with poofy hair would talk. Granted, given how women were judged as old at 30, they were probably younger than I am now.

As a kid, after school cartoons were a thing, but mostly old ones like Bugs Bunny, or Rocky and Bullwinkle or Hanna Barbera cartoons:  The Flintstones, and Scooby Doo for example.  There were cartoons on Saturday morning; they stopped around 11, and then it would either be Wild Kingdom or some old TV show like Land of the Lost.  There were also reruns, like Little House on the Prairie(!) and game shows (No Whammy!).  I watched more episodes of The Newlywed Game than was probably good for a child. 

My parents, however, had a very early form of at-home movie watching, the Laserdisc.  I have only seen this at my parents’ house. 

In this image is the exact machine we had at my house.  Based on the pictures I found, this wasn’t as common as more of a cd type machine.  However, those things on top of the player were the movies.  They were kind of like cassettes in operation.  You took that cartridge (which was about 18”x18”) and you slid it into the machine.  The case would come back out, but the disc remained inside.  Eventually, we got curious and pulled the middle out of one, and discovered the disc on the inside.  The wild part was that there would be a pause as the disc came to the end of a side.  Yes, like a record.  Then you had to put the cartridge back in, and pull it out.  The disc was now in the cartridge.  Then, you turned it over (seems ridiculous in hindsight) and pushed it back in, and the cartridge remained.  I could still tell you exactly where that break is in The Great Muppet Caper. 

So, I mention this, as a rural kid with very little money and even fewer trips to the movies, because my parents bought us kids movies on this thing, and while there weren’t a lot, we had The Muppet Movie and The Great Muppet Caper.  Oh, and we had Hey Cinderella! and The Frog Prince (both on 1 disc) and Emmet Otter’s Jug Band Christmas.  The Cinderella/Frog Prince was one of my favorites.  I still think the jokes are super solid in that one, as well as has good music.  We also had Watership Down, which we couldn’t get past the intro as it was too spooky.  We watched a lot of The Secret of NiMH, which was also spooky, but less bloody.  Plus that crow is hysterical.  We watched these over and over. 

Oddly enough, my parents had a few Mel Brooks movies, so I grew up on The History of the World, Part 1, though mostly just noticed the slapstick.  I didn’t get the jokes until much later.  We also had Young Frankenstein, which continues to be one of my favorite movies.  I must have been an oddball kid to be able to recognize Mel Brooks in The Muppet Movie. 

Look!  James Frawley, Jim Henson, and Mel Brooks!

We lived in a community that was rural, like a subdivision 15 minutes from anything, and most of us could not afford cable.  I mentioned my dad was an electrician, so he somehow looped most, if not all, houses into cable through the rich guy’s cable.  (He had an indoor pool and a soda machine.  It was decadent.)  I’m not sure how that worked, because we weren’t limited to what the main house was watching.  I don’t know how long we had it before the cable company figured it out., probably close to a year.

TV shows didn't really try to appeal to children, as far as I can remember, so it was nights of watching whatever was on, because you had two choices:  either this or the other channel.  Plus, at the time, it was expected that the adults would pick the show.   I remember watching lots of crime dramas. Magnum PI, CHiPs, The Fall Guy, etc. When I was older, The Cosby Show was the best thing on TV.  But, the most amazing thing as a kid were the Special Presentations.

If you saw this guy, you were in for a nice time.

Not to be confused with "A Very Special Episode," which meant some lame thing where they had your favorite TV characters talking about something really depressing or scary, also known as an “After School Special,” though a lot of times those were not filmed with known characters, just really lame low budget deals.  The most famous example of this is where a character on Saved by the Bell was taking diet pills (so excited and so scared).  Definitely worth a watch.  I actually didn’t see this at the time, and only learned about it as an adult.  Two TV stations.  If Clown does “A Very Special Episode,” I will die.

So, Special Presentations were your really good things. It meant either you were getting something you didn't see a lot (Miss America), a once-a-year treat (Wizard of Oz), or cartoons (Holiday Specials!) I remember how excited we were to have the Wizard of Oz every year.  It seemed random when it happened, but I’m sure there was a schedule that I wasn’t aware of as a kid.  I don’t think we even got the TV guide.  However, there were TV listings in the newspaper. 

Once a year treats included things like "Circus of the Stars." I had forgotten about it until I googled Special Presentation to get that graphic. Actual TV stars would learn to do circus stuff, like trapeze. I am going to drown in nostalgia. Here's a later one in 1992, (Downtown Julie Brown!) with Weird Al, because Weird Al is synonymous with TV. Apparently.

Also, the first home gaming consoles were coming out. I remember that we had an Intellivision, which was one of the earliest consoles.

Given we had that and one of the first home computers (Commodore 64), maybe we were more middle class than I realized, or my dad just liked technology.

That's it for now. If i think of something that could be especially helpful in understanding the world of Welcome Home, I will add it, but for now, I am sure this is more than enough. I am working on a personal history post about The Muppets and Jim Henson as well.

[c-midori]

some random facts about mintport (my original city):

as I mentioned before, mintport is based on Dallas, Texas, but also some parts of Vancouver, Canada, and even various coastal cities and towns in Hokkaido, Japan, including Wakkanai and Hakodate, hence the coastal, polar location. also: anchorage, alaska.

the part of Mintport where Papa's Bowleria is located is based on this one park in Dallas that’s built over a highway. I went there and it’s a nice place. I think it was called the Klyde Warren park or some snatchhammer.

furryfair is, obviously, based on Furry Fiesta, which was the furry convention happening nearby when I went to Dallas that day. i never went in but FurryFair happens at the nearby Basil Suites, based on the real life Sheraton where the real convention was happening.

obviously, the theme in mintport is herbs, like… mint.

there is also the thyme tower. the parking lot is where the food truck would likely be. thyme tower is based on the reunion tower. I went there during the last time I wasn’t feeling depressed… AKA, early 2019. it’s a nice tower.

mintport’s airport where iggy/tohru/you were supposed to catch your flight is named the “Cassia Monn Air Terminal”, probably named after some really cool pilot from a long time ago. and yeah, cassia monn might have inspired boomer at some point… i myself may not know who cassia monn is meant to be but she’s definitely gone now.

the average weather in mintport tends to be a little unpredictable. i will mention however, the nights get cold (down to -30 celsius) and foggy. how anyone wants a lemonade with heavy ice at that time confuses me, but you do you, Scooter.

in summer, the weather certainly gets better. kinda warm, actually. night is still cold (-5 celsius) and foggy but there’s no ice on the roads, so yay.

if the waters aren’t frozen, you can sail out of mintport and see otters and seals on the rocks. the conditions do bring back some ptsd for robby, I will say. poor dude.

at the griller stadium, mintport is represented by the “Mintport Narwhals” (baseball), and the “Mintport Fennel Floes” (hockey).

the Mintport Fennel Floes are known best for having practiced a few times on a thick ice floe near the mintport docks. once, they even played a special game against the Tastyville Cold Cuts on there. it ended in a tie, somehow. Allan, a player for the Cold Cuts, described the ice floe rink as “kinda stupid, but cool at the same time.”

[sillyman-inc]

I (kindly) demand your Barnacles and/or Shellington headcanons >:) (if you have any lol)

I hope you're having a great day/night ^^

[Have this nice picture]

YES YES YES YES

OK YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW MUCH I LOVE SHELLINGTON.

Shellington is a huge comfort character for me so :)))

I’ve already made a Barnacles centralled lesson one so !! Shellington time hehehehhehehehe

First off- Shellington is achillean and gender non conforming ! Goes by he/they pronouns :)

Shellington has autism

I think it’s funny how he was basically besides inkling- the only one who knew literally. ANYTHING. About marine life in the earlier episodes. But then all of a sudden the crew gets more knowledge so I like to think in like a form of non-cannon-cannon or something. Shellington just sat them all down and did a big infodump of sea life so they knew what they were doing.

He chirps and purrs when happy! Actual otters do this :))

I like to think that he makes playlists for people he cares about. BUT. He puts them on. Fucking cassette tapes. And then gives it to said people. And no one has a cassette player except for him. So the conversations are like this:

Shellington: hey! I made you something :) *holds out a cassette tape*

Person (idk who you wanna interpret this as): …

Person: I don’t own a cassette player.

If anyone is near him when he falls asleep (like a five foot radius) they’re doomed. This man will latch onto the closest person near him and. WILL NOT LET GO. Try to escape his grasp? You’ll just make it worse. I like to think that it’s similar to the one scene in rise of the guardians with Jack Frost and that random kid he’s trying to get into bed and she just. Will not let go.

A very affectionate person :)

I like to think that Dashi made his bag since he would often fidget so if he has something to hold onto, like the bag strap- he’s got somethin else to fidget with :)

Him and Dashi have been best friends since highschool. Yeah.

He infodumps to Dashi a lot.

Him and Dashi gush about their crushes together. :)

I should do a post on their friendship dynamic cause I care them.

Would finish an entire book in a day or less. And when I say “entire book” I mean like those big chunky ones.

The dad of the vegimals. That’s already kinda cannon.

He’s bilingual ! He knows different country’s versions of sign language, and probably knows most European languages as well as a few Asian languages as well.

More on that I like to think there would be books that weren’t translated into English and the crew would need said book for something but no one would really know it and Shellington just starts fluently talking in said books language and everyone is just very impressed.

He likes doodling in his notes, so right next to some really cool facts there’s like little doodles of his friends or some fish they saw :)

Dashi got him into like some stupid online drama series.

As I typed that out my brain went “lps popular” so yk what. Yeah they watch lps popular together /hj

They LOVE watching documentaries.

He reads bedtime stories to the vegimals :))) more on that I feel like they’d flat out pull out like a marine biology textbook and just start listing facts about animals and the ocean and the vegimals would just fall asleep to that.

The vegimals all like to curl up in Shellington’s bed with him to sleep :)

The vegimals have all 100% called Shellington their dad. I do not take criticism on this. /lh

I like to think he smells like pumpkins. This is solely because I have a candle that smells like pumpkins and I like the smell and my Shellington plushie smelled like pumpkin for a lil bit cause of it :)

He either smells like pumpkins or graham crackers. :)))

He loves baking and cooking, he helps the vegimals out a lot with it.

He’s the second tallest in the crew, he barely comes to Barnacles’s shoulder I wanna say.

This is already pretty cannon but he has a very low pain tolerance.

He constantly feels as if he has to prove his worth and feel like he has to make the next big breakthrough on something. He puts a lot of his worth on his intelligence. I feel like they were the type of kid to constantly hold their worth up by how good he was doing in school and it really messed with his mental health.

Stims a lot ! Mainly physical but some vocal as well, humming for verbal I feel would be a big one.

His bag is his comfort item and item of security so when he doesn’t have it he gets distressed. This is already kinda cannon but yea.

Oh man his back and neck hurt almost al the time from falling asleep at tables and desks and all that.

Whenever he does something wrong, even if it’s not his fault he feels bad :( I feel like the rest of the crew is like this too.

When he “miscalculates” things he feels incredibly bad and upset about it and can spiral at times cause of it.

He knows how to classically dance. Yea I got no evidence or anything on this I just get the feeling he knows how.

His love language is physical affection 100% mans loves cuddling :)

He believes in aliens. Ok I know what you’re thinking but hear me out on this one and then you can harshly judge me: I feel like there was one instance where Kwazii was going on about something yk as he does. And Shellington was kinda tired and done with his bs and just “no not real” or whatever kinda response. As to which Kwazii said something like “ok there’s a ton of planets and galxaxies out there and you really think we’re the only things living here” and Shellington just stops for a moment and then just “damn alright good point.” Yeah.

He listens to Ricky Montgomery. It’s like 4 AM and all you hear blasting is Mr Loverman blasting from the lab followed by muffled sobbing.

HIM AND INKLING. BEST OF BUDS. INFODUMP ABOUT MARINE LIFE. They’d literally have conversations for hours and hours on end about marine biology. They’d drink tea and play chess as they just have intense infodump sessions.

He loves card games and board games. I just get that vibe from him.

Game night on the octopod and Shellington is all “my time has come” and proceeds to open a close full of random assortments of board games /j

Him and Peso like doing puzzles together. And when I say puzzles you know I’m talkin those 1000+ piece puzzles.

Rejection dysphoria and most likely anxiety. Am I giving every character I’ve been asked headcannons about these? Yes. Yes I have.

When he’s stressed he paces a lot.

I think it took him a while to get used to the octoray since he’s shown to have a fear of heights so being in the octoray took him a bit but he managed to cope.

Dashi taught him how to flirt but whenever he tries he’s a nervous wreck and just dies on the inside.

Silly otter my beloved

I’m tired I’m gonna go take a nap now, I’ll answer more when I wake up :)

Have this image I found of him online which I found to be v cute

[st-louis]

nick suzuki on habs tonight

transcribed notes if you don’t want to listen to it.

only off the ice for two and a half weeks after the stanley cup finals, he was just itching to get back out there, pretty much everyone was in mid summer training so he felt like he had to get out there pretty fast

he feels good, he has a good physio guy in london he sees every week. it’s been tough; his program’s way behind everyone

lifting’s been good, skating’s been great, no complaints by him

it’s always nice to have a short summer because you did well the previous season, like in junior going to the mem cup

when he was in minor midget a few ncaa teams had reached out, a yale scout was interested in nick and nick’s dad was REALLY fired up about it because it was yale

but junior was the path for him since he was young, especially growing up watching the london knights. he was interested in college but at the end of the day knew he wanted to go to the O

he was always really close with ryan

growing up in london it’s a huge hockey city, he had a lot of great guys to look up to. they always played road hockey, ministicks, both their junior knights teams were really really good, so they had a lot of success there. it was great growing up together, always a ton of hockey opportunities.

his second-year stats were crazy. coming into his draft year, he was rated a b prospect at the start of the season, but he felt he could prove himself.

they went to the finals but lost to a very loaded otters team.

the draft year was stressful because he was always trying to have his best game every night, and meeting with the teams, but he felt he handled it well mentally.

he went to the top prospects game and that was a “see where you are” moment for him, but he had a good playoffs that year too and felt good going into the draft. once the combine came around he had really good meetings with a lot of teams and felt he was going to go in the first round after that.

he met with 28 out of 31 teams at the combine.

he met with montreal at the combine and he must have met with them at the season at some point. when he got traded, "berg” said he had nick higher on the board than where he went.

he felt like he handled the combine well, he never had crazy meetings, but the weirdest one was new jersey. they had like no one in the room because everyone knew who they were going to pick, so nick just met with the mental coach and it was all mental questions, nothing to do with his play.

anaheim and nashville didn’t have a pick until the third round so they were just shooting the shit with him.

the one team asked “what pick do we need to trade up to get you” and nick was like “i don’t know what you want me to say?”

getting drafted by vegas was incredible because it was such a new franchise. it was really cool to meet branny and glass (none of them left with vegas) at the draft as well, and it was a good city to get drafted in, he had a ton of fun.

the fleury brothers will be studs for seattle.

two days after the draft he was in dev camp, practice rink wasn’t built, game rink wasn’t built, he was at like a curling ice rink but it was fun anyway, getting to see the city. none of them had been there. it was a good experience.

he was thankful they picked him because it meant he ended up in montreal.

he felt he was playing well at dev camp but you could tell that they weren’t going to bring the young guys in.

he went back to junior and had an incredible season, but he thought maybe he would have a shot that year but then they made the stanley cup final and he was like “maybe i’m NOT good enough for that team”

after getting traded for pacioretty to montreal, his thought process was: the story was, he was at rookie camp and they’d just played san jose and was in the gym doing the cooldown after camp and the player development guy came up to him and the gm wanted to talk to him. so he felt he was either bad at the game, or getting traded, so his mind was really racing, what team was he going to. he hadn’t heard anything from social media or his agent but he ended up being told he was going to montreal and it took him a day to settle down and get excited about the opportunity. his parents were in vegas at the time, and that helped he had family in town for that.

his family weren’t the biggest leaf fans, it was easy to switch to montreal. no one was heartbroken. but being an ontario guy they’re always on tv there, so it had been easy to watch them.

just the opportunity to work all season and get to the playoffs you want to get to that ultimate goal, when he was in guelph and they were down 3-0 to london, they were like, oh god, we’re a great team, and their head coach said to nick and ratty, both from london, “you guys don’t want to end your junior career losing to the knights” and they won four straight and then just went to the cup. he was just really locked in.

the bubble was just about showing they could play with everyone. they didn’t feel they were a shit team coming into the bubble, even though a lot of people wrote them off right away, just like they did with the leafs. 

he loves the sportsnet list saying like “leafs in four” that gives him a lot of motivation personally.

he felt that his 2019 camp he was just ready to play against big defensemen and some of the better players, trying to earn any spot he could, whether on the wing at center. did everything he could to try to make that team.

nate thompson was awesome, especially for him, getting to play with him for 20 games or so. to learn off of, unbelievable guy and very welcoming to nick right away. thompson, domes, and “philly danault.” a lot of guys to look up to his first year.

phil is a very smart player, always on the right side of the puck, his stick positioning, he can tip every pass. any piece of his body or stick on the puck during the pk helps so much, always in the right spot. underrated offensively, sees the ice really well and makes all the plays. a great guy to learn off of and definitely a friend he’ll keep in touch with for sure.

they’ve all talked about how young they are (the center corps) but they’re confident in themselves and not going to back down from older centers. “jake will lead the way, our veteran presence out there.”

all the young guys love being around each other, eat dinner together, or go down at the same time for breakfast on the road, trying to hang out as much as possible and help each other out. they have a great group.

cole was a big boost, a hilarious kid, a ton of fun to be around, even better hockey player. great addition to the core.

the 2 on 0 in toronto he was just racing to make it a two on 0 but sometimes that’s harder than a breakaway, and nick was on a onetimer and it would’ve been harder for cole to shoot, but maybe campbell thought cole was gonna rip it. he knew right away that cole’s playmaking ability was underrated.

cole’s first practice with the team everyone was just watching cole, “for how big he is you don’t expect that to come off his stick”

the grind of not being able to do anything was tough, but this season was harder on the body and mentally, getting uber eats all of the time, because you don’t get to experience anything and playing in the north division was hard. ton of good teams, lot of good players, had to be on the ball every single night and when you weren’t you got exposed.

the week off for the covid break and the compressed schedule after was really hard.

it was hard dominating at first and then getting put in their place. it was a very up and down season. “sometimes we just had a stinker and be down and lose a few games in a row... that was tough mentally but you knew you were just going to play every other day, so it was like a three month play off run for us.”

dom is great. he was nick’s head coach at the world junior team that “cut me, actually, we talked about that actually”

dom just brought a different mentality of things to focus on. little things that go a long way, really bought a new look to their game

luke richardson did a great job, the d corps especially were happy for him, and he was running the forward lines which was a little new for him, but he did a good job stepping in, as good as he could ahve done

thoughts on toronto: won the first game and riding high, then lost in toronto and then lost two games at home, which is never a good thing. but they had a little time, the older guys spoke up that you don’t get this opportunity every year. some of them are getting up there in age and don’t know how long they will play, so the team needed to step up and play better to keep their season alive. they let them all the way back in on game five, and it was tense, not gonna lie in the room before the OT. no one said ANYTHING. and then all of a sudden nick and cole got the 2 on 0 a minute in and sending it back. and then all of a sudden a ton of energy came in the group and it was a lot of fun.

after getting fans back he didn’t realize HOW he played without them. it was the fastest he’s ever skated. he was just buzzing the whole warm up.

it was a big adjustment going to vegas with their full and very loud barn. you forget how it is; montreal would have been louder with a full barn, but the vegas stereo system and fans you “vibrate on the bench”--intimidating at first, then “we were playing really well, so we settled down”

he really wants to experience playoffs at the bell center

the vegas series: like, “i just came off the ice, i was gassed, bent over on the bench and all of a sudden everyone’s cheering. when i came off we didn’t have the puck, i had no idea what happened, andy puts it in the net and it’s just a freebie especially with the fans chanting at fleury--all that stuff was crazy.”

if there’s someone you’re chirping about not scoring on you, cole’s probably not the guy. he was dialed in. he asked nick if he’d heard what lehner said and nick said, “don’t worry, we’ll find a way to get you that goal.”

we played winnipeg really well throughout the regular season and then they sucked against them, but for the playoffs, the first game they came out flying--he knew they had the week off and that was tough, but they dominated the whole time. with the scheifele thing, it sucked for them but sometimes you have to play without your best players in the playoffs.

they were pretty pissed off about the hit. by that time, that was probably their best stretch of the year.

he doesn’t understand rankings of goaltenders and price is outside of the top ten: “what is going on? i don’t know what people are thinking. this guy does it every single year and you still rip on him ... he’s making big saves every game but maybe people just expect him to stop everything...?”

webby’s four minute minor: it was definitely pretty nervewracking, we could lose the stanley cup on home ice and our captain’s in the box, an unfortunate play that happened. we were really dialed in in the dressing room after the third. i was out on the pk and i just wanted to like do anything i could to kill off that penalty. luckily we did and got the big game winner later. it was a big kill, everyone wanted to do that for webby. we didn’t want it to end our series.

they had a lot of good chances in that OT but pricey really shut the door. nick said he messed up on one of those coverages but pricey really bailed them out.

he is hungrier to get back there now. “experiencing losing the finals, you can see all of us on a knee, i could hardly watch them celebrate on the ice. just seeing some of the older guys, a lot of those guys have never made it that far, and for me to experience it as a young guy just makes me want to get back there as quick as possible. even after the game, i just got undressed and snuck out onto the bench to watch them carry around the cup just to give myself a little motivation to get back in the summer.”

such a great group of guys wouldn’t rather have anyone else on that team.

what he’s learned from shea weber: he’s been an amazing guy to learn from and get to know. he’s just pretty much the ultimate teammate and someone i’ve looked up to every since i got to the team. to get to see him every day, how hard he works, how he interacts with the trainers, coaches, literally everyone in the organization. he’s just a first class guy. definitely the best captain for sure.

about kk: he found out on the golf course with his brother, parents, and grandparents. evvy (evans?) texted him and said to look at twitter. offer sheets are part of the business, every rfa is up for grabs in that way. it’s a great deal for him and his family, a lot of money, and hopefully the habs can work out a way, because i know the players, we don’t want to lose kk and i’m sure management doesn’t want to either. hopefully we can find out a way to get him back on the team.

drou is awesome and nick’s seatmate on the plane. they play cards together. they were texting the other day, he’s doing a lot better and excited to come to camp. nick is really hoping he can get back there. he said he’s feeling really good and skating a lot and andy is living together.

his favorite players growing up--he loved datsyuk growing up, one of his first nhl games was in detroit watching him. he also loves bergeron and getting to play against him is a ton of fun, getting to see how he is on the ice in person. he was a big sidney crosby guy because he does everything the right way and playing against him in the playoffs was cool too. those are the big three.

he loves montreal, ever since he got there it’s been a second home to him. the restaurants, the people, just walking downtown, hey big fan, all that stuff, you can see the passion the fans have for the players and the team. a ton of fun playing there and just starting to experience what it’s like getting back to normal. his first year was a ton of fun with the crowds, he wants that next year too.

in the gym, he trains with boone jenner, jordan kyrou, ryan, dylan cozens. on the ice bo horvat is usually with them but he’s been training at home. on the ice, bo, drew doughty, corey perry (pears), logan couture, all at london, they try to skate together as much as possible.

bergevin made a lot of good additions; lost some good players but added great talent too. hoffman should be fun to play with. savard was really tough to play against in the playoffs so it will be nice to have him on the team. he’s excited. don’t really know all the lines and stuff for you guys, but i’m sure we’ll have something soon.

trevor litowski is a great guy and he’s worked with adam douglas before too.

when he was going through a dry spell, it felt like he was playing the games but not doing that much, he was all in his head, could hardly play hockey how he was before at the start of the season for some reason--having the confidence to go out there every night and know he could play with all these guys. he was reading the play and it would not turn out how he was reading it and it would bug him a bit. dom said he always tries to overthink the game and just has to go there and play. it’s tough for young guys. his confidence was low during that midpoint, but if you just find a goal, you can take off. that’s how he felt going into the last third of the season and into the playoffs. hopefully he can keep that for the regular season coming up.

he could feel the energy from the city, leaving and coming to the games it was a ton of fun with the fans there. he thinks they’ll have another great year, the future is really bright for the team, and he wants to be part of that for a long time. he’s really excited.

[polar534]

Hockey AU: Pizza Date Pt. 2

Hey! Fun fact, I wrote this months ago. Does this mean it predates Dana confirming there is no homophobia on the Isles? Yes it does. Very excited about it. :3

Anyways I won't waste your time any longer. I know both of these are pfairly short but it's been a 2-parter ever since I posted it in my discord I'm a part of. (Shout-outs once more to my friends there. Y'all lovely people and know what you did. >.>)

No TW this time. Just some fluff and explanations.

***

“Luz can you slow down a bit? I’m sure the house isn’t going anywhere.” Amity complained as the human led her forcibly down the street.

Her voice seemed to cut through the chaos in Luz’s mind like a knife. She focused on her hand and gave Amity an apologetic squeeze as she slowed down.

“I’m sorry. Look at me, dragging you around at breakneck speed when you’re still tired and run-down from practice.” Luz smiled sheepishly, falling in line with her girlfriend to walk next to her.

“Well, actually the food helped quite a bit.” Amity admitted truthfully, before turning to face Luz sharply. “But don’t let it get to your head.”

“Too late.” Luz grinned back at her.

They walked in silence for a bit, Luz struggling to process exactly what had happened back at the pizza joint. She knew she shouldn’t feel this way, that nothing her and Amity did was wrong, but it didn’t keep the feeling of fear from creeping in.

Amity seemed to pick up on her discomfort though, as she always did, and pulled her girlfriend to a stop in the middle of the sidewalk. For a moment, Luz feared she would want to talk about what just happened, and felt the knot rising to her throat but instead Amity simply asked her to come back to the ice rink with her.

“There’s a couple of shots that I could probably use some advice on. Plus, I was really enjoying just getting to spend some time with you. Home can wait a little longer.”

***

Amity was panting as she skated over to Luz who had half a pizza crust hanging out of her mouth. She grinned as Amity took her helmet off and leaned up against the small railing separating the player box from the rink.

“You are looking amazing out there! The other teams aren’t going to know what hit em!" Luz exclaimed excitedly, barely managing to swallow the crust before jumping up to grasp Amity's hands.

Amity laughed as a blush spread across her face. "Thanks Luz, but for the most part I won't be making any shots in-game. My job is going to mostly be defense. That means body checking anyone who comes near my teammate with the puck." She said with a confident grin.

Luz watched her confidence with a wide smile. She got to watch her girlfriend not only have fun, but also slam into other players multiple times in one night? On purpose?!

How lucky could she possibly get?

"But wait, if you aren't really going to have the puck, why'd we come back here to practice your shots?"

It was Amity's turn to smirk as she pointed at the empty pizza box sitting next to Luz.

"Well. You didn't touch your food at the restaurant first of all. And secondly, I knew something was bothering you. And when something bothers Luz Noceda, she needs distractions to make herself feel useful before she can start to feel better." The witch answered plainly, giving Luz's hands a squeeze.

Luz's smile slipped. Amity noticed it fade and pulled her hands forward, yanking Luz up from her sitting position.

"Come on Chaos, let's skate for a bit."

"Oh, Amity, I'm not sure that's the best ide-" Luz tried arguing, but Amity had pulled back just enough that the human had to scramble over the railing or risk being squished into it.

As soon as her feet touched the ice, Luz's legs slipped out from under her. Amity's arms were there to support her in an instant, providing just enough balance that they began to glide backwards, almost peacefully, around the ice. Every once and awhile Luz's limbs would freak out and she would nearly wipe out, but every time Amity was right there, holding her up and the girls would devolve into giggles once again.

When they were both exhausted from fighting Luz's inability to function on ice, Amity guided them both off the rink and they took a seat in the players box once again.

"Ok. I swear. One of these day's I'm finally going to just get it and I'll be able to walk all over the ice. Just you wait." Luz promised Amity as she wrapped an arm around her girlfriend's shoulders.

"I believe you'll keep trying anyways." Amity laughed with her, leaning into the embrace.

Suddenly she stiffened. Turning around, Luz saw it in her amber eyes how serious she was.

"Now, Noceda. You're either going to talk to me about what happened back at the restaurant or I'm going to toss you back onto the ice and you can try again right now." She growled menacingly.

Luz gulped.

"Ok ok! I'll tell you. I'm not really in the mood to go splat right now anyways." She squeaked out in a nervous rush.

Amity's eyes softened as she waited for Luz to continue.

"It's just that, I don't know if you heard or noticed, since you were kinda tired earlier, but those ladies who were sitting by us... they kept raising a fuss. Which is stupid! I shouldn't care what they think, and I don't! But... they kept bothering everyone on the staff and the other customers. I was getting worried that things were going to escalate and I didn't want you to get caught up in all of that."

Amity's face was blank as she puzzled together what Luz had said. Maybe her reaction didn't make sense after all. Luz was probably overreacting anyways...

"Raising a fuss? Why would they raise a fuss over us?" Amity asked curiously.

Luz's eyes widened. It wasn't like Amity to be oblivious, that description mostly fell to the human, but the genuine innocence in her girlfriend's voice worried her.

"About us, because we were there. Together. Being happy." Luz answered bitterly, holding Amity even tighter.

Luz watched as Amity's face twisted into a confused frown. It suddenly occured to her that the witch may not actually know what homophobia really was. In all the time Luz had spent in the Boiling Isles, she never encountered anything like it.

"Amity... they were disgusted by us. There are some people here who think love should only exist between a male and a female." Luz explained grimly, avoiding looking at the witch beside her.

"But.. why? What about, any person not of those genders? I don’t see how they can just limit love like that. Or why."

"You don't have homophobia on the Isles then."

"Homo... what?! Is that some kind of human insult?"

Luz chuckled. "Well, yes and no. It just means people who are afraid of same sex couples, but it can extend to the intolerance of anything 'not straight.'"

"Oh... ok. So the fear leads to hatred. And then you get 3 ladies causing a fuss." Amity nodded, finally understanding. "On the Boiling Isles there's so many different sentient species that it never mattered who you loved. "

"Yeah... well here it seems to matter too much."

Both girl's were quiet. Luz had never felt ashamed of who she was, but for those few minutes in the restaurant she was afraid. Afraid of what would happen if they didn't leave.

"Luz?" Amity asked suddenly.

"Yes?"

"Can you tell me next time something's bothering you like that?"

Luz froze. Amity sounded so hurt. She leaned her head into the crook of her girlfriend's neck and closed her eyes.

"Yeah. I will. I promise."

Amity leaned her head right back into Luz and sighed, content with the answer.

"Thank you."

***

Later that night, before they both went to bed, Luz would curiously check inside the extra box that the man at the counter had slipped her, wondering why it seemed a little bit heavier then the other, empty, boxes.

Inside she'd find a giant cookie and a note written in pen taped to the inside of the lid that read: "Next game the Otter's win, pizza's on us. No old birds or homophobes allowed. :)"

[mintenochian]

what other people want added to Minecraft: g u n s

what I want added to Minecraft

•Birds

-For multiple biomes, but mainly for the forests.

-Songbirds would add SO MUCH life to the otherwise quiet areas of the game

-Ravens and crows would be awesome and could use some of the parrot mimicking AI

-Cardinals in the snow biomes would bring a GORGEOUS pop of colour into the white atmosphere

-Seriously we need something to populate the sky, parrots do NOT fly like they should

-nests in trees, can find eggs in them

-doesn't really add a use but fun new feather types would be cool

•Owls

-technically still a bird but would go really well in covered rooftop forests and snow biomes

-we're already getting larger avians added in the form of vultures so why not more large birds?

•Mice and / or rats

-absolute precious babies

-sadly would go well with owls :(

-with cave update coming we need adorable rodents scurrying around

-lil bastards could make mouseholes inside of blocks

-will they be tameable? idk.

-adds the necessity for cheese

•Deer

-MOJANG this is a MUST, this is a NEED

-You literally have pigs, chickens, cows, and sheep spawning in forests what the fuck

-Deer with spotty baby fawns??? Yes

-Young bucks with different stages of antler growth? Yes

-Fawns frolicking in flower forests bc they feel safe

-Stripped wood appearing on trees where bucks scrape velvet off their antlers

-Being able to collect sets of antlers when they fall off periodically (would NOT be attainable by killing the deer, you have to wait for them to shed)

•Elk and Moose

-Same vein as deer

-Bigger, much bigger, neutral instead of passive, less shy

-Snowy biomes

-Better additions than fucking llamas tyvm

-Sidenote but savannahs could also really use some endangered deer-like species to help raise awareness for their status

•Squirrels

-Mojang plz

-Adds nuts to Minecraft ;)

-Black, grey, red, and mixed colour squirrels and breeding

-Brings life to forests like songbirds and deer

•Bears

-Mojang bby you literally already have a neutral bear in Minecraft why have you not reskinned it for grizzly/brown/black bears?

-Bear caves

-Hibernating mobs

-Brings more use to the beehives and bees, bears could be attracted to any area that has more than one bee hive with honey

•WOLVES AND DOGS

-They NEED the ocelots and cats update

-More wolf types (red, timber, snow, black, etc)

-Actual wolf packs (the AI would be difficult to program but the doges are worth it)

-Please let the howl at the moon, if foxes get to say ringdingding all night long wolves deserve to be allowed to howl

-More dog breeds (I know that there's no reason for domesticated dog breeds in Minecraft but ACTUALLY THERE IS)

-Hunting dogs like springers that can jump and run faster

-Foxhounds :D

-Most Important Goodest Boy: Herding dogs like collies and sheepdogs

-Herding dogs could be found in plains where cows and sheep spawn and create herds

-LET DOGS LAY DOWN FOR FUCKS SAKE

•Herding

-Instead of having to pen up and enclose your livestock you could form herds of cows and sheep

-Your Goodest Boi herding dog would protect them and move around with them when they graze

-Just soft peaceful minecraft tingz

•Salt licks

-Something SO SMALL but would make SO MUCH HAPPINESS

-Drawing new cows into your herd by putting up a salt lick

-I'm soft

-I guess salt would be a new ore???

•Bird feeders

-idk I think it would be cool

-excess seeds used for SOMETHING

•Raccoons

-The coolness of wolves, the chaos of foxes, the cunning of cats

-thumbs

-be gay do crimes

-can open chests (trigger trap chests to catch them?)

-Fantastic little shits

-Not tameable but will trust players like foxes do

•Snakes

-I know it's a lot to ask and it would be hard to make them look good

-But??? Imagine a tiny lil garter snake in your garden

-unlikely but would be so fantastic

•Rope

-climeable

-please Mojang we need this so badly

-imagine the ships? The bridges? The bell towers and everything?

-super easy to add, just reskin vines and add a string crafting recipie

•Butterflies and Moths

-Bflies could be a unique mob to flower forests and friends with bees

-if moobloom is added they would all be BEST BUDS

-get it "buds" ahahaha

-help with flower polination but just gives a TON of life to flower forests

-We literally have lanterns in minecraft why do we NOT have moths? Such a cool aesthetic addition.

-helps fill both the daytime and nighttime sky

•Hummingbirds

-fourth member of BEST BUDS

-just soft baby

-i love birbs okay

-the only avian who does not work for the bourgeoisie

•Fireflies

-10 million of them please

-they give great hugs

-adds so much atmosphere to the night world

•Cheese

-We have milk

-We have, presumably, goat milk

-Quit being cowards and add butter and cheese

-Butter churn job block for villagers

-V funny bc they have no arms to churn with?? Oh well

•Seashells

-Something decorative and beautiful that could 1) liven up beaches and 2) have snails and crabs inside!

-Mojang plz do not add sand dollars to the game people already don't know how to tell if they're still alive before trying to take them home

•Whales

-WHALES.

-Imagine something as massive as the ender dragon but peaceful. Allows you to stand on them (idk how but make it happen Jeb)

-WHALE SONGS.

-Being so deep and far out into the ocean, and when the moon is high in the sky and you're sitting in your boat, you just hear the beautiful melancholy sounds of the whales in the distance

•Jellyfish

-Idk if y'all know this but the glow squid is a bad idea

-Dream buddy you fucked up, please use your influence to get in contact with Mojang and have them redo the vote. People would have so much regained respect for you if you tried to fix your mistake.

-Also why does a speedrunner get to tell millions of people what mob would bring more life to Minecraft? He's only playing the game for 5 minutes smh

-aNYWAYS

-Jellyfish could literally do everything the glow squid is going to and look better for it AND possibly be neutral instead of peaceful

•Orcas

-Not much to say but it would liven up the frozen water biomes a bit

•Penguins

-You already know why

-Imagine giving a new home to all the Club Penguin players? Legendary.

-Gender doesn't exist in Minecraft but we all know penguins would be hella gay

•Lobsters

-I think they would be cute

-You would NOT BE ABLE TO BOIL THEM ALIVE THANK YOU VERY MUCH

•Mermaids

-Never going to happen since passive mobs are generally real life animals but it would be so cool

•Otters

-they can hold hands

-brings life to the rivers

-super cute

•Frogs and possibly toads

-Swamp gods

-Absolute mad lads

-maybe grow from tadpoles

-wouldn't do much but needed

•Fairy Forests

-NOT Twilight Forests. Not a new dimension.

-Just gentle hidden groves in forests

-ADD FAIRY RING GENERATION TO MINECRAFT.

•Big cats

-Tigers, lions, bobcats, panthers

-Literally anything that could finally add a strong predator possibility to savannahs and jungles

•Zebras and Giraffes

-Shy and skittish

-cannot ride (their skeletal structure is NOT MADE FOR CARRYING HUMANS)

-Super cute tho, brings much needed life to savannahs

•Camels

-The better llama

-Can honestly just be a reskin

-brings much needed life to the desert

-spits and wears carpet and forms caravans like llamas

•Lemurs

-Easier to add to "jungles" than monkeys

-it would be really cool if we could just get a Rainforest biome

-King Julian stans awaken

•Red pandas

-we need them

-cuter than normal pandas and you can @ me

-better idea than sloths or koalas

•More Eldritch Horror Hostile Mobs

-Fun fact time

-The enchanting table language already has Lovecraftian references

-"phnglui mglwnafh cthulhu rlyeh wgahnagl fhtagn" is literally a quote from the enchanting table

-translates to "In his house at R'lyeh, dead Cthulhu waits dreaming."

-Bet you didn't know that fun fact

-aNYWAYS add the Kraken to Minecraft instead of the shitty guardians. Thanks.

-imagine how cool it would be to see lights slowly extinguish as something terrifying and dangerous slowly moves in for the kill

-torches get extinguished and can get relit

-if not relit fast enough Something will be waiting

•Ice statues

-We have giant fossils and ship wrecks and cool stuff like that but please imagine finding a GIANT humanoid ice sculpture in an ice spikes biome

-maybe bones inside to show you that... That wasn't carved or naturally generated.

•Skeletons

-Not a mob but a decoration block

-Found in temples, mineshafts, and caves

-implied to be the remains of miners and explorers

-rare

-also implies that every skeleton you kill has some backstory since they look the same

•Constellations

-Not real world star maps but completely unique to Minecraft

-chance for LOTS of fun references

-The stars are your only companions in an apocalyptic world where you are the last of your kind

-Space is gay minecraft is gay thus minecraft space is gay

•Corn

-we have butter in this list

-we have salt in this list

-popcorn. That is all.

And finally

•Leeks

-mostly a joke but would be a cool crop

-100% a reference to Hatsune Miku the creator of Minecraft

DISCLAIMER: I recognize that mobs are added to Minecraft to serve a purpose within the game and that many of these mobs would be better in mods and such, but I also feel like many of these suggestions would really bring so much more life to parts of the game that really need it. Even if they don't serve a huge purpose, they would still be really amazing additions imo.

I would love to see the ideas and suggestions that other people have for what they want added to Minecraft, please TAG ME if you make a post like this, I wanna hear and read it!

[softkuna]

playlist

›  𝚋𝚘𝚔𝚞𝚝𝚘 𝚡 𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚍𝚎𝚛 𝚡 𝚔𝚞𝚛𝚘𝚘

› 𝚙𝚘𝚕𝚢. 𝚙𝚛𝚘𝚋𝚊𝚋𝚕𝚢 𝚐𝚛𝚊𝚖𝚖𝚊𝚛 𝚒𝚜𝚜𝚞𝚎𝚜. 𝚜𝚎𝚕𝚏 𝚒𝚗𝚍𝚞𝚕𝚐𝚎𝚗𝚝 𝚠𝚑𝚘𝚕𝚎𝚜𝚘𝚖𝚎 𝚟𝚒𝚋𝚎𝚜. 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚎𝚜 𝚊 𝚙𝚕𝚊𝚢𝚕𝚒𝚜𝚝.

›  𝟸𝟷𝟿𝟻𝚔

You had a shit day. You got pegged in the face with a volleyball so hard, you could practically taste the concussion as you sprawled backwards. Luckily, the medic ok’d you to keep playing. Unluckily, the whole ordeal happened right in front of a pro team’s scouting manager. The embarrassment alone made you want to hide under a rock until next season. To make it all sting just a little bit more, Bokuto and Kuroo had their own games to attend, so it wasn’t like you could curl up in Kuroo’s dorm like you might’ve before. Bokuto was only in town for a few days, too, and you were certain he’d be practicing or playing the whole weekend. So instead, you sigh as you walk onto the train by campus, shooting a text to the tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum.

🗨️We lost :( I think I broke my nose. And my careeeeeeer

  Bokuto’s fingers rapid-fire replied, followed my Kuroo’s more casual pace.

  🗯️BROKEN NOSE?!! ARE YOU OK???

🗯️Wait how did u lose? Aren’t they good luck????

💬That’s a broken leg, bruh.

💬Sorry babe. You’re not concussed, though, right?

🗨️I’m fine ^^” just pulled a hina

🗯️Hows a broken leg good luck? U cant play on that THAT SHIT HURTS 😱 😱

🗨️👀 👀 👀

🗨️Bo pls

  As you sat on the train, you quietly snorted to yourself. Bokuto was an amazing player and an even better boyfriend, but sometimes you thought his muscles squeezed out a braincell or two.

💬Saw the clip on twitter. hows your face? I’m sure its still hot

  You scoffed with a roll of your eyes. Kuroo, flirtatious as always, but your reflexive smile matched the tone of your text.

🗨️If hot = busted, then sure 🙄

🗯️HEY UR HOT 😘 😘 SHUDDUP

  By the way their texts disjointedly pieced together before coming to a halt, you knew their matches started. You locked your screen with a sigh. Whether it was the ace’s ADHD-induced impulse thoughts or the blocker’s humorously blunt honesty, the two had always managed to spike your spirits high and block the anxieties that crept over the net. Without their distractions, the day replayed in 4K across the theater of your mind. Back slumped against the seat, you could feel the heaviness of it drag you down to the ocean floor.

  But now here you were, walking to your apartment with no reprieve from the disappointment. Rather than doing your adult responsibilities like clean, cook, or generally care past a shower, you slept. It was a deep, blank sleep. The type where you know you’d wake up feeling that eerie calm in the dead of night.

    Brightness blared next to your pillow – invading your vision as it violently vibrated against your hand. A loud ring attacked your half-concious hearing, jolting your heart like a jumpstarted engine. Quick reflexes enacted before you could stop the near Olympic vault of your phone into the wall across the bed.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me… who the hell….” You tear the blankets off, shivering at the cold as you pick the device back up. Thank your lord and savior, Asahi, for gifting you an Otter Box for Christmas.

  A gentle gasp left your lips as you saw a slew of missed texts from the dynamic duo. Oh no. Oh no. You felt horrendous. Your phone lit up as a photo of Kuroo with a French fry up his nose vibrated to life.

  As fast as your fingers could, you slid to answer, “He-“

  “-LLO WE ARE OUTSIDE ARE YOU COMING OR WHAT?!” Bokuto hollered into the mic, practically blowing out the speaker with sheer vocal force.

  “Holy shit, Bo! What? What do you mean?” Cautiously, the screen was brought closer to your cheek again, ghosting about a centimeter for your hearing’s safety.

  “Don’t you check your phone, hot-stuff? We’re going for a drive,” Kuroo honked the horn, echoing through the window and phone.

  Sure enough, the string of texts was about a drive and a half-planned plan of action. Thrilled enthusiasm rippled through you. You didn’t even think you’d get to see Bokuto this visit let alone with Kuroo! Praise the scheduling gods!

  The phone squished between your shoulder and ear as hands searched for an outfit that wasn’t your hoe shorts and sports bra. You threw on Bokuto’s old Ace’s Way shirt, and on top a near ancient Nekoma varsity jacket. Both items of which were left in your apartment from a get together nearly a year ago, “I’ll be out in a sec!”

  College was difficult. Especially when each of you had gone in somewhat different directions after high school. Kuroo, like yourself, played volleyball in university. And like yourself, nearly ripped his hair out when experiencing the hell that was Macroeconomics with Professor Mori. Bokuto was scouted play volleyball professionally, popping in and out of Tokyo to visit you two. At some point along the way and a slew of confusing budding emotions later, the three of you dove head first into a lovingly symbiotic relationship. It was hard when each of your schedules were chaotic, but worked out for the best as you all strove for your own goals while cheering each other on.

  You grabbed your bag of random things including underwear, extra clothes, and some money.  You never knew with the two of them what may happen and you learned from one wild trip to Osaka that Bokuto’s sense of direction was about as bad as you’d think it’d be.

  Half jogging, you rolled your eyes to the red corvette. Kuroo loved that thing way too much. Through the window, you could see Bokuto lean across the console to open the back driver-side door for you. The grin he wore could’ve fueled the sun itself, “BABE! LIGHT OF MY LIFE! EDGE-LINE STRAIGHT SHOT! WER’RE GOING ON AN ADVENTURE,” His muscular arm stretched to you, calloused hands reaching for you to grab.

  He pulled you you between the seats for a  bear hug, wide chest nearly eating you whole. He was as toasty as always. Or maybe it was just your cheeks. Either way, you were happy to see him, “Missed you, Bo! Sorry for missing the texts.”

  “You were asleep weren’t ya?” Kuroo turned in the driver side, a hand finding its place at the crown of your hair. The lazy pique of his own lop-sided smile greeted your playful glare, which melted into a nod and a sigh. The look he gave softened at the navy-coated aura rolling off you in waves. He stroked your hair once, poking your cheek as his hand passed it, “You’re here. ‘s all that matters. Now, Hoots over here can shut up about your nose, which is… a little fucked up, wow.”

  “You don’t say?” Your expression dead-panned as Bokuto pulled back from you to examine the swollen cartilage. While you wanted them to see the game, you were absolutely glad that they didn’t. Bokuto would have barreled down the bleachers had he seen your wipe out in person. Actually, you recalled a snap from Atsumu; the camera pointed to the tile of a locker room, Bokuto’s howling in the background with a simple caption of ‘You good?’  

  Pulling away from the ace, you sat back into the middle seat, arms resting on the leather between the passenger and driver sides. Kuroo drove with his hands low on the wheel, long digits thwacking the steering wheel to a silent beat. You glanced between the two, suspicious of their matching expressions. You dared ask, “Why’s it so quiet?”

  “Are you saying-“ Kuroo began.

  “-you want some tuunesss?” Bokuto ended giddily.

  He readily tapped a button on his phone, shielding the screen from you protectively. Kuroo’s gaze darted between the dash screen and the road, waiting for whatever shitpost song Bokuto most definitely was about to put on.

  “Guys… what are you-“

  A record scratch.

  I still hear your voice when you sleep next to me.

  “You’re fucking kidding me! Turn it up, turn it up!” Your hand bulleted to the volume, body squeezing past the two to crank up Cascada’s Everytime We Touch until the windows rattled. Kuroo and Bokuto shared a knowing, toothy smirk. Bingo.

  “Forgive me, my weakness, but I don't know why

Without you, it's hard to survive!”

  Duetting with the utmost of dramatics, you and Bokuto reached for some imaginary lover escaping in the distance, opposite hand grasping near your hearts. Kuroo snickered, forever and always amused at how weirdly in-sync the two of you could be. Watching both of you thrash wildly together was probably the most endearing thing he’s seen all day.

  The silveret pumped his fists as you both scream-sang the modern masterpiece. His large hands enveloped yours with enough theatrics to shake the emotion into the chorus:  

  “'Cause every time we touch, I get this feeling

And every time we kiss, I swear I could fly

Can't you feel my heart beat fast? I want this to last

Need you by my side

'Cause every time we touch, I feel the static

And every time we kiss, I reach for the sky

Can't you hear my heart beat so? I can't let you go

Want you in my life!”

  The palm of your hands smacked into their biceps at the last lines, letting the 2000’s synth twinkle into your veins. The vibes in this vehicle were immaculate. Waves that crashed over you, drowning you earlier in the day, receded, leaving sun-warmed sands to dance across. The ones who paved the way were a sarcastic cat and overzealous owl.

  The song was coming to an end and you excitedly whipped between the two, “What’s next?! What’s the playlist?! Link it to me? Please?” You bat your eyelashes at them, Kuroo nudging his chin to the other. The ace hurriedly clicked a few buttons and opened a few apps, radiating delight itself, “Done!” Your phone buzzed with Bokuto’s link. The title of the playlist popped up, overpouring unadulterated admiration into your heart until it warmed up to your cheeks.

  Tunes To Cheer Our Best Babe Up To.

 It was silly, but on brand for the two. All of the songs were added within the last three hours by both boys. Each one of them an absolute banger.

  It was Kuroo’s idea in the beginning. He remembered all the times in high school you’d cry after an exam, near inconsolable until he’d loan you his headphones. Just a few months ago, he caught you throwing it back to the beat of some pop classic after you failed your first semester’s final exams. There’s a video of it somewhere, but he won’t admit to the sin. You know it because you can hear him hyena-laugh in the hallway every so often as Bad Boy riots in the background.

  Bokuto, with all the brilliantly rambunctious enthusiasm the world could give a single human being, added in every song he already had in his likes. All of which he sung with you on every trip until your voices hurt. He even added Mr. Brightside, reminding you of the time he screamed so loud during the chorus that he sounded like a donkey the rest of the day and into his next match. To this very day, the infamous ‘O ᴼO ᵒn ᵉ  TᵒOᵘCʰ’ could be heard in the locker rooms by each teammate in unison.

  You paused as the next song hit, mouth abruptly shutting as the two in the front recited, word-for-word,

  “Man, fuck.”

“What's wrong Bo?”

“Man, these kids, man, talkin' shit, makin' me feel bad.”

“Man, fuck them kids, bro! Look around, hoots, look at life!”

“Man, you're right”

“Mmm, you see? You see this fine bitch right over here?” Kuroo’s long fingers pinched your cheek at the red light, laughing as you jokingly smacked it away.

“Yeah, woah...” Bokuto beamed at you.

“You see these trees man? You see this water?” You snorted as Kuroo’s hand waved to four-way intersection.

“I guess it is okay.”

“Come on, man, you got so much more to appreciate, man.”

“Man you know what, y-you're right...” The words, lyrics or otherwise, still brought a childish scrunch to the ace’s handsome face.

“You damn right I'm right,” Kuroo smirked, taking even the smallest bit of delight out of his perfected timing, “I can't remember a time I was god-damn wrong.”

“Man, thanks, Demon Cat.”

“Hey man, that's what I'm here for.”

  Bokuto, half-joke-half-serious punched Kuroo’s bicep, eliciting a feral smirk as they went into the chorus. Bo’s arms crossed as he shook his shoulders to the beat. Kuroo threw down at the next red light, clapping to each beat. Just as the bass shook your heart in its chest, both players head-banged with all their might, car jerking with the force. You feared for the steering wheel and the threat of an airbag going off when both boys slam-drummed the vehicle’s surface. The sight of the two of them going absolutely feral elicited the brightest cackle from your belly.

  They really knew how to turn your shittiest days into your new favorites. And you’d definitely be revisiting this playlist.

[inkweaver22-blr]

HEY REDWALL FANDOM

It’s 4AM and I can’t sleep so I’m going to rant for a little bit about something my brain won’t shut up about.

There’s this fic I read some years ago that aggravates me to no end. Not because it wasn’t well written, oh no. Quite the opposite in fact. It was a more mature story than the books with the main themes being that what creature you are born as doesn’t affect your “goodness” or “evilness” and that everyone has the rights and freedoms to make choices for themselves.

The main player in this story was a badger lord seer (whom we will refer to Seer from here on) who had seen a prophecy of a great evil/era of upheaval and uncertainty (which he implies will be caused by the corsair sea-rats) and set about gathering a force to combat it. He however didn’t really care what species you were and accepted even groups of vermin bandits into his army so long as they vowed to adhere to his code of conduct. Which was really simple in “do no harm and let no harm come to the innocent” type of stuff.

So while Seer himself seemed grim and unapproachable, his army revered him for he had given them a sense of purpose, brotherhood, and honor. He united many races that were once enemies and trained them all into fierce yet honorable warriors. So while we as an audience may find him unnerving, he’s set up as the protagonist whom we are meant to support.

Now is where things start to go off the rails a bit.

His younger brother, whom we’ll call Rage, apparently doesn’t like the fact that Seer is allowing “vermin” into his army. Specifically because Rage hates rats because of the corsair. Rage, unfortunately was cursed with an extra hard dose of the typical badger lord berserk rage and isn’t as good with tactics as Seer is. But because Seer needs Salamandastron for some reason, he tricks Rage and the Long Patrol out of the mountain and takes it for himself.

Okay so it’s just a spat between two brothers, one of which is obviously a bigot so we root for Seer here right?

Well when Rage returns he notices that Seer has given sacred armor crafted by previous badger lords to his troops of rats who also happen to be right at the front of the army. Not his squirrels, not his foxes, only the rats. Rage, obviously, goes into a rage and decimates the rat soldiers and is eventually killed due to his blindness. The Long Patrol is permanently ousted and retreat to Redwall. When questioned by the Abbot later, Seer absolutely avoids the question of “did you intentionally bait your brother instead of trying to talk to him”.

Here’s where my suspension of disbelief starts to fail.

Earlier in the story it’s made clear that any creature in Seer’s army may leave at any point due to the fact that every beast is free and can exercise that freedom (so long as they don’t harm others). We actually see this happen when his force of otters and shrews leave after he uses MUSTARD GAS on a fort of villains, brutally killing them in what the otters believed was an dishonorable way. (Oh did I mention Seer is super intelligent and understands science and math that allows him to create amazing things like submarines and a tower near Redwall with a giant mirror that lets them get messages to Salamandastron quickly?) Anyway, Seer tries to refuse their resignation which the otters throw back in his face due to the aforementioned policy of freedom of choice.

This is where I get angry.

After winning the mountain, Seer parlays with the corsair king. You know, the leader of the slaver pirates that Seer hinted might be the cause of the great approaching upheaval? So what does Seer offer him? If Corsair will give up all the woodland slaves (mice, otters, shrews, squirrels, moles, ect.) Seer will replace them with all of the rats of Mossflower and beyond. All of his rat troops who served him loyally as well as any free rats in the country, evil or not, were just sold into slavery without their say in the matter. Because it is very much known by everyone that the rats replacing the slaves will not be treated like new crew members but as slaves themselves.

What absolutely infuriates me is that Seer’s army just goes with it. They don’t put up a fight, even if the rats are confused and a little hurt by this choice, they go along with it because Seer hasn’t steered them wrong yet. Which makes absolutely no sense when you think about how Seer has been preaching freedom up to this point. Heck, when Redwall begins offering sanctuary to any rat that can make it into their walls, (because absolutely screw any and all forms of slavery), Seer sends his squirrels to patrol the woods and capture any that try to make it to the Abbey.

Why would Seer’s army, who have been proven to be smart, kind, and honorable by this point, ever agree to this? Many of them most likely have at least one friend in the rats. Even if they accepted their comrades willingly chaining themselves to the oar benches, they would most certainly not agree to kidnapping free beasts who never joined Seer’s army. I just does not make any sense and is literally the only problem I had with this story.

Finally we get to the twist that shakes everything and cements this fic as one of the best pieces of Redwall fiction I’ve read.

We have a scene towards the end with Seer in the Prophecy Room of Salamandastron. He gazes upon the original prophecy of evil and upheaval, and then moves on to the next one which he never mentioned. One that states that the badger lord seer could only be defeated by another seer. A rat seer.

Everything he’s done; creating an army of mixed races, building a huge tower in the fields near Redwall, killing his brother to take the mountain; ALL OF IT, was for the single purpose of eliminating rats from the land. Seer was the antagonist all along.

It almost worked too.

In the Redwall world, it’s well established seers can have visions of almost everything, except other seers.

The rat seer, we learn, foresaw that she would need to go to Redwall to retain her freedom, but not why. So she and her family got to Redwall before Seer sent his squirrels to patrol the woods and he can’t do anything because if he attacked the Abbey he would lose any remaining support he had.

So all of this change he made, this era upheaval and uncertainty he caused, was for nothing.

I can’t remember if the story continued on after this point and had the rest of his men realize they’re following a mad prophet but I was tossing and turning all night at their blind faith in following him into becoming genocidal slavers.

So anyway if anyone can find this story I HIGHLY recommend it but be prepared to get irritated towards the end.

UPDATE!!!

The fic in question is The Crimson Badger by Highwing and the more I remember about it the less appealing it is. Lots of grimdark deaths, out of place sexism, and strange prudishness concerning premarital sex abound in this so I change my stance from “highly recommend” to “read at your own risk”.

[storytime-with-moth]

Writing modern teen Dad Sokka (zukka uni)

I wrote this a few months ago, but I ran out of steam and inspiration, so anyone is welcome to take this on and finish it as their own or take it as a prompt and try there own story.

Summer of grade 11, Sokka and Yue spend the whole summer as lifeguards, soaking up the sun, making each other laugh and dreaming of the future.

One night it’s just the two of them in the pool after it’s closed, you can see the full moon through the windows above, Sokka and Yue lay on floaties driving around the pool.

“Hey Sokka?”

“Hmm?”

“What do you want to be when you grow up?”

Sokka laughs “Haven’t heard that since I was a kid and I wanted to be and otter penguin - and no I have no idea where that came from.”

Yue turns over so she can look Sokka in the eyes. “Seriously though, what do you want to do when you can leave this small town and its small ideas.

Sokka could tell that there was more behind the question but tired answering it honestly “I dunno exactly “What” I want to be, but I think I would like to build things, useful things too. And I’m not really a car guy or a building guy.”

Yue snorts “Ya not a car guy, says the guy who failed to get his license twice!”

“Hey!” Sokka splashes yue playfully. “Okay okay, I have been looking the some of the research into mixing prosthetics with robotics and focusing more on make prosthetics one with the body, I don’t know much about it yet. But I guess I started reading all about them and I kinda became obsessed.”

“what about hockey?”

“I love hockey, and the coaches at school think I’m good enough to get scholarships, so if hockey helps support an actual career for me I’m all for it, but I know I want to do more than catch pucks my whole life, I want to really use my brain and solve puzzles.”

“hmm” Yue turned over and looked back at the moon thoughtful.

“What about you?”

“What about me?”

“Well as you so gracefully put it, what do you want to do when you can leave this place that’s too small for you and your big ideas and dreams?”

“Well when you put it like that… I want to travel, see places, important places. I want to fall in love, out of love, I want to have enough friends that my house is always filled with good food and loud laughter. I want to be a Mom someday, I think maybe I want to go to school and study philosophy, not sure what kind of job that leads to but I want to ask questions, the big questions like why are we here, what is a life well spent?”

“Whoa”

“Ya… Whoa”

“and have you talked to your dad about that?

“Sort of, and it sort of didn’t go well.”

“he’s still set on you making the Canadian swim team? Duty to country and family stuff?”

“YeP” she said as she popped the P

“That sucks”

“indeed it does”

They floated around in silence for a bit longer.

“Hey Sokka?”

“Hmm?”

“Do you want to have sex?”

Sokka promptly fell into the water, Yue’s laugh echoing around the empty pool.

They did indeed tumble into bed together that night, an awkward interaction for both of them that ended with the laughing covered in sweat. That morning when Sokka woke up Yue was already sitting on his bed looking at his doodles on the walls.

“Sokka I love you, I do, and I honestly thought maybe I loved you like a girl loves a guy, but I think I just love you because you're my best friend.”

“Ookaaay. I think I should add in you’re my best friend too? Because you’re being weird”

Yue looked to her hands in her lap and a tear fell to her hand. “Sokka, think I might like girls.”

She said it so quietly that it took a second for Sokka to understand what she had just told him.

“Whoa, no I mean, Cool! That’s fine. I support you, wait was I really bad last night?”

Yue’s tears quickly turn into laughs “No you idiot! You ere great, it just wasn’t right”

“Okay well cool then…..”

“Cool then”

“promise you won’t tell?”

“Yue, I promise I won’t tell! I can even pretend to be your boyfriend so your dad can’t freak out, and we can totally go to the girls soccer games this year if you want?”

“Sokka I love you, you big dummy”

“Well I love you to, to the moon and back dreamer”

___________________________________

So Sokka and Yue were still best friends and they spent the fall attached at the hip, and when Yue found out she was expecting a baby and her parents kicked her out, Sokka just grabbed her hand and her backpack and walked into his house stating that Yue lived here now.

Hakoda and Bato nodded and welcomed her home, Katara squealed and fawned over becoming an auntie.

And for a while things were good, they were complicated as they prepared to become teen parents, co parenting as best friends, both of them aiming for scholarships and working part-time gigs whenever they could to save up. But life was happy, they were going to have a baby.

But then things went wrong, Yue went into labour 6 weeks early, her pressure dropped, the baby’s dropped, there was blood, there were doctors everywhere, then there was a small shrill cry, more moving and running and yelling. Then there was a lot of quiet.

Yue died in labour, their baby was in the NICU for three weeks to improve her lungs and even then doctors were worried about how premature she was. Finally after weeks camped out in a hospital next to his baby in a box or in his bed in the dark or the shower staring at the wall, he could bring his daughter home. She was going to be okay.

Her name was Juno Kya Last name, and she was perfect, wide hazel eyes like her Mom, and the sharp cupids bow like Kya, it looked like she would have Sokka’s dark hair and complexion. She watched everything with curious eyes, and didn’t cry unless she was hungry or tired which was often the first few months. But Bato and Hakkoda loved their granddaughter to bits and helped with everything. The diapers, the late feedings, the tummy time, the grieving.

The grieving was the hardest. Mostly because he was to busy trying to be there as a Dad and as a student and as a team player. He spent so long being there for everyone else that one night once hockey season was over and Katara took Juno to a girls sleepover he was all alone, for the first time since he was a little boy after his Mom died.

The dam burst and he sat on the floor and cried, he cried until his Dads came home and they wrapped him up in a hug and he cried some more. Then they made hot chocolate and sat on the couch in thick chewy blankets. They talked and talked, Hakkoda speaking about loosing the love of his life with two young children, being a dad by himself, Bato spoke about loosing his best friend Kya so unfairly and traumatically. The spoke about the unfairness of life and the peace in death, and how he will never move on but he will move forward, with one hand holding his daughter and the other pointing him forward to his own future.

When Katara came home the next day, Sokka was already awake and making blueberry pancakes poorly singing ice ice baby. When he saw his sister holding Juno he scooped her up and gave her a million kisses.

They were going to be okay, because they were loved, because Sokka was smart, because Sokka was going to be driven just like his best friend was, he was going to ask the big questions whenever he could, and love and laugh, so much his home was filled with it.

For Juno and for Yue, and for himself too.

_________________________

So Sokka worked his ass off, he won a full ride scholarship to university for hockey to study bio engineering, he was even able to work on family residence on campus, which took a load off his shoulders of trying to figure out travel to and from school with a baby, now he skates, lives and attends school on campus (which even had a daycare)

During the summer leading up leaving for school Bato revealed that ever since Sokka got into school he has been trying to transfer his job to the same city so they could be closer and he had not only done that but he had gotten a promotion out of it too. So Katara was starting at a new high school for senior year and Bato and Hakkoda were moving to be 20 minutes away from Sokka’s school.

He knew he would have to get used to being more independent, as he knew his dads thought he would be annoyed by them following him, or his sister would be upset about changing schools. But no, katara had high hopes for her new adventure and sokka was just relived to not be alone, and that Juno had more than one badly an adult person in her life.

_________________

Little hands grabbed at Sokka’s hair as he hoisted 9 month old Juno up on his hip. “Well June-Bug this is it our home for the next four or so years”

Juno looked up at her dad with wide hazel eyes and replied in noisy baby babble.

From behind Sokka Bato came up and rested a hand on on his shoulder “Deep breaths kid, you’re going to be great.”

Sokka smiled ruefully at Bato as Katara ran up with a stroller full of baby things and his dad struggled with his hockey bags as he tried to lock the car with one hand.

Sokka looked at Juno again and whispered to her and himself “Deep breaths kid”

Later after they had gotten the crib set up in the attached office to Sokka’s room Bato and Katara took Juno for a walk in her stroller to grab some food. While Sokka and his dad finished unpacking.

“Son are you sure you want to stay on campus, are you sure you want Juno to stay with you? We could take her for the weeks mostly and you could come stay with us at the new place on weekends. I know you expected to do this more by yourself, but Bato would move oceans for you kid and got the new position in town, so we’re here, we can help.”

“Dad… Ya I’m going to need help, so thank you, I will take you up on looking after Juno when I need it, but you and Bato are going to be looking after her as her grandparents and not as her guardians. I promised Yue - Juno and I are family, and I’m not going to pass her off whenever I feel like not being a Dad anymore, she’s my kid and I want to be here for all the stuff, the walking the talking everything, and that’s not going to happen if she’s only my kid on weekends.

“Sokka you’re doing just fine son, more than fine really. Okay okay well when Juno wants to see her Great Papa and GB (Grand Bato) you give us a call, or if you need to pull an all nighter for an assignment you call, anything you call and we can be here. And when you get your game schedule, email us so we can make sure one of us can take her to the games, Bato is very excited about the baby headphones he bought her.”

“Okay Dad Okay, Now get out of here ya old man, and Dad Thanks for being here.”

“Of course Sokka”

________________________

Sokka was pretty pleased with his new place, sure it was small, but it was clean and had more room than he expected to get so he was grateful. The suite was in the family/accessible living accommodations which was a small building with elevators to every floor. This suite had two rooms on opposite sides of the small common area which had a worn in couch and a coffee table. There was also a small kitchen and an even smaller dinner table. Sokka’s room had a small attached office space that he turned into Juno’s room, even though she still co-slept with him most nights, it was good to have a crib for naps and a place to put her never ending supply of diapers, blankets and clothes.

Sokka's roommate was a paraplegic kid named Teo who happened to have basically the same schedule as Sokka so they quickly bonded over advancements in the medical and mechanical fields. Teo also seemed pretty chill and took a liking to Juno right away. Which made Sokka endlessly happy because, well they were now living together and babies cry and poop so he was worried about tiptoeing around his new home.

Day care still didn’t open for the next two weeks while sokka would be attending training camp so his Dad would be taking most of the days with Juno, but it happened to shake out where the first day of meet and greet and skate Hakkoda was attending a support group meeting for retired field medics in a new city and Sokka didn’t want his Dad to miss it, plus it gave Sokka an opportunity to introduce everyone to his best girl.

Katara came to hold Juno while he was on the ice excited to get a sneak peek at university life before her high school year started.

“Da da da” Juno babbled as she mushed her fist into Sokka’s mouth, sokka smiled and pretended to gobble up her hand, the baby shrieked and laughed and Sokka adjusted her baby sweater around her neck.

“Sokka she’s fine, I have diapers, formula, and the big blanket you packet in the stroller, if she gets fussy I can take her for a walk to see the birds, and she won’t get cold because you packed a million layers and she will be held by every limbo there so again, she will be fine.”

Sokka checked the stroller again nodding to what his sister was saying. She was right, he was prepared, he had already emailed with the coaches so they knew what was up and he had coffee with the captain yesterday, who looked like a giant holding his baby, but overall seemed like a good guy. Eric “Wooly Mammoth/ Wooly” Woolner seemed like a solid guy, like physically solid and also like the type of guy Sokka could lean on as a leader while figuring out classes, fatherhood and being on a university level hockey team.

Everyone met in a blank sort of room with lots of chairs facing a projector, Sokka thought it was probably to review game footage and make new plays. He settled in with Juno on his lap as the other guys in the room took notice that there was a baby in their midst.

“Sokka you brilliant man!” Shouted a familiar face from across the room as he stood up and ran over.

Haru was taller and broader than Sokka, much bigger at least than when they last saw each other when they played on the same club team when they were 15.

“Haru, dude! You’re here! Awesome!”

Haru took a look at Juno and sized her up, then he stuck out his tongue and did a silly dance, Juno hid her face in Sokka’s shoulder and Haru ran around so she could see him and did it again. This time he managed to get a small smile before she hid her face again, grabbing Sokka’s collar with her hands.

“She’s cute Socks, she yours?”

“Yep, this is Juno.”

“Nice, is she gonna be at the games and shit?”

“Easy up on the potty mouth there dude, and ya I hope so, my dads moved into town so they hope to be there and bring her to them and stuff.”

“Wicked, is the uh - mom in the picture?”

“Nah, she passed when Juno was born so it’s just us.”

“Sorry bro”

“Thanks, anyways we should totally catch up properly later. Let’s introduce the team to our new good luck charm shall we?”

Katara was right, Juno has passed from bro to dude to himbo, once she realized that everyone one here was as big and cuddly as her dad she seemed to warm up and enjoy the attention. Then it was time for everyone to get on the ice to pass around the puck and do some laps getting a feel for the other players on the ice.

Juno sat with Katara smearing her messy hands all over the glass looking at the people on the rink until she fell asleep in her stroller tucked under a whole blanket.

Sokka enjoyed the team, Haru was a great comfort of home, Wooly was a level headed captain that set a tone for the rest of the guys, then there was Lucas “Longshot” Cho, Dennis “The Duke” Cunningham, Sam “Rooke” Chesterfield, Finn “Pipsqueak” Biggs, and the team manager Suki and the assistant captain Zuko.

All of the guys were loud and boisterous, including Suki, but Zuko seemed reserved and maybe a little prickly.

Then there were coaches Piandao and Bumi. Piandao seemed more serious, the man with a plan. He had coached a lot of different teams and was sought after for his reputation of the coach who turns coal into diamonds, Bumi on the other hand had coached here forever it seemed. He gave Sokka Manic genius vibes that had him thinking that maybe he should let Piandao hold Juno for the occasional practise instead of the ripped crazy old guy who ran around the ice in uggs.

——————

Later when Sokka was packing up and talking to the coaches about potentially bringing Juno with him in case he couldn’t find a sitter last minute working out how that would work, Katara pulled up with a fussy Juno in her stroller.

“Sorry Sokka I have to run, Dad is outside waiting for me and I have to finish unpacking my room tonight”

“All good Kat, thanks again for coming tonight!”

Katara leaned down and kissed her fingers and pressed them to Juno’s head “Love you little bug”

The coaches bid their farewells shortly after and Sokka packed his stuff into the stroller before taking Juno out to settle her and give her a bottle.

Just as he tucked her into his arms and pulled the bottle from the bag someone walked briskly into the locker room where he was sitting.

Zuko and Assistant Captain huffed in and sat down hanging up his phone and tossing it on the bench.

“Uh hi?”

Zuko whirled around looking ready for a fight before spotting Sokka and said baby sucking on a bottle. “Hi Baby.” Zuko said shyly.

Sokka laughed “ Take me on a date before you call me that.” And winked at Zuko.

Zuko looked like a startled deer so Sokka took pity on him.

“Just kidding dude, I mean sort of I am Bi - what a discovery that was and anyways - sorry I wasn’t coming on to you - I don’t know you - I just thought I should make it clear that I COULD come on to you because I like guys, and girls…. Whelp I would start running away in shame now for oversharing but I’m currently a food spruce for this nugget sooo, yep just going to sit here and wish I could time travel to punch myself in the face.”

Throughout the vomit of words coming out of sokka’s mouth Zuko seemed to relax and then smirk at the other man.

“You do know I was talking to your kid right?”

“Yep, yes I did”

“Well see you around Sokka.”

And Zuko grabbed his bag and left the locker room. First impressions for today might be bit all over the place Sokka thought to himself.

____________________________________

Sokka talked to Juno all of the time. What can he say, he is a guy with a lot of words and they can’t all stay in his head.

So Juno has an interesting and advanced vocal for a 9 month old baby.

Of course she can address the people in her life, Dada, Kat, Great Papa, and GB (Great Bato)

She can also ask for milk, to go up, and uh oh.

She loves to say no but can infect say yes (sokka swears he’s heard that one)

But it also means she tries to say things that Sokka often says to varying degrees of baby success

“Stupid gravity!”

"Monkey balls”

“Shoot”

“I love you to the moon and back”

“hockey time.

And her favourite word of all time

Puck

It stopped making Sokka freeze after the first 2o times he thought he heard his baby say fuck. Now its just a cute funny thing his kid has figured out, Dada has to find the puck, and it is her job to hide them.

She hides pucks everywhere, he swears sometimes she is multiplying them on her own because he always finds at least two in the diaper bag and one hidden in her crib.

So very quickly into the season the team dubs the hockey baby with her very own nickname

“Little puck”

Sokka quietly thinks that Yue would have liked that one because her favourite Shakespeare play was midsummer night's dream.

________________________

The team gets Juno and Sokka a fancy running stroller for her birthday/christmas

It was Zuko’s idea

Zuko sometimes comes by to offer to take her for a run when Sokka has exams.

_______________________

Zuko seemed to always be the last to leave the locker rooms, Sokka would usually rush out to pick up Juno from whoever had her unless she had stayed with Couch Dao during practise which she had today.

On days like today Sokka takes his time, cleans and folds his gear, re-tapes his stick for next practise and actually has a real shower. So today he was tucking Juno back in her stroller after changing her as Zuko put the tape away. They were casually talking about the hilarious origins of Pipsqueaks nickname when sokka realized Zuko had a funny look on his face.

“What? Do I have poop on me or something?”

Now Zuko looked even more confused as Sokka looked at his shirt, twisting around to make sure he was free of baby droppings.

“No, you just never look at it, is all. I was trying to figure out what was so -weird about you other than being a crazy goalie, and you don’t look at it.”

“I don’t look at what?”

Zuko gestures to the scared half of his face glumly. “You don’t look at it, you look me in the eyes, always have. It’s weird I guess. You pretending it’s not there.”

“Oh”

“Forget it, sorry.”

“No! It’s just of course I know it’s ther, I’m not pretending its not there, it just seems like whatever happen was probably truamitic, ya know? And - well - okay so tragic backstory time. My Mom was killed in a targeted home invasion by some racists, super fucked up... “

“Holy shit.”

“Yep, anyways everyone knew about it, in the town we lived in, in the next town we lived in, So it was like everyone could see my big truma all the time, it wasn’t up to me to trust people enough to share something that was hard for me and that hurt. It was out of my hands and everyone knew including people I didn’t feel safe with or I didn’t know at all. So I get it, in a way. I see your scar I do, but I get that it maybe comes with a pretty sucky story that’s not mine to make assumptions and judgments on. If I’m worthy of knowing then I will, but I will always look you in the eyes, I’m not going to look at your trauma first because you’re Zuko first.”

Zuko stared at Sokka with his mouth open. Sokka looked away and finished strapping Juno into her stoller before looking back up at the other player. When he did Zuko was looking at the wall, his shoulders turned away from the young father.

“Thank you, and I’m sorry about your Mom… I promise I won’t tell anyone, that scar can stay between us for however long you need.”

And before Sokka could stay anything Zuko turned on his heel and walked quickly from the room.

________________________-

Sokka wasn’t sure what was up with this Zuko guy, everyone else on the team except Haru and Sokka had played with Zuko last year, so they all seemed to have an unspoken understanding of the reserve alt captain. But Sokka couldn’t even get him to smile. Sokka knew he was funny, he was full of 100% organic grass fed dad jokes for goodness sakes! But no, Zuko would not smile, he would not laugh, actually most of the time he seemed to be trying to not talk to Sokka in general. Which was hard considering Zuko was one of the defensemen and it was his job to protect Sokka, you’d think there would be an effort to become friends.

“Maybe he’s uncomfortable with the whole baby thing?” Suggested Teo from the table where he was copying data to a new chart.

“Nahh, I don’t think so, he even said hi to Juno at the first prac - ohhhhhhh” Sokka fell to the floor from where he was sitting with Juno, she took the opportunity of her opponent on the ground and began to climb on her dad.

“What ohhhhhh?”

“I totally flirted with him after that and told him I was queer and he like panic walked out of the locker room.”

“Ugh so do you think he’s homophobic or something?”

“Maybe or something? I don’t get bully vibes from him more like “I act scary so people won’t pretend to like me and then stab me in the back” vibes from this guy. So maybe it’s just a little internalized stuff and he’s not going to beat me up just might not want to talk about it.”

“Well it sucks either way!”

Juno continued to climb around her Dad trying to stuff toys down his shirt and then take them out again. Sokka kept a hand two inches from her back whenever she got close to standing just incase she decided that gravity no longer applied to her and she tumbled over.

“Hey Sokka, do you think he told anyone? Would your spot be in danger if you were outed?”

A cold feeling settled in his stomach “oh shit, I uh, I didn’t think about that… I don’t think I would be kicked off the team. There are policies like that for the school, but I don’t know about how safe I would be from the boys.”

“Oh,” Teo finally looked up from his laptop and set down his highlighter. “You know if you need someone to back you up, I know I can’t take them in a fight but I am friends with some freelance hackers and I could make their lives living hell.”

“Teo, you my man are one scary dude, and the wheels only add intimidation with that tricked out chair. You’re also a really great friend.”

Teo blushed and shrugged “Eh it’s whatever, us queers in engineering trying to change the way people use bionic tech gotta stick together right?”

“Totally, isn’t Uncle Teo awesome June-Bug?” Sokka picked up his daughter and flew her over his head as she wiggled her legs.

“Too too!”

“Uncle Teo?” teo said quietly from the table.

“Oh, well ya, if you want? Juno needs a village right? And one day you and I are going to start a bionics company together, so ya you’re going to be around for a while right?”

“Right.” Teo smiled.

“Toto!” Juno screamed again.

Both of the boys laughed and the night went on.

_______________________________________

Juno was still asleep and Teo was in the house studying so Sokka took the opportunity to go for a run around his building with the baby monitor clipped on his waist band.

It was rare nowadays that Sokka could get a good run in outside, his feet pounding the pavement, a chance to clear his mind.

He was surprised to see that Zuko apparently had the same idea because soon they were matching each other stride for stride around the complex. It was surprising even after weeks of Zuko evading Sokka at any chance they seemed to be in sync.

They were still going strong when Sokka heard Juno fuss from the monitor and slowed to a stop. Zuko halted a few paces ahead and looked confused.

“Are you tired? We can stop-” Zuko started but Sokka quickly waved him off.

“No it’s Juno, I just want to see if she’s going to go back to sleep herself or whether I have to call Teo to pick her up, or if I should go get her. Come on J-Bug settle down,”

Zuko looking curious came to hover over Sokka’s shoulder looking down at the tiny screen which showed Juno in her crib tossing and turning.

“Come on J look your penguin is right there- YES!” Sokka pumped his fist and did a little dance. “My baby went back to sleep, ah I love you!” He continued speaking to the machine and the sky and skipped around before remembering he had an audience.

It looked like Zuko was thinking about smiling and Sokka thought that that might be worth celebrating too.

“Hehe whoops, sorry man. I just haven't been able to run in forever, it's like she knows when I grab my runners and demands to see me.”

“No worries, Sokka.”

So the two hockey players started up a soft pace again around the building. It came to Sokka's mind that he shouldn’t poke the bear but he also had poor impulse control so as he thought it the words came tumbling out of his mouth.

“So have you outed me to all the guys and should I watch my back?”

Now it was Zuko’s turn to stop, he looked like Sokka slapped him.

“What.”

“Ugh! You know, like I can not talk about it and we can just play the game but - should I be making sure that Juno is safe? If she comes to a practise and I’m leaving will I get roughed up by the guys? Because I can take a hit, but my daughter is off limits. Nothing has happened yet so, my guess is you haven't told anyone, but are you going to?”

“No!” Zuko still looked scared “ Never - do I come off as someone who would do that?” He followed up quietly.

“I don’t know what to say dude, you looked scared out of your mind when I flirted with you and practically ran out when I told you I was Bi and ever since you have avoided me, I just assumed you were uncomfortable.”

Zuko looked around as if to check for monsters around them, then he looked at Sokka. “I won’t tell anyone, I haven't, I swear to you that I have your back if you ever want to say anything about it. Juno is safe, I swear it.”

“Whoa that’s a serious tone shift, Um thank you then.”

There was an awkward pause as the two men regarded each other for a moment.

“Just out of curiosity why did you avoid me after? Was it the baby thing?”

“No, it wasn't the baby thing.” zuko mumbled and toed the dirt with his shoe.

“Okay… but were good now right?”

“Ya”

Sokka turned and started to jog again, and soon enough Zuko caught up and they continued for a few more laps. As they were cooling down Zuko still looked amped up, Sokka was surprised, running usually calmed him down but Zuko seemed jumpy.

“Well this was fun! If I can ever join again it would be nice to have company, even company as quiet as you along.”

“Why don’t you bring Juno in her stroller or something?”

Sokka rubbed a hand behind his neck “ Well her stroller is a second hand one we got when she was born, it’s not the kind I can take running without it falling apart or bouncing my babies brains out. And her Mom and I both had much to offer in genetic smarts so I would like my babies brain to be perfect so she can run the world or something.”

“Oh and I guess running strollers are expensive?”

“Ya a bit, and I already spend so much on her clothes, she just won’t stop growing!”

“Too bad, it was also nice running with you.”

“Wow a real Zuko compliment, be still my beating heart!”

Sokka grabbed his chest and fell back and rolled in the grass. Zuko’s lips tilted up just a fraction and butterflies fluttered in sokka’s stomach.

Just then Juno started to cry in earnest and Teo’s voice came over the monitor. “Uh Sokka is her bottle the one in the door of the fridge or do I make a new one?”

Sokka sighed a little then pressed the intercom button on the monitor “Don’t worry about it Teo I will be up in two. Just start telling her the periodic table or something.”

“See you later Zuko”

“Bye Sokka.”

_____________

Sokka’s head was pounding and his vision was blurry, as he stumbled in the dark to the toilet and heaved.

“Fuck.”

At some piont after the sweating and throwing up he dragged himself back to his room to fetch his phone. Juno was fast asleep in her crib because he had a headache last night and homework took forever, so he had put her down early.

Back in the bathroom he rested his head on the cool tile and dialed up his dad with shaky fingers.

After three rings Hakkoda picked up in a panic “Sokka, are you okay? Is Juno okay? Where are you?”

Sokka squinted his eyes at the loud voice of his Dad ringing around his skull. “Dad? I think I have the flu.”

“Oh bud, okay. What’s going on, how can I help?”

“I had a headache last night so I put J down for bed early then I woke up with a fever, I keep throwing up, Dad I -” Sokka felt a lump in his throat and tears sting his eyes. “Dad I don’t want to her her, she was just so small, and I don’t want her to get sick. I know I have to do this, but i love her so much and I dont want to fuck up - “

The tears fall down his cheeks to the floor.

“Oh son, okay. One you love that kid more than anything you would die before hurting her this I know. Two people get sick, people also get better with rest and the I think I can help with that.”

“Dad I know I’m grown up ish, but can you tell me what to do?”

Hakkoda chuckled on the other end of the line. “Sokka, Bato and I will come pick up Juno in 30 minutes, we will drop off some crackers and gatorade too.”

“Dad- “

“Nope Sokka, you asked so I am telling you what we are going to do. We will come and get our baby girl and take her for a few days, You will email your profs and get your homework sent to you, you can only go to class when you don’t have a fever and if you do you’re going to wear a mask, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Good you will email your coaches tell them whats what, when you feel better you can go watch practise, the cool might even be good for the fever, but you will not push yourself. This week will not make or break the rest of your life. So you will sleep, rest, do your work form home, and Juno will play at GB and great Papa’s house. And everything will be okay.”

“Okay. Thank you dad”

“We will be there soon buddy”

So Juno went with his Dad’s and he sent his emails and face planted in his bed and passed out for 6 hours.

Later an hour before practise Sokka’s phone pinged, he groaned and grasped around for his phone.

A text from Fire Prince Zuko

Coaches just said you won’t be at practise tonight. Is everything okay? Is Puck good?

Flu bug, don’t want to mess up that pretty ice with my vomit. Juno seems fine she’s at my Dads house until I’m not dying of the plague

A few minutes went by after that and sokka’s eyes started to fall again. “Ping”

I can drop off soup and tea on my way to practise, which suite is yours in family huas?

Dude its fine I can feed myself

Dude. I’m helping at my uncle’s tea shop today. They have soup and tea, it’s no problem. In fact my uncle insists.

14a second floor

And thank you Z

What are Alt Capts for?

Hakkoda was right, everything was indeed okay in the end. Juno had a blast at her grandparents house and sokka managed to get all of his homework done and even managed to watch a few lectures online courtesy of Teo. Zuko was the anomaly he could’t account for but was grateful for none the less. Whenever he could he stopped by with snacks, soup, tea and even weirder sent cute cat and baby videos at random points during the days.

Within 4 days Sokka felt good enough to go to classes and do some dryland training uring practise and after one more day he was back catching pucks on the rink with his daughter sleeping in the bed next to him one hand fisted on his shirt to make sure her dad didn’t leave.

After that week sometimes Zuko would still stop by with a tea, which Sokka had begun to like even when he wasn’t dying. Except now he would occasionally stay and drink his own tea while they watched juno play on the floor.

Sokka was starting to think he might have a new friend after all…

_____________________

[puckmeupfam]

Emotion | Andre Burakovsky

Word Count: 3064 Note: I’m a sucker for soulmate AUs and this has been in my head for awhile. Excuse any spelling/grammar errors because I barely edited it. Sorry I couldn’t find a way to include Burky getting into a random car thinking it was his Uber or Backy calling him his “baby boy.” 

Growing up, no matter how confusing everything else seemed to be, you knew one thing for certain: everyone had a soulmate. You could purposefully communicate with your soulmate no matter how far away they were and any especially strong emotions were shared whether you wanted them to be or not. There were some rules that had always seemed rather nitpicky to you. You couldn’t communicate where in the world you were, or your full name, or anything too identifiable. But other than that, the whole thing always seemed amazing to you - there was someone out there who you would know better than you knew yourself, someone meant for you. 

There was one major problem in your personal circumstance. Your soulmate was much, much further away than you would like. As early as pre-school you remembered getting feelings of your soulmate’s emotions before dawn. Excitedness at breakfast. Boredom while you brushing your teeth in the morning. Sometimes you would even be woken up as early as three in the morning with exuberance and for hours you would be too jittery to get back to sleep. 

Around the time you started school ou had begun receiving messages from him. You were forced to the conclusion at just six-years-old that your soulmate was a complete idiot. The messages he was sending you were in utter gibberish. Your first real encounter with your soulmate consisted of him waking you up early with his words that made no sense. It was annoying and you had to go to school tired. In the car, there was more and you sighed. But by the time of your spelling test, you had had enough. You were trying to focus and there was a voice in your head interrupting your thoughts. No one had ever officially taught you how to send communications but you couldn’t sit back and let him bother you any longer. You closed your eyes tightly and focused as hard as you could. 

“Could you please shut up!” Yes, you had been taught not to say things like that to anyone let alone your soulmate but drastic times called for drastic measures. Luckily for you, your soulmate finally stopped talking. You did feel a wave of… something, but while it was odd and made you feel slightly shaken it was now time for recess, and all of your soulmate problems were soon forgotten as you ran for the swingset.

Later, as you grew up and learned how to articulate the millions of emotions that encapsulated your life, you would be able to classify that feeling better. Apprehension.

The next day was a Saturday and the weather was nice enough that you got to color outside. You sat criss-cross applesauce on the grass even though it made you a bit itchy. As you were deciding which shade of pink to use you felt a tumbling in your belly that you usually associated with the first day of school or singing a song at camp all by yourself. Nerves.

That’s when it came through. The stuttered, “hi.” The word didn’t sound like you had ever heard it before. Not clear like your teacher or confident like the boy who sat across from you in class. But whether or not it sounded like he was eating saltwater taffy, this was an improvement to you. So you squared your shoulders and sent back a hi of your own. Unlike the first time, the feeling that washed over you felt good. This time it felt… cheery. The feeling egged you on so you sent another message.

“My name is (Y/N).”

His response came, still not clear but slightly less timid, “‘m Andre.”

—

Over the years your Andre had become more and more fluent in English. After you’d grown up a bit you had asked him enough roundabout questions and done enough research that you had determined that what he was speaking was not gibberish but rather Swedish. While the difference between the two wasn’t that big to eight-year-old-you, it was still an improvement. 

It was when each student in your class had to do a report on a country of their choice that you had to come to terms with the logistics. When the teacher announced the project you had been quick to raise your hand and request Sweden. But when you sat down to do the research you discovered the startling fact that you were about five thousand miles away from the country. For Andre, it was around dinner time when he must have felt your thunderstorm of emotions. Disappointment. Frustration. 

“What is wrong?”

You sighed and replied sadly, “you’re far away.” His response was slow and when it came back it was just a solemn, “very far.” For a minute you just sat and stared at the wall. Before Sweden had seemed like this fun, magical place where your soulmate would live until the day you were both ready for him to appear on your doorstep. It wasn’t until this random Monday that it occurred to you that it might not be that easy. That you were separated by oceans not streets. That you may very well never be able to find him.

That’s when his words came, “It is very far. But we are soulmates and I will come to you.” He sounded more certain in those big plans than he ever was before and you genuinely felt like if anyone could make something like that happen it would be Andre. 

You tried your best to transmit all of those feelings and hopes to him and thousands of miles away, on a completely different continent you knew he would sense it. Reassurance.

When you were in your teenage years it was a definite fact that Andre was your best friend. He had always been your soulmate and you’d always had a certain affection towards him with his goofy jokes and dumb ideas. But over time he had become your confidant and he had become yours. You’d become decently proficient at Swedish- enough that he could complain to you about his parents or his totally unfair and definitely rigged penalty. It had also become your party trick at school to teach everyone the Swedish swear words that you had learned from Andre. 

You knew that he played hockey and that it dominated his time and his thoughts. You’d felt waves of excitement, disappointment, and pure adrenaline throughout his games. But it was in 2013 that, together, the two of you came to terms with the fact that he was going to be drafted. While you were so proud that he was going to be living out his dream, another part of you was full of nervous excitement because not only would he be playing professionally… he would be playing professionally in North America. 

In the weeks leading up to the draft, there seemed to be a constant flurry of nervousness coming through your connection. You did your best to take deep breaths to send back as much calm energy as you could muster. There were times when you knew he was sitting awake. Trepidation. 

“It’s going to be fine, ‘Dre,” you would tell him, “you’ll go where you’re supposed to be.” 

“But what if no one takes me,” you would hear in his nervous whisper. 

“From everything you’ve told me about yourself you’re really good so unless you’ve been lying to your dear and beloved soulmate, someone will pick you,” you were trying to come off as cheeky, trying to make him smile even if you couldn’t see it for yourself. His anxiety was starting to diminish but your own mind was filling up with something else… something that you spurred you on to say more. To make him understand.

“Andre. At the end of the day, if all else fails, just know that I will always pick you.”

Both of you were swimming in emotions. There was a crushing weight of something in your chest that almost brought tears to your eyes. The feelings were all new and unfamiliar and it made you feel too overwhelmed to try and categorize. So you chose one of the simpler ones. Bliss.

The day of the draft you had practically glued yourself to the TV. You swore you could feel Andre’s nausea. As it was all gearing up you made sure to tell him how proud of him you were no matter what happened. You sat through most of the first round chewing your lip before the twenty-third pick came up and with absolutely no preamble you heard it.

“Washington takes Andre Burakovsky.”

The camera panned to the player and his family. Your jaw dropped as you practically drowned. Disbelief. Glee. Euphoria.

You knew but asked anyway, “is that you?” You swore you saw him laugh before he said “yeah.” The voice in your head was full of happiness and tears sprung your eyes as you laughed. Anyone watching would think you were deranged but there he was. Still not with you, though you chose not to dwell on that, but he was real. And you had to say it, “you’re so hot.” Through the screen, he shook his head jovially while the wide smile seemed unable to leave his face. As the Canucks took the stage for their pick you were still stunned. Andre was chattering to you happily but you couldn’t quite focus. “It’s you,” you were interrupting his rambles and he paused. While you had already established that the Andre on the TV screen was your Andre, he knew what you meant.

“It is me… and it’s always been you.”

—

During his time on the Otters you let him focus on hockey while simultaneously teetering on the edge of Something. He was on the verge of making it and you didn’t want to complicate that, but you were both acutely aware of each other. For as long as you could remember Andre was yours and him being in the NHL didn’t change that. Over time you’d gone from kids who could barely conceptualize that the voice in their head was a real person to teenagers who were friends and now you were adults who were a bit more. You were falling for your soulmate. 

On the night of his debut with the Caps, you were bubbling over with delight. You were sitting on the floor in front of the same TV that you watched him get drafted on. The camera followed him as he did his first lap on NHL ice and like the first time your mind went blank except for Andre. You were enraptured watching him during the anthem and when the game started your eyes didn’t follow the puck, instead they stayed trained on number sixty-five. 

Suddenly there was a turnover by the Canadiens and there was Andre with a one-timer and you actually screamed as you watched your soulmate score his first goal just six minutes and forty-three seconds into his NHL debut. As he jumped the boards you did your best to focus enough to send him a clear message. He was tackled by his team so you weren’t even sure if he got it until he emerged to high five everyone on the bench. That’s when you heard him. Short and tooth-rottenly sweet. 

“For you.”

Pride.

—

Not every day was as rejoiceful as that one. His upper-body injury during their 2018 Cup run hit him hard. He had missed time due to injuries over the last two seasons and he had been hoping to prove himself. Healing during the playoffs gave him far too much time to overthink. Every time he told you about a pass that missed or a shot that was saved you did your best to talk him down and convince him to focus on healing. The trouble came when he was finally back in the lineup but seemed to psych himself out of every scoring chance. You watched as he went back to the bench after barely five minutes of ice time. Anger. Desperation. Normally you avoided communicating with him during games but you could tell he needed more than even Nicke or Tom could give him. 

“Andre, don’t beat yourself up. Just focus on the team.”

“You’d pick me?”

“I will always pick you.”

Later that night, even though Andre hadn’t scored, the game was one to remember forever. Your jaw hung open as you listened to John Walton cheer, “The demons have been exorcised! Good morning! Good afternoon! And good night Pittsburgh! We’re going to Tampa Bay! The Capitals have done it!”

Shock. Thrill.

When Washington won the Cup final against Vegas you were overpowered by Andre’s triumph and ecstasy. You couldn’t even tell where his excitement ended and yours started. While he spent the rest of the summer drunk on happiness and an unbelievable amount of alcohol you found yourself oddly jealous. The two of you had never really discussed a plan for meeting. But now you were selfishly upset that he had gone through this momentous life event without you. That he had gone so much of his life without you by his side. You told yourself it was because you didn’t want to distract him. You told yourself it was because you had to make your education a priority. But Andre was out there. 

When the season started again with the team affected by their Cup hangover, you could feel Andre’s stress. And though you were wallowing in your own cowardice, you pushed it aside to support him and let him focus on hockey. You did your best to congratulate him on every goal and reassure him about every loss. Even though the team was doing well, even clinching their division title, it was a tough time for your soulmate. He only had twenty-five points through seventy-six games. While you were so proud of him and content with the progress he was making with his sports psychologist, you could feel how heavily it weighed on him. Everyone was telling him that he was supposed to be on the first line besides Ovi. Andre was invaluable on the rush but the constant pressure seemed to do nothing but push him further and further away.

It wasn’t until July that everything changed. You were calmly stirring honey into your tea when it hit you right in the chest. Dread. It felt like the air had been knocked out of your lungs. Something was clearly very, very wrong. Worry settled in your stomach and you took a moment to steady yourself before reaching out.

“Are you okay?” 

“I got traded.”

You felt vaguely hollow. Another major life event that you weren’t there for. And this time it wasn’t jealousy that you felt but sadness. He needed you and you weren’t with him. 

“I’m terrible. The Capitals dumped me because they knew I wasn’t good enough.”

“Andre, could you please shut up,” you said, quoting the first time you ever spoke to him, “you’re fucking amazing, I know it, and maybe now you’ll finally get the chance to show everyone else.”

His grief dispelled a bit and he replied, “I miss you.” Your eyes stung as you tried to contain your emotions so he didn’t feel the need to worry about you. 

“You can’t miss me, you don’t even know me.”

“I do know you, though.”

Heartache.

You composed yourself enough to ask him where and when his voice replied Colorado it felt like the decision was made for you. 

—

As soon as the Burakovsky number ninety-five jersey appeared for sale you bought it. When the dates for the pre-season came out you sprung to buy a ticket out to Denver. The travel website asked you when you would like your return flight to be and without even thinking you clicked one-way.

Your knee shook as you sat on the plane, waiting for takeoff. The cabin was tight and full of chatter but you were too busy imagining what it would be like when you finally met your soulmate to care. Eagerness.

“Everything good with you?” Andre asked. He could feel your nervous energy, but you wanted to keep the surprise. 

“Yeah, I’m fine. Just excited about your first game as an Avalanche,” it wasn’t untrue and you hoped he wouldn’t press for more. 

“When I score it’ll be for you,” he replied. It mirrored his first-ever goal and you laughed lightly, “I have a really, really good feeling.” Giddiness.

You dressed in his jersey and spent longer than usual on your hair wanting everything to be perfect. Standing outside of Pepsi Center hours before the game you took a deep steadying breath as you thought about how your life was about to change. Your soulmate was somewhere in that building and holy fuck this was really happening. 

“I’m here,” you told Andre after you had willed yourself inside. Despite your best efforts, your voice shook on the words. 

“What,” his shocked reply was immediate, “no… where?” You looked up and communicated all of the signs you could see, just hoping that he had learned enough of the building to know where you were. Within minutes you heard the sound of someone running. The door flung open and there was your Andre. Amazement. 

For a minute the two of you just stared at each other. He was dressed in a crisp game-day suit with his usual swoopy, messy hair and he looked so tall in person. You took one step towards him and that seemed to wake him up enough to hurriedly get over to you. Right before he actually reached you, with just a few inches distance between your bodies he stopped again. Looking up at his astonished brown eyes that were so clear even in the harsh fluorescent lighting you saw everything going through his head. It felt different than when you felt his emotions through your connection because there he was right in front of you.

“Hi,” you whispered. Andre smiled and if you weren’t absolutely gone for him before you definitely were then. “Hi,” he murmured back.

Joy.

You reached out and tangled your fingers with his. They were warm and calloused from years of hockey. Andre tightened his grip on your hand and squeezed your hand as if to check if it was really there.

“It’s you.”

“It’s me… and it’s always been you.”

Love.

[belliesandburps]

Tidbits - Kalim Al-Asim

I intend to do some writing about this sweet lil cinnamon bun, so for those who haven’t watched and or actually played Twisted Wonderland, here’s some headcanon tidbits I have for, arguably, the sweetest and most adorable of all the students at Night Raven, Baby Otter himself, Kalim.

It’s been established that Kalim is, canonically, a very big eater.  He not only indulges in a great deal of food, but he also loves throwing giant parties and inviting as many other students as possible to enjoy all the food, dance and general festivities.  He’s all about having a great time and making sure everyone else is having as much fun as possible as well.

Kalim’s gluttony stems from the fact that he’s a rather naive and unwittingly dopey lil fella, and get so lost in the moment if he’s having a good time, he may not always even realize how much he’s packing away at any given moment.  And whenever he’s been stuffed to the gills, he’ll kick back, sigh contently and be all smiles as he relaxes and nurses a nice, thoroughly rounded belly.  He obviously isn’t THE biggest eater of the bunch, simply because the school is home to so many canonical preds that he honestly couldn’t physically eat as much as Leona, Ruggie, Jack, Floyd and POSSIBLY Malleus and or Idia.

However, of all the students within Scarabia, he’s the one who tends to overindulge the most, simply due to his often pampered and easy lifestyle.  Though, as his chapter progresses, it’s less a life of privilege and more him willfully doing things for himself because he doesn’t want to hassle his “bestie,” Jamil, that includes even cooking for himself:

Prior to everything going down, Kalim used to love it whenever Jamil was there to rub his belly whenever he overate.  Nothing was more soothing a feeling than that, especially since his best buddy has some very delicate fingers who know exactly what they’re doing.  Following everything that goes down, he never asks Jamil to “rub his tummy” ever again, simply because Kalim cannot bare the idea of making Jamil feel subservient and unequal.  Though, even though Jamil wouldn’t dare admit it outright, he doesn’t mind giving Kalim the occasional belly rub every once in a while if the young prince REALLY overdoes it since Kalim is, again, quite precious.  :P

He’s also incredibly ticklish, which is also canonical when the player clicks on him too many times, he starts giggling hysterically about how ticklish he is, which leads me to believe that Kalim’s belly his weakspot.  And whether it’s sleek and flat or nice and rounded, fluttering your fingers across his tum is a surefire way to turn poor sweet lil Kalim into a giggling Baby Otter.  ;)

When it comes to Kalim and the reader, I can see Kalim being a huge cuddle bug; someone who absolutely adores affection, from hugs, human contact and just being near the reader.  And whenever getting his belly rubbed by the reader, he’ll have this adorably happy smile on his face, eyes rested shut as he hums contently to himself and gleefully thanks the reader, both for their magic touch and for a phenomenal meal.

Surprisingly, I like to imagine Kalim can actually belch quite loudly.  Not nearly as loud as some of the other students within the school, but much louder than you’d expect from such a little, adorable cinnamon bun.  It comes from how fast he tends to eat or drink without even realizing it sometimes.  And usually, whenever he burps loudly, he’ll start giggling playfully and apologize for any loud disruptions he may accidentally cause.  And given the role Floyd played in Chapter 4, I like to imagine he’s teaching the prince how to burp on command, filling his naive lil head with misinformation about how a hearty belch after a meal is a great way of demonstrating how much you appreciated your meal.  That and Floyd is just bored and wants someone to get into contests with that he can school since his brother and Azul are a bit more well-mannered than he is.

I can’t actually envision Kalim as a pred, simply because he IS far too sweet and kindhearted to ever devour anyone.  Buuuuuut I COULD see him as an unwitting pred, given how gleefully lost in the moment the boy can get.  If he did ever accidentally eat someone, however, and he found out, he’d freak out, going into full-on panic mode as he tried to get them out of his tum and start apologizing profusely and crying pitifully / adorably once his prey was let loose, since, well, we saw how precious his reactions can be whenever he feels like he’s put someone in harms way.  :P

[idontgiveaflyinggrayson69]

A.M.

Author: Nat / @idontgiveaflyinggrayson69​

Requested: Yes – Anonymous

Fandom: NHL  

Relationship: Platonic; Dylan Strome x Reader

Song: AM by One Direction

Summary: You were just minding your business sitting at a Timmies when your ex-best friend walked back into your life.

Word Count: 1.8k

Warnings: Angst

“(Y/N)?”

You were sitting at a Tim Horton’s, playing on your phone as you sipped your drink. It took you a moment to look up after you heard your name. You could have sworn that you knew the person behind the voice, but there was something off about it. You couldn’t put your finger on why or how you knew it.

You got your answer when you looked up and came face to face with a guy you hadn’t seen since high school: Dylan Strome.

The two of you used to be attached at the hip. When he was home that is. You only saw him a couple weekends during the school year and in the summer since he switched high schools to a place in Erie in grade 11 to play on the Erie Otters. But even with the distance, you guys were so close. You felt so blessed to have him in your life.

Then high school was over and you moved away to college and Dylan was drafted to the desert and split his time between Erie and Arizona. The two of you tried to keep on touch. There were countless texts, even a couple phone calls and face times.

But he became so focused on trying to break into the NHL like other members of his draft class, like what was expected of him. And you got more and more busy with university. So, the phone calls stopped and the texts between the two of you slowed until you didn’t even notice that you hadn’t spoken to him in three months.

You just grew apart.

Now it had been nearly five years since he was drafted and three years since the last time you had spoken to him, since you had last seen him. You had followed his career. You knew how he was doing, how he was traded to Chicago and was doing better there with his best friend, Alex. You knew he had been selected to represent Canada at the senior World Championships last year, which made you super happy because you knew that he was a good player, a skilled player, and he was finally being able to show the world that.

And how he was standing in front of you in a Tim Horton’s at nearly midnight. To say you were surprised would be an understatement.

“Dylan?” You asked, not believing that he was really standing there.

He nodded, dark bags under his eyes. “Can I sit with you?” He asked, his voice way different from what you remember, more empty.

You just nodded. “Yeah, of course, sure.”

He nodded again and dropped his bag into the booth across from you before going to the counter to get himself a drink. He came back a few moments later with a cup in his hand and slid in across from you.

There was a heavy silence between the two of you which you ultimately broke after a shaky breath. “It’s been a while.”

Dylan laughed softly and nodded his head. “Yeah, it has.” He paused. “I’m sorry for that.”

“I think it was a joint effort.” You told him. It felt weird to see him again, to talk to him like this. During the summer, there were countless nights when the two of you would spend countless hours at a Timmies laughing and having fun. It was your thing. To go have coffee, split a donut or two between you. So many times you had been there well past midnight talking to the point where you parents would text you to make sure you were alright because it was getting so late.

You remember the arguments over who was a better player and what TV show was better. You remember chirping him for his horribly bleached hair and the way you would steal his hat off of him to wear for the rest of the night. You remembered how natural it all felt and how easy everything used to be. How at home you felt with him and how some of your favourite conversations and memories would come from those moments.

It hurt you to be sitting there with him like this.

“I’m still sorry.” He whispered and opened the lid of his coffee. Or, in better words, he tried to. Those pesky lids sucked and he struggled to get it open with his sausage fingers.

“Let me?” You offered, but you sounded more hesitant than you would have like as you took his cup into your hands. Dylan nodded so you pulled it across the table to open. You noticed the familiar white chalk writing of his order on the top. It was the same as high school. You felt a pang in your chest and you quickly opened the lid and slide it back to him.

“Thanks,” he whispered before taking a tiny sip to try to avoid burning his tongue. “How are you? What are you up to?” He asked softly, his voice betraying him and exposing how much it hurt him that he didn’t know you anymore.

“I’m good. Yeah. I’m good.” You told him, giving him a soft smile before you explained that you actually graduated this year, with honors too, and that you got into your top choice grad school as well.

Dylan couldn’t keep the small happy smile off his lips. “That’s the best thing I’ve heard in a long, long time,” he told you honestly. “I’m so happy for you.”

“Thank you. I worked hard for it so I’m proud of myself for getting this far.” You told him. You had done a lot of work in high school to get to university and you didn’t stop working there either. You were never one to slack off. It was your life and the harder you worked now, the more future you would be able to enjoy it.

“As you should be.” He said, smiling at you.

“And you? How are you doing? I, uh, I saw that you’re doing pretty good in Chicago?” You said, or asked, you didn’t really know how you were coming off. But, Dylan instantly recoiled in his spot, leaning back into the booth and shaking his head.

“I don’t want to talk about it.” His voice was a lot colder than it had been and he cast his eyes to his hands, not being able to meet your eyes.

It was no secret that Dylan had had a rough ride to the NHL. That he was still having a rough time in the NHL. He faced constant criticism and backlash and it seemed like no matter what he did, the big bolded letters of “bust” didn’t go away.

If he didn’t have to think about hockey, he didn’t.

Which sucked because hockey is what he’s passionate about. He remembers when you used to track his stats in junior and show him what his strengths were and where he needed to improve. Sure, there were people doing that every day in Erie, but the way you would tell him, how you would get him a donut for every good thing he did…That wasn’t something that happened in Erie.

And he remembers talking about his hockey, about Connor and how Connor’s doing, same with Alex and Mitch. He remembers having arguments with you about your favourite players and favourite teams because they didn’t line up with his. And he remembers dreaming with you about where he would be drafted to and what kind of player he would be.

He remembers the pure joy and excitement hockey used to bring him.

But that died out of his life quickly after he was drafted, just like you did.

“Sorry,” you whispered, casting your own eyes down. You knew that things had been tough for Dylan, but you didn’t know that it had been so bad that he didn’t even want to say anything about it. You knew that you both had changed from high school, changed a lot, but you were beginning to think that the man in front of you was nothing more than a shell of the boy who used to be your best friend.

“Don’t be, it’s fine. I just…” He shook his head with a sigh. “There’s nothing to say about it, you know?”

You nodded even though you didn’t know. “Yeah.”

The booth fell into a silence that was borderline awkward. Neither of you knew what to say. Neither of you knew each other. But, both of you too afraid to leave, to walk out on the other for a second time in your life.

“I miss you.” You said eventually. It was true. You used to be attached at the hip with him, losing him felt like losing a piece of yourself.

“I miss you too.” He replied, giving you a lopsided smile.

“Do you still have my number?” You asked, subconsciously tightening your grip on your phone.

Dylan thought about it for a moment, not sure where this conversation was going. He did have it. But what if you asked him to delete it? He couldn’t do that and lose the only piece of you he had left, the only piece of you that went from Mississauga to Erie to Glendale to Tucson to Chicago, his piece of home in an ever changing scenery. But then again, he also had the number memorized, so it wasn’t like it would be gone forever.

“Yeah, I do.” He ended up whispering.

You smiled at him, reaching across the table to pat his hand. A peace offering. “Then use it.”

“Yeah?” He asked, half of him believing that this wasn’t happening. There was no way you just let him walk back into your life. His luck never went that way.

You just smiled at him. “Yeah.”

And he did use your number.

The two of you ended up texting long into the night multiple times a week, the ease and comfort of your friendship coming back as if it hadn’t been put on pause for nearly four years. Through that summer, you and Dylan met back up at Timmies, you always helping him with his lid, so many times that you were able to fall back into a routine you never thought you would again.

And Dylan felt at home for the first time since he was an Otter.