#and fuck up a lot of goodwill and a lot of good people for selfish ends

[lord-radish]

I think I'm beyond the point of an organised belief system or more far-out philosophical stance than I used to be, like I toyed with the idea of philosophical satanism for a while but learning about how shit the Satanic Temple and LaVeyan Satanism were really soured me on satanism on any level outside of aesthetic. Like fuck it I'll be a poser and dig satanic imagery while being actively critical of the institutions and foundational texts of the wider satanic/pagan movement. I'll respect the people and their own belief and adherence to an idealised version of that, but my belief in any of it, even as a transgressive counter-cultural movement, is gone.

Like for a while I just discussed satanism as a concept and talked about the tenets and how it can be a tongue-in-cheek reaction to organised religion that reflects and contrasts and is empowering and all that, and then it turns out one of the guys behind The Satanic Temple, Doug Mesicko or Doug Mesner or whatever his fucking name is, had a pro-eugenics website until very recently, chose to platform KKK members for years and is generally a very shitty, antisemitic gloryhog.

Like satanism as it exists today is a hokey novelty that some carnie came up with, and now the leading satanic org in the world take people to court because they have a copywrited version of Baphomet. It's a con, and it took the wind out of my sails, especially as more people championed TST on the grounds of religious freedom despite their consistently terrible track record in winning court cases for civil liberties.

Pro-Satan, pro-666, pro-power to the people, pro-transgression. That shit belongs to everyone. But my stance to any sort of institutionalization of that is that it should be burned to the ground. Nothing good comes from a counter-cultural institution. It's an oxymoron.

[thosemintcookies]

I think the worst crime of the current DD run is that it reads really liberal. It sets up interesting stuff about prison abolition and the spectre of personal guilt in matters of justice and even race issues and whatever but it doesn't follow through with a real statement on it, not to mention i really don't think a white man should be like. THE face of these conversations? We already have Luke having all these conversations. I think the fact he just sort of chose to go to prison is a certified white girl boss moment it's literally the set up to orange is the new black where the lady realizes she's the least interesting person there. It sets up fun stuff about the community, how to spend money in ways that are actually helpful to community interests etc. Idk we could have had Elektra learning to take an interest in the city beyond her ties to Matt, who she hasn't dated in 20 years. You have the best annual ever (Mike!) But then you barely utilize him and just make it petty family squabbles until he legitimately dies. I'm being a stinker hates but I have siblings and as much as I hate them we've endured the same traumas and also I love and support them. I wanted to see them connect.

Idk matts character is previously established to be one of narcissistic self interest and extreme guilt but I think also that he's naturally violent and vengeful. He's extremely self-justifying and he thinks his sadness absolves him of his selfishness. But in this run his intentions are more or less justifiable in a vague "moral goodness" kind of way and not "this is what I want" kind of way. I know a lot of people are coming from the Netflix show where they sanitized his intentions but the most annoying parts of him were his white saviour complex even then.

Also I don't get the impression there's any input from real religious people in this run all the dialogue about religious morality read black and white when in religious communities I've been in (other than cultish fundamental groups, whose faith I found rather shallow to be fucking honest) It's been about growth and development and complexity. A core tenet of Christianity is the fundamental worthiness of everyone. It's love at the core of the universe. It's personal guilt over one's own sins but these arise from goodwill and love of those you've wronged. What kind of freak only feels guilty about murder because God told then it's wrong. I don't know. There aren't easy answers in atheism or religion. Philosophy hasn't been solved.

Like in studying criminology the hottest take and the biggest takeaway is that community connections and love drive people away from violence and addiction. We could have been having the story where Matt realizes that the connections he has redeems him, that guilt is an emotion of inactivity, that using the prison system as his way of absolving his guilt rather than restorative action with the people hes wronged is silly and useless.

Maybe it's because I think white people telling me about their guilt is annoying. Maybe it's because people have talked down to poc for their "backwards" beliefs and a lot of the talking points feel similar. Everyone is an annoying liberal and no one knows how to embrace each other.

[writeradamanteve]

After Much More Consideration Than Is Warranted for Someone Who Didn’t See the Episode

I have a lot to say, and if you choose to disregard it because you think I don’t know what I’m talking about, feel free to skip.

But if you’re open to my thoughts on all this, buckle up. This is not for the faint of heart or “To All the Boys I Loved Before” crowd—

I’ve had a good night’s sleep and a lot of kvetching on Discord behind me. I’ve had a few hours to think and here’s what I’ve ended up with:

On Betty Hooking Up With Archie

As unpalatable to me as the B*archie plot is, I am of the firm belief that ultimately, Betty has every right to fuck whomever she wants.

Do I hate that she chose Archie? Yes. Did I think this was something Betty and Archie could walk back? No. Would I feel as terrible if she slept with Sweet Pea? Or Reggie? Or Farmer McGinty? Not in the least. I simply hate it because it’s Archie, and I’ll explain in a bit why these earlier thoughts are problematic, but I’ll go into the other better reason I hate this plot: I hate it because this is the third time in five seasons we have to deal with this. I’m tired of it. I have to watch these writers shoehorn this plot in for whatever stupid and misguided reason they have: that Betty’s trauma is making her do it and that they need to have Jughead and Archie have some kind of blowout. Like, can’t they think of anything better?

BUT be that as it may, this plot is here, and so now we come to why assigning hate to this plot “because it’s Archie” is problematic. I asked myself: should it really matter? Objectively, no. Its been 7 years. Jughead shut her down in a voicemail, and as far as she’s concerned, Jughead didn’t want her anymore. Archie’s clearly a selfish prick, but he definitely has no issues about sleeping with his supposed Best Friend’s ex because Reggie, his football bro-dude, did it to him with Veronica and it turned out he was OK with it. He is applying the same here, and ultimately, if Jughead has to find out that Betty and Archie were boinking indiscriminately, he needs to remember that he cut that chord when he left that voicemail. He might not have known it then, but he knows it now, and he has to examine his own part in unraveling that Blue & Gold thread.

On Jughead Womp

Listen, all. I love Jughead, and given everything that’s happened in these episodes, I feel for him. I feel like in some respects, the other characters could be nicer to him, but let’s get one thing straight. Jughead had a lot to do with his own misery and misfortune. Our precious soft boy caused many of the things happening to him now—his distance from Betty, the way the Serpents aren’t forgiving, his writer’s block, his failed relationships, and maybe even the eventual demise of his writing career (if he did send Cora’s manuscript and passed it off as his. At any rate, if he did a “Punching and Fucking” Californication schtick, he will survive it like Hank Moody did).

I love him, but if any discontent is going to be expressed about how the rest of the gang are handling their miserable selves, we can’t place Jughead above it and think the world is against him. No. Just no. Those unpaid bills didn’t unpay themselves. Those mobsters aren’t randomly pursuing him.

Jughead is JUST as disappointing as the rest of them, because he squandered the great opportunities that were handed to him, and then he had the gall to think that the Serpents wouldn’t take his portrayal of them personally. 

I say this to him (and maybe to everyone because this is a good life lesson): Goodwill is enduring (he sacrificed his life for Serpents), but people will only endure so much if you shit on them, and in this case, he memorialized that shit in a published book. 

On Betty Saying She Wanted to Fuck Archie Since High School

This didn’t even make me blink. Like, I didn’t even feel a twitch about that. @imreallyloveleee​ said it best in her post but it bears repeating: (1) sexual thoughts aren’t exclusive to the people you love; (2) it doesn’t invalidate your meaningful relationships; (3) Betty could’ve done it with Archie in the bunker, but she didn’t.

I’m not even going to point to, “Well, she liked him until sophomore year so YEAH, she thought about sleeping with Archie.” I think that’s absurd. She did think about sleeping with Archie even after that. Even after she was with Jughead. Archie WAS a thing, and thoughts--especially sexual thoughts, are not static and linear. They are alive and affected by a multitude of chemical reactions in our body. They permeate our daily activities and relationships. She HAD those thoughts and she doesn’t need to apologize for it, or be villified for it. 

The funny thing is my initial thought about it was that it was just pillow talk. On the one hand it could be construed as something of a bone she was throwing Archie the Labrador, but it was also something Betty needed to say for herself, a way to convince herself that she was doing this for something more meaningful than a way to cope with being in the Panic Room of her trauma, but this is a conclusion based on nothing but my own biases.That said, it certainly kept me from falling into a black hole of despair over it.  

On Betty Sleeping With Men Because She Can

Maybe she has to work on some stuff for her mental health. Maybe she has some trauma, but Betty had enjoyed sex in the past even without trauma. She likes it and sometimes she just needs it. Her sex appears to be responsible, consesual, and she appears to enjoy it. I mean, when she doesn’t feel like it, she says, “Nah,” and stays home with her cat.  

[fallandfallandfallapart]

Forget the mass of humanity. Forget the concerns for mankind. Forget the pleas and cries of the international and national…thing…that is called “the people” (I reject the notions that it is alive, as some may say, certain deluded individuals), that everyone everywhere claims to speak on behalf of, for no one gets anywhere without their consent (although the consent is usually superficial; the mutuality is a farce, as you might ascertain from opening a history book, for make no mistake, nothing, and I do mean nothing, is done on behalf of “the people”). Forget the appeals to my biological kinship with my fellow persons. Forget the emotional appeals, for I have no particular goodwill towards the lot of man. There’s nothing for me there, and I doubt there ever will be. There are exceptions, and those who are, I cherish you deeply, and greatly. Let it be known that, by me, you are loved. As for the rest? I can’t say I am compelled to sympathize or want the affections of the majority. For I do not identify with them, and I do not ally myself with their causes, their wants, their needs, their desires, their fears, their worries, and their likes and dislikes. Why should I count myself among willing slaves, who so gladly serve selfish masters? Seems like a terrible idea to me.

This is what I want.

I want unbridled, unrestricted freedom. And I shall decide what that means, for me. Where those limits lie, if I acknowledge any. What I fight for, and what I fight against. I only stop where I may decide to stop, and I shall go only where I wish to. I will use whatever spirits, geists, that I find pleasing to me, if I shall utilize any at my disposal. And I shall determine, for myself, what form it takes (and the material means used to establish it), what it happens to manifest as, for the world is a canvas, the pages for a novel, and my life shall be poetry, it shall be art. The pools of inspiration it draws from. The various sources of inspiration I look to, as I realize my will, in its fullest potential, for that is all any of us can do, and that is all we may be said to have the “right” to do. If it is not the same tomorrow, as it is today, or yesterday, then be not surprised, for stagnancy and consistency are old and for old men, while youth and renewal and contradiction, that is the way of things, the true way of things. With whoever I want, those fellow vagabonds, if I can somehow manage to seek them out, if their vision, whilst not the same physically, is similar in spirit, and I repeat, with whoever I want, I shall associate with. If anyone shall decide to join me, so be it. If they refuse to, or even oppose, then I cannot blame or stop them, though I shall try to make it happen nonetheless. They can come and go as they please. Do as thou wilt, my friends. Do as thou wilt.

It shall be in a most beautiful, natural setting. Overgrown grass and healthy flowers instead of filthy sidewalks and streets. Tall, muscular, vibrant, imposing trees in place of concrete squares and drab, wooden structures. Soil for my bed. Lakes and ponds as my bathtubs. The breeze as my air conditioning. Wild fauna living their lives to the fullest, rather than drab, human clones, pompously strutting about. The sun and the moon taking the place of putrid streetlamps and streetlights. Money and moneyed interests will be gone, evaporated like mildew in the morning sun. No more will the economy be a deciding factor in anything. It’ll back-to-the-land. However, the land, and its inhabitants, shall not be dominated. Harmony shall be achieved, where everything has its place. Nature is not our bitch. We are Nature’s bitch. We’d do well to remember that eternal fact.

This is not for anyone’s sake, outside of those whom I am emotionally attached to, and appreciative of, and love dearly. That is the answer to those critics who may be suggesting I am trying to be some sort of savior, some sort of messiah, striving for a kind of “greater good”, where all is restricted out of necessity. This should shut the conservative cowards and idiotic reactionaries up. Might I suggest you go back to the office and the church, and keep your noses out of what you couldn’t possibly understand. And if they cry the leftist-sounding cries of “egoism” and “selfishness”, then I shall throw their hypocrisy back in their faces, eviscerating their weak, pitiful arguments. I am what they practice, without all of the empty justifications they use to synthesize their contradictions, rendering them schizo . Nor shall I deny that I balk at tradition, for their “traditions” are false, and not perennial in the slightest, not worthy of the allegedly “primordial” importance they give to them. To put tradition, real tradition, and the ways of the Cross, Crescent Moon, or Star of David in the same sentence…would be the most absurd of errors. They are flimsy, just like their followers. Born of an age and period most foul, most absurd, and most deadly. And if economic concerns are raised towards me even once, I shall the nearest bank to the ground. Fuck your dismal science. I wipe my ass with your dollar bills. I might set your house on fire next.

Speaking of the left, they will no doubt decry me as some kind of decrepit miscreant. Unconcerned with the working class (I do not deny this, for to have something in common with someone based on our similar wages, is as hollow as having something in common with someone based on race, or gender, or geographical location), who are stuck in a slumber, lulled to sleep day in and day out, no sign of awakening in them to be found, and who reject whatever does not fit their mold, for they are ignorant and just as bourgeois as the bourgeois themselves, having adopted their standards. Yes, the rampant oppression and enslavement is disconcerting and hard to watch, but when they let it happen to them, and make no attempt, none at all, to alleviate themselves of it, can you really feel so sorry for them? They’d rather wallow in their sorry state, in their victim status, than assert their will, take that power, and light everything on fire, like they should. To answer the inevitable question, no, I shall not sit around idly, waiting for a revolt to magically happen, and then strive for my liberation then. It’ll never come, and if it does, as history has shown, it will not come via your side. They wouldn’t risk being ostracized and becoming an outcast for the mere sake of principles, in the meantime. Their liberty, whenever that comes, is not my liberty. As I’m sure they’ll also find out, I do not wish to make work more enjoyable or bearable, either. Those are two concepts that cannot be reconciled. I do not want to have a stake in the factory I work in. I want the factory razed to the ground. Forget about equality, too, while you’re at it, dear reds. I will gladly resist any attempts to level, to make me one with the herd. It won’t happen. I’d sooner fight you the way commie scum are supposed to be fought (I’d gladly make Joseph McCarthy look like a goddamn socialist, if need be), than let you pull a fast one on me.

Some may deem me a madman. But this is a mad world we live in. Everything is topsy-turvy. A crooked, messy hodgepodge we live in. All that we want to save or resurrect is dead and gone. We’re living in the shadow of a dead god, and the new ones give us nothing at all but misery and strife. Therefore, why not embrace the chaos and madness? After all, chaos is the natural state of life. Life is not orderly and pretty. If it is, it is not in any way the human mind would be able to grasp it. It is gruesome, violent, and uncertain, yet this is also what makes it beautiful, joyous, and exciting.

I want that thrill to come back, why the powers that be want to choke the life out of life itself, until everything is as drab and dull as everything else.

I’d go as far as to say that I, and others like myself, are the only “sane” ones left (forget sanity, however, for it was invented to keep the nonconformist from being a threat to the easily frightened mob, by quietly tucking them away in a dark corner), and everyone else is crazy.

[manesalex]

come out of nowhere and into my life, chapter 2

Alex asks Michael to be his fake boyfriend.

Also on ao3.

***

“So you’ll pick Tess up at 3,” Isobel says, hanging her dress up in the closet while Michael watches from her bed, feet up, hand in a bag of chips.

“I can’t. Got a date,” Michael tells her as he wipes his chip grease on her comforter. It’s worth it just to watch the look of disgust she makes.

“You do not have a date,” Isobel insists, looking like she’s trying her hardest not to reprimand him about the chips. “Some random girl from The Wild Pony does not count as a date to our brother’s wedding.”

“No, it’s a guy from The Pony,” Michael tells her, just to piss her off.

He watches as at least ten different arguments fly into her head and are rejected. “If you met him getting into a bar fight-”

“My date is Alex,” he tells her finally.

“You asked Alex out and you didn’t tell me?!” she shrieks, smacking him on the arm. She’s been trying to get him to ask Alex out for months, ever since, in a moment of drunken honesty, he’d told her about the kind, handsome man from the coffee shop. The one with the warmest smile he’d ever seen. The guy who he knows is way out of his league.

“Didn’t want to jinx things,” he shrugs. He’s not about to spill Alex’s secret to Isobel. Not when he desperately wants it to be a real date. Not when he’s hoping, maybe, it will go well enough that he can ask Alex out on a real date. That Alex will say yes.

“I’ll tell Tess she has to find someone else,” Isobel says, picking up her phone and starting to text. “I’m so happy for you, Michael!” She pauses, setting down her phone before looking at him and saying, “We have to get you a tux.”

“Iz-”

“No, Michael, don’t argue with me. We’re going to make you so handsome for him. I mean, clearly, he already puts up with this,” she waves her hands at his outfit, “But we’re going to make him swoon.”

Michael can’t argue with that. If his sister can give him any help impressing Alex, he’ll take it. Because Alex might be charmed by his flirting, if the way he blushes is any indication, but he’s certain Alex won’t be impressed by his, otherwise lacking, social skills.

It wasn’t a concern for him in high school and college, too focused on getting a scholarship and then in maintaining it. And then grad school hadn’t exactly given him time for anything other than school and work. As for people, Michael had Max and Isobel. But, otherwise? In his experience? People weren’t worth the effort. They were selfish and self-obsessed, And they tended to treat the foster kid with old clothes from Goodwill and bruises on his arms like he didn’t even exist.

But not Alex. He’s seen his patience and kindness with everyone, the way he sees everyone. And suddenly Michael wishes he was good with people, that he could charm people the way Isobel does or somehow win people over the way Max does with his fucking earnestness. Instead, he excels at driving people away.

“Don’t give me that look, Michael,” Isobel interrupts his mental spiral. “You may have terrible fashion sense, but there’s a reason he’s dating you.”

“Yeah,” Michael just says, well aware that that reason is just getting his friends off his back. And that’s something he doesn’t get. How on earth does Alex struggle to find a date?

His phone chimes next to him and he picks it up, reading the message and grinning. It’s Alex.

Dinner at The Crashdown at 7? Get our stories straight? ;)

see u there, Michael types in response, sending it instantly.

***

Michael spots Alex sitting in a booth in the back when he gets there and he can’t help but grin at the way Alex waves at him almost shyly. He looks unfairly good in his blue jeans and gray sweater, covered by a leather jacket. Michael doesn’t know whether he wants to tear all of them off and take him right there or snuggle into him.

“Thank you for doing this,” Alex says when Michael sits down. “I know it’s a lot to ask and-”

“You got me out of taking some random woman my sister knows, so I should be thanking you,” Michael shrugs.

A complicated mix of emotions crosses Alex’s face before he finally says, “Happy to help.”

Michael is interrupted from saying anything further by a woman who looks so much like Liz Ortecho it’s uncanny. “What can I get you tonight?” she asks, sounding bored. And then she turns to Alex and says, “And before you ask, no milkshakes tonight. Sorry.”

“Still broken?” Alex asks, making Michael realize he’s missing something.

“More like broken again. I told Papi that guy can’t be trusted, but you know what the options are like in Roswell,” she shrugs, tapping her pen against the notepad in her hand.

“I could look at it,” Michael offers, drawing the woman’s attention to him. “I’m an agricultural engineer. Can’t be too hard to fix a blender,” he shrugs.

“You sure?” Alex asks.

Michael just nods and stands, “Lead the way.”

Michael is surprised that Alex follows along too, standing in the kitchen with him and keeping him company while he works. People come in and out, working around them, but Alex is consistently there.

“You said you’re an agricultural engineer?” Alex asks, “Anything specific you’re working on right now?”

Michael starts explaining his work, expecting Alex to tune out or get bored but, to his surprise, Alex seems to be listening, asking questions for clarification every once in a while, like he’s actually interested. And Michael is reminded yet again of why he’s had a crush on Alex for so long when most other people just don’t capture his attention.

When Michael finishes, the waitress, Rosa, as Alex tells him, rushes off to get her father. When she drags him into the kitchen, Michael explains, “Should work for a bit longer. But you’ll need a new part,” he says, pulling out his phone and showing the part to the man he knows is Mr. Ortecho. “I can order it now, but you’ll need to call me when it arrives so I can install it.” He grabs Rosa’s notepad and pen and scribbles his phone number on it quickly. 

Mr. Ortecho thanks him, but Michael just shrugs, “Gotta make sure Alex here gets his milkshake.”

Judging by the awed look on Alex’s face, Michael thinks maybe he did something right.

[tracle0]

I got words, I got thoughts, I got something eating my orchid flowers, it’s time for me to ramble about wip4 again. 

I’ve mentioned in previous rambles that I’m maybe changing the villain. Good news, the villain has indeed changed. Cold, logic-based emapth? Now exists. His name is Percival. It’s a stupid name, we can all agree on that. Moving on.

Originally I was like ‘okay what if his Big Aim is to try and Stop people feeling literally anything’ because he’s an empath, so he feels other peoples feelings and also projects his own. This can make certain situations a living nightmare. Exam hall? Horrible. Jobseekers centre? Horrible. There’s a lot of hotspots of misery, it wouldn’t be that great. 

Buuuut.... Percival is kinda growing up. He’s an early adult. He’s dealt with this shit his entire life, so why decide to snap now? Something had to change for that to happen, right? 

In this world, people have abilities. That much is obvious, universe takes from your body if you go over the line, blah blah blah read the previous rambles if you want to hear more about that. Naturally, that is limited to one (1) ability per person, and there are exactly two exceptions to that rule. 

Keaton, who gets taken apart and put back together, comes back with a bit of the universe stuck inside him which gives him a lot of stress and also the ability to See where other peoples abilities manifest. And being technical, he doesn’t have two abilities, he has his telekinesis and also a parasite that comes with this addition, but it’s two abilities in one body, let’s not get specific.

I drew a thing explaining it. Please enjoy.

Percival has a sister - previously mentioned in the already dated comic sans powerpoint, there’s a displacer who specialises in the human body. She figures out that hey, peoples abilities count as part of their body, experiments on her brother by yoinking someones ability and plopping it into him and oooh wait hang on, is that legal? What happens then?? 

Well, for starts, it’s not a fun time. It hurts, having someone elses electricity running through your veins. It hurts putting that inside yourself (and, for the person who is being stolen from, it hurts having it ripped out of you). It hurts trying to use it. 

These abilities aren’t cute or fun, they’re painful and raw and they burn and it’s only because you’re used to your burning that you don’t notice it. Taking someone elses ability is like swallowing a hot coal, putting it directly in your heart and letting it pump out fire through your veins. 

But, it is possible. 

Having all this extra energy also sends your original ability shooting through the roof. Let’s take Keaton as an example again because I like him: before being taken apart, he specialised in fiddly things - really delicate movements, the ability to use his telekinesis to thread a needle from across the room. 

After being put back together? Line up twenty needles in a row. He could probably thread them all together from the other side of a football field. 

Now, Keaton and Percival are not very similar in how they fucked with the universes rules, but they did both fuck with them, so I’m using Keaton as a guideline. Percival was originally pretty good at using his own feelings to sway a room; just small nudges, maybe calming the previously mentioned exam hall with a small shot of determination, maybe pushing someone at a charity shop to donate a bit more with a sprinkling of goodwill. Small things. 

After getting that ability stretched and amplified, he can literally suffocate your own feelings with what he wants you to feel instead. The previously metioned air of numbness around him? Partially due to practise, partially because other peoples feelings hurt. It feels like needles buzzing in his skin all the time after coming out the other side of ‘fuck the universe’, and drowning that in a cloud of nothing is better than dealing with it. 

And that is why he decides to make some big plan to stop people feeling things. 

There’s also the added motivation of ‘well hey I’ve seen how feelings affect people and I can guarantee that it’s rarely, if ever, good’ and the whole ‘feeling are an irrational addition to the human condition’ and all his dumb facts and logic, but the foundation of his plan is selfish. 

He’s hurting. 

He wants to stop hurting. 

Then he wants other people to stop hurting. 

So, in my head, there’s a clear distinction between pre-universe fucking Percival and post-universe fucking Percival. I know the original Percival was an art student. I think he worked in a charity shop. He was, quite genuinely, a really nice guy. 

And then it all got

a 

bit

much.

I know this is already getting kind of long but I want to take a quick moment whilst I’m on a roll to talk about another difference between Keaton and Percival - in the extra abilities. 

I’ve spoken before in the previous rambles about how abilities have a limit until you allow them to build up again, and in their natural place of origin, this at least makes some sort of sense. When it’s an extra abilitiy though...?

Keaton’s came from something else that is now also hitchhiking along indefinitely, which means it has a clear place to refill when it’s been exhausted (if it ever gets exhausted - does it get exhausted?). 

Percival’s were stolen from the original host, meaning they’re without this recharge place. Once he reaches the limit, that’s it. The ability flickers out of existance. It doesn’t return to the original host, they burn out and disintergrate, and he’s without this stolen power, until he finds someone else to leech off of.

In addition, resting also nulls the extra ability. This is when peoples original abilities recharge, so at this time, extra energy is just converted to help power the original ability. 

[ahlite-a]

just finished a new star approaches!!  headcanons / reflections / meta below the cut, specifically re: childe, the osial fight and the adepti power they had during it, xiao, and zhongli.  (  with a heaping helping of spoilers, of course —  )

on childe :

“oh?  so you intend to fight me?  good.”  he sounds so excited.  he wants to hurt me.  he so badly wants to hurt me.  there was never anything but this desire to hurt me.  “i won’t kill you, traveler.”  traveler.  that’s not my name.  use my name when you lie to me.  “i’ll just play along — for the thrill of battle.”  i’ll give you a fucking battle, all right.

lumine trusts.  not always, not easily — increasingly less easily, a million small heartbreaks of believing in and then being used / betrayed.  she didn’t trust childe.  not really.  they knew he was using them; they knew they were an amusement more than a friend.  but if you asked them — “do you think childe would hurt you?" they would say, “i think he might, but i don’t think he’d like it.”  using them, sure.  but, still, enough goodwill that certainly he wouldn’t ——

and they were wrong.  he enjoyed it.  he wasn’t just using them.  they weren’t just an amusement.  they were a toy — and now it was time to break the toy, and he wanted to.  he wanted to hurt them.  he wanted to kill them, he would have killed them.  the realization that they were never anything to him at all, despite loving him...it’s too much.  it infuriates them, and breaks their heart, and — they can’t hate him.  but they don’t trust him at all, and any time they happen to be near each other in the future — and she won’t ever seek him out except for his ‘practice fights’ which she is 100% using as a way to vent her frustrations against him — she’ll be notably withdrawn, even more quiet, less present.  betrayal makes her quiet.  the fact that he would harm her — kill her — and enjoy it hangs over everything.  lumine can’t smile beside him in a way that reaches her eyes when she knows that he would kill her if he had a reason, and wants that.

“so you intend to fight me?”  his eyes were so dark, even when she started crying.  “good.”  his eyes were so bright.  were so happy.  he was so happy for a chance to break her.  sometimes, they imagine those eyes before they fall asleep.  it’s always his normal form that they see in their nightmares — sure, the delusion unleashed form left any wounds, and the foul legacy transformation was what nearly killed them.  but at least then he was too angry to be giddy.  at least then they couldn’t see his face, or how happy he was at a chance to break her.

she has so many scars from him now.  she doesn’t look at them.

on battling osial :

ganyu says that it will hurt, that they’ll have to bear with it.  she’s right.  it does hurt — the power of the adepti flooding her all at once, eating her heart, her flesh, her body.  her skin is rarely strong enough to hold back the light that makes up their insides; the light is brighter now.  it does hurt — she stumbles, clutching at her chest, almost falls to her knees.  there’s paimon in her ear, shouting, are you okay?  lumine?!  it hurts, but there’s work to be done, and it doesn’t just hurt.  it’s familiar.  this power — this is what they should have.  their body doesn’t know how to hold onto it after all this time, but this is as close to their true power as they’ve had since the unknown god sealed them away.

it hurts.  he bears with it.  it hurts and it feels good and right and strong.  nobody can hurt them like this, they think, almost - high, heart still aching from the one who did hurt them.  by the end of the fight, he’s not himself.  the wounds from tartaglia, still coating his body, still bleeding — he can’t feel them anymore.  the cicin mage dangles from his hand around her throat, held over the edge of the barrier.  she doesn’t scream when lumine lets go.

after, lumine wonders if it’s better to be weak.

on xiao :

lumine always liked xiao, from the very beginning.  despite the attitude — she trusts.  not always.  but he’s honest.  no masks, no deceit — no betrayal.  there was no pretending; when he didn’t like her, he made that clear.  when he came to respect her by the end of the story, he made that clear, too.  lumine respects him and trusts him and likes him, sincerely — not the least of which because he rescued her while she was still stinging after childe’s betrayal.  (  should have seen it coming, idiot, idiot, idiot.  )

if childe is all masks and false friendship, xiao is the opposite.  she appreciates him a lot, and seeks him out occasionally just to visit, to soothe.  he feels a bit like venti — a safe place, where she can trust and be herself.

(  should have seen it coming.  idiot, idiot, idiot.  )  where she can — almost trust.

on zhongli :

gods are useless, they decide.

they like zhongli, but have precious little respect for rex lapis.  they knew, long before he told them — and they understood, truly.  why he would hide it.  but they don’t understand how he can trade his gnosis to the tsaritsa; no matter the deal he was offered, lumine despises the tsaritsa — venti, i’m sorry, i was useless — and cannot respect the risk of putting the world at risk for her war.  no matter what she offered him, choosing to accept was unimaginably selfish, and lumine respects neither the choice nor the one that made it.  they’re still as pleasant, in that strange, blank way, as they ever are, but he’s no doubt noticed the subtle coldness, the quiet judgement.

even beyond the obviously foolish deal he’s made, lumine can no more tolerate his method of retiring; throwing his people into chaos and fear, risking many human lives, allowing the fatui a better foothold — short - sighted, self - absorbed, treating his people as tools to punish, to break and fix, rather than humans, with loves and fears.  manipulative, ugly.

venti’s weakness at least came from what lumine identifies as a noble cause; he neglects his godly duties because he cannot fulfill them without denying freedom to the people he so loves.  rex lapis’s faked death — and, more than that, the offering of power to the tsaritsa — seem, to her, done entirely out of selfishness.  weakness.

she wonders if he agrees with the tsaritsa.  she wonders if someday she’ll have to fight zhongli.  it’ll make her cry, she’s sure.

[moodyvalentinestories]

2083 Days (Thomas Hunt x OC)

Prompt 7 of @choicesseptemberchallenge​: Wedding. I got a little creative with this one, I suppose.

Summary: Hunt receives an invitation to a wedding he’d rather not attend.

Notes: Remember Anna? This is her now. Feel old yet? (I know, it’s just two days later IRL. Shhhhh.)

Also… what the actual fuck was I thinking when I wrote this? I don’t even have the excuse of ‘I wrote this at 5 AM and I’m tired’ this time.

———————————————————————————————————–

Two thousand and eighty-three days. It had been two thousand and eighty-three days since he’d last seen her. And still, Thomas remembered that night like it had been just yesterday. He still remembered her. Anna.

Granted, that wasn’t all too surprising. Even if he’d wanted to forget about her – which he, after only months of pretending he did, admitted that he didn’t – he couldn’t have. Not with her face plastered all over town. On the billboards, he drove by on his way to work, movie posters when he went to the theatre, and the covers of magazines – both fashion and gossip – whenever he passed a newsstand. There was no escaping her.

The peculiar thing, though, was that he could always tell exactly which parts of her face had been edited and which parts were truly hers. Because, even if he hadn’t seen her face anywhere all these years, he would have remembered. Its details were etched into his brain and they wouldn’t ever go away.

Now here he was, looking at the lilac envelope that had his address written on the back in her perfect handwriting. He knew very well what was inside. Though he wasn’t usually interested in Hollywood gossip, he’d always listened intently when her name came up. He wished he hadn’t.

He didn’t have the right to be angry. He didn’t have the right to be jealous. After all, he’d been the one who left. But he couldn’t help it. Knowing it was that airhead of an actor, Chadley Fortnum, made it all the worse.

It should have been him, getting down on one knee before her. It should have been him, picking out that violet-scented paper for the invitations. It should have been him, who would wait at the end of the aisle. It should have been him.

He was angry. And maybe he did have a right to be. After all, how dare she – how dare she! – send him an invitation! She’d known how he felt about her. She’d always made sure he knew that she knew.

This invitation wasn’t a gesture of goodwill. It was her trying to get back at him for what he’d done to her. He was sure of it.

When he’d fished the invitation out of his mailbox earlier, he was going to throw it right in the trash. He didn’t want to go. But not showing his face would mean she won. And he wasn’t going to let her win.

So, a little over three months later – six years, to the day, after that godforsaken dinner party – he drove up to Big Bear Lake. Anna’s wedding.

He’d known it was a bad idea the second he’d decided to go. He wouldn’t like what he’d see. Nonetheless, he had to be there. Not just because he wasn’t going to back down, though that certainly played a part in it, but because he had to see her. If not for his own selfish reasons, then at least to make sure that she was happy.

As he pulled up to the parking lot, he was surprised by the number of cars he saw. He shouldn’t have been, of course. Both Anna and Chadley were big names in the industry. They were sure to have a lot of contacts that would have been quite unhappy if they hadn’t received an invitation.

For a moment, he wondered if he’d taken up the spot of someone who would have actually wanted to be there. The thought almost made him smile.

He sat in his car for a few minutes more before he finally decided to go find the other guests – and his seat. He wondered whether she’d have him sit in the front, just to torment him, or in the back, to insult him. He wasn’t sure which he’d find worse.

Maybe she’d assigned him a seat in the middle. Among the people she neither particularly liked nor cared about. That, he decided, would be the worst option. Which was exactly the reason why she would have chosen it.

As he walked towards the area where the ceremony would be held, he passed a cabin with the door slightly ajar and stopped in his tracks. Through the crack, he could see her. She looked… she looked absolutely breathtaking. Of course she would. This was her wedding day, after all.

Once again, Thomas wished himself to be her groom. But, of course, that was selfish of him. She already had a groom that she would marry within the next two hours.

But before he could keep walking, her eyes met his through the crack of the door. She said something to the woman helping her with the veil, who then quickly disappeared.

Leave, he thought. Now. Before it’s too late.

But it was already too late. Anna had got up from her chair and walked to the door, her face twisted in anger.

“You,” she boomed as she opened the door. “How dare you show up here!”

If she hadn’t been so intimidating, he would have felt triumphant. “If I’m not mistaken, you invited me.”

She took a look around, then motioned for him to come inside. He hesitated for a moment but then decided to comply. As it had always been, he wanted – needed – to know what she would say. He had no doubt it would be something he wouldn’t want to hear. But he always had a comeback. He always knew exactly how to answer.

Just not now. Because nothing could have prepared him for what she said once she’d closed the door behind them.

“You weren’t on my guest list.” She shook her head. “You were on Chadley’s.”

No. No, that was… entirely impossible. Thomas didn’t even know the man!

“Chadley?” he asked in disgust.

She sighed. “His manager found out we knew each other and thought having you attend would be good for us. I never thought you’d come.”

“And you expect me to believe that?”

“Thomas,” she said softly. He couldn’t help that his heart started beating faster as he heard her say his name. “Look around you. Does this seem like the wedding I would want?”

For just a split second, he was confused. If she hadn’t wanted this, then why was she even here? She was never one to keep her opinions to herself. Then he realised.

The many guests. The lavish decorations he’d seen, even from afar. The amount of press coverage they had gotten. He should have figured it out much earlier.

“It’s all for show,” he said, his mouth falling open. “It’s a publicity stunt.”

She looked at the ground. “I know you’re going to tell me how I’m failing you. How I’m turning into the exact person you warned me not to be. But, I’m begging you, just keep your thoughts to yourself.”

“No,” he said firmly. “I’m not going to keep my thoughts to myself.”

How could she do this? After everything he’d taught her about staying true to herself? About keeping her morals in a world full of succubi?

“Thomas, please,” she whispered, still avoiding his gaze. “I have my reasons.”

What reasons could she possibly have to justify this? “Oh, you do? Enlighten me. Is it to further your career? To promote that idiotic film you’re working on together?”

“You can go fuck yourself,” she said, finally looking at him. “You have no right to judge me. You’re no longer my professor. Haven’t been for a long time.”

There was more hurt in that statement than she would ever care to admit, Thomas knew that. She’d only graduated two years ago. Had he not resigned… had he not left… he would have had so much more time with her.

“So you’re just going to ignore everything I taught you, then?” he asked. “You think you know better? You’re still young, Anna. And naïve.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Fine. Do you want to know why I’m okay with this now? Marrying someone I don’t even love for publicity?”

“Yes,” he exclaimed. “Yes, I do want to know. That is why I asked.”

Always so infuriating. Always, even after such a long time, able to get a rise out of him.

“It’s because it doesn’t matter anymore,” she said, very quietly.

Thomas didn’t understand. “Why?”

“For someone who claims to be oh-so-smart, you’re an absolute idiot,” she huffed. “It’s because of you.”

Because of him? That made no sense. This… this was the last thing he wanted for her. “I don’t follow.”

“I’ve realised that I’m never getting over you. So if I don’t have a shot at happiness, why not at least do something that’ll help me in the long run.”

Something in his brain must’ve malfunctioned. Because after processing that confession, he did the unthinkable. He took her face in his hands and pressed her lips to his. And for a moment, just a moment, everything was right in the world. She kissed him back just as fervently and he knew, with absolute certainty, that she had been right. There was no getting over each other. Not for them.

Then, after much too short an amount of time, she pushed him away. And he realised that he had just kissed a bride that wasn’t his on her wedding day. Granted, it was a bride that didn’t love her groom, but that didn’t make it much better. As right as it may have felt, it was wrong.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly.

“No,” she said, her voice low, almost animalistic. “You don’t get to be sorry. Not about this.”

Before he could even reply, she’d pushed him further, until his back hit the wall. 

“You don’t get to show up to my wedding, make me tell you how I feel and then regret it. You’re either all in or you’re out,” she said. “This is your last chance, Hunt. Choose wisely.”

It wasn’t a choice. It never had been. Not with her. Not with Anna.

“I’m all in,” he said hoarsely.

And in an instant, her lips were back on his.

Despite his usually more careful and rational self, Thomas found that he didn’t give a care in the world what would happen to the guests outside or even the groom. And he had a sneaking suspicion that Anna didn’t either.

———————————————————————————————————–

@lilyofchoices @trappedinfandoms @flyawayboo @alleksa16 @silversparrow02

[freewheelshippin]

THE TOWER UPRIGHT

Supreme self-indulgence fic that takes place in the Shining Quest AU I made over on the idol hell blog. (Most important concept from there is that there’s a demon king, and the high courts and royals gain favor and power by marrying their heirs off to said king to sate his temper. Haruka’s the next in line for that, and the princes (and I) take some issue with that.) Borrows some from the OG Shining Quest Ranmaru meet-cute I wrote, but nothing too substantial. 

SFW, but mild cw’s for a little blood, implied violence, and arranged marriages. 

So the plan was set. 

The tutor would return to the castle and spend the last of her goodwill there to create the riotous opening they’d been plotting and searching for for months. She’d alert her allies there the plan was happening -- some would escape with the princess to safety and hiding, and others would stay to influence the reconstruction from the chaos -- and then they’d use the spell of voice, ink, and song. They’d never done it on the scale expected, though. 

“But it’s fine,” the tutor insists, gusto still in her voice. It’s become impossible to tell when it’s forced, genuine, or so ingrained it wasn’t one or the other entirely. “We have the theory down, and what we actually do doesn’t change. I make fresh ink drawings with the spell we developed, install them in different parts of the castle, and when it’s done, we signal and play like planned. And then...boom.” She mimes with her hands long, sprawling gestures. 

The gambler crosses his arms. “It’s fuckin’ ludicrous to think this’ll work on the scale of a whole castle. Bigger ‘n that, really. But,” he sighs, closing his eyes. “I’d be a liar if I said I wasn’t excited for the chance.” 

“What d’you think our odds are?” the tutor replies with a chuckle and her own antsy smile. “Would you bet on us?” 

The gambler furrows his brow. Gambling had never been about numbers or careful analysis. Courting luck was about instinct and guts, pulling unseen feelings from the world around and trusting you could muscle your way through that chaos. Robbing the latest smug jerk courting his power and fortune with a roll of the dice was simple. There, it was simple: do you have the guts to match me? And they never do.  

This was less clear. 

“...Yeah,” he finally answers. “You know I like shitty odds. I bluff way better through ‘em.” 

The tutor laughs again, deep and loud. “Good. Cuz I still haven’t ever spotted your bluff once in cards, right? So you’ll be phenomenal.” She thwaps him on the shoulder, the weight of her hand lingering for a moment longer than usual. 

“Yeah, so will you,” the gambler says gruffly, concern eating at the bottom of his heart and throat.  

“Well, it’s not like there’s any other choice.” Her smile is genuine, but her voice is heavy with the strain of the situation. 

The gambler let his eyes linger on her, the gnawing spreading through his entire chest. 

“Guess not.” 

************************************************ The gambler saw the tutor cry for the first time a few nights before the plan was to happen. Her face and hands were smudged with ink, and the lines on the paper she’d been practicing on shifted and bled where her tears had wet. 

At first he’d thought it was That feeling. Stakes high, the weaving of spells becomes complicated by doubt, perfection, the gap in skill and perception, and the unkind mind. But he’d seen that before -- they’d both talked about it, even. For both of them, that pain had no place to go but fuel for their burning fire forward, the hungry chase of outdoing their previous, more flawed self, of having work nobody could ignore. For better or for worse. Was this just worse coming to a head? 

“I wish being fragile were an option,” she struggles out after he sits down next to her. “I don’t want to go back on anything I’ve done. I don’t regret that I’m taking this path. But don’t you wish sometimes you could just break and fall apart?” 

The gambler isn’t sure if he’s annoyed, hurt, or now completely consumed with concern. “Are you really dreaming of giving up after all this?” he growls. 

“I’m not! I’m not, I’m not!” the tutor sobs defensively. “I’m just. I’m exhausted. I’m gonna do what I pledged to, but I’m just so tired. I feel like I haven’t stopped running since I was small, and I wish I’d had the choice to. The people around me asked for so much, took and took and took and hurt me if I wouldn’t give, and I just had to keep running and running, and,” The tutors makes a disgusted noise as she tries to find words through choking, hiccuping sobs. “and I don’t know. I think I’m jealous of the princess?” She laughs hollowly through the tears. 

“What the fuck does that even mean?” the gambler replies harshly, even though a twinge in him instinctively understands, and his chest burns with regret at his sharp words. 

It takes a lot of stops, starts, tries, and bowing out as the tutor searches for both words and the courage to admit them. Hesitantly, the gambler swallows, pushing his harsher instincts, pride, and regret down, and he shifts closer until they’re shoulder to shoulder. 

In a few moments, her breathing steadies. She puts her face in her hands, and she takes a deep breath.

“I wish I’d been rescued,” she finally admits. “Like we’re doing for her. I wish I’d met someone like you back then.”

“Like me?” 

“Yeah, like you, dummy. Honest and not a manipulative bone in your body. You actually want people at their best, not some lie you’d feed ‘em so they become their perfect doll to use ‘n abuse as you please. Even when you’re being an ass, you’re coming from a place of passion I think is good for people. Like, you light fires under asses so people wanna fight for their best selves just by being around you.” 

This isn’t the first time the tutor has expressed something like this to the gambler, and this isn’t the first time the gambler hasn’t had words to say as his chest feels tight and warm. He busies his mind, recalling moments of their previous conversations where she hesitated, alluded to things like this. Something had come up when she’d watched him clean out a pompous nobleman. The gambler convinced him to put everything on the line just to lose it all, and she asked him how he’d managed to do that. He recalls he’d said something about making people face a point of no return, where no matter how risky the gamble, the idea of turning back is just so impossible, you take the risk. She likened it to the life she left behind. She could have escaped to something stable and peaceful, lived a lie of falling in love and becoming a wife, and existed quietly as things went as they’d always gone. “But,” she added as she helped him count the earnings. “I didn’t have the courage to throw it away ‘til I went looking for you.” 

The gambler covers his mouth, feeling his stomach tie itself up in knots. He’d felt a twinge of shame then -- that’s right, he remembers getting crabby as he got defensive, but she heckled her way out of it and insisted she was happier for it. He didn’t completely believe her back then, but now the nervousness in his guts shifts from shame to pride that he’d inspired such a change in the Royal Tutor herself. 

Things remain quiet between the two of them, especially as the tutor lets her body steady and stop crying completely. 

“....When your family lost everything and you had to rebuild yourself,” she asks, hesitating a little bit. “...did you ever wish someone could take you away from that long, long fight you’d never asked for?” 

The gambler is quiet for a long time, confronting a truth in his own heart he’d never dared admit, either. 

“...Yeah.” 

They’re both quiet for a while, because nothing needs to be said as they just breathe. The whole room, fluttered with drafts of ink drawings, tabs, and scorch marks from their rehearsals, seems to breathe with them, as if accepting their catharsis. 

“It hurts to hear you’re in pain like that,” the gambler eventually feels the need to say. “And it hurts to hear you were treated like that. But I can admire you more for it. I can respect a person that’ll risk everything because they won’t compromise their dreams of a better future.” 

“Isn’t that what you’re doing?” the tutor says, smiling at him as she shoves him a bit. The gambler smiles back, laughing as she puts an arm around his shoulder and pulls him tight and closer to her.

“When this is over, I’ll take you away. We can disappear somewhere for a little while, the folks we got in place’ll do their jobs. You won’t have to worry about a thing.” 

The tutor starts crying again. 

“Is it bad to admit I super fucking want that? I should be responsible for this mess I’m about to cause and dragged you into, right?” 

The gambler thinks on it a little. The tutor had been clear with him from the start: her first goal was rescuing the princess, but it wouldn’t do to rescue her so someone else from the high court could sacrifice their heir for esteem. She wanted to destroy the need for a Devil’s Betrothed to begin with. And that probably meant destroying the high court built from the practice, if not the devil king himself. 

He thinks about the drama of the high courts, the pressure and isolation of being groomed to sate the devil king and his elders’ wishes. He remembers what he and the tutor discussed -- the feeling of excessive pain and responsibility, inappropriately and violently thrust upon them too early by the selfish people close to them -- and for a moment the feeling disappears, imagining the warring families in upheaval, finally forced to pick up their pieces and take care of more than prestige.

“...You’re being the person your student needs. Whatever changes have to happen because of that are things that’re overdue anyways. It’s not your responsibility alone.” He hesitates. “Or mine.” 

“Can we both figure out what being carefree feels like?” 

The gambler doesn’t want to admit it, since he’d like to imagine he’s strong and stoic enough to protect this person he cares about from everything tough in this world for a while. But he’d like that too. 

****************************************************

It’s time. 

Everything is ready. The tutor dons her armor, though it isn’t the uniform she’d been assigned when she’d been hired by the royals. She wears colors she dyed herself, proudly patterned with motifs from her faraway homeland underneath dark armor. Bottles of ink are slung on her belt alongside brushes and rolls of paper. She shoulders her weapon, Hellrazor, a six-stringed axe the gambler had helped her restore to working condition. While she’s nervous, she also looks deeply ready to start the fire. 

The gambler is likewise dressed in boisterous armor. His white jacket, rich with black and gold detailing, is draped over his shoulders, and while they’re still a ways away from casting the spell, he has his bass at the ready. His bag of enchanted dice and deck of cards are strapped to his belt, though he’s not anticipating any of his usual bar brawls. It’s more for preening and looking the part, really, and how could he not? Between the gravity of what they were about to do and the tutor putting on her best, they might as well look impeccable. 

They exchange hand-carved charms, a spell laced into the sculpture of a simple orchid. The tutor strings hers onto a chain that sits underneath her armor, while the gambler puts his on a leather cord and his wrist, just below his runed gloves. They pulse faintly with their heartbeats and lurching anticipation.

“You know the drill,” the tutor says, her words hurried from the pressure. “You’ll know the feeling when it’s time to start playing.” 

“Don’t panic,” the gambler replies coolly, putting his hands on her shoulders underneath the armor. “You play too much on the front edge of the beat when you panic.” 

“But I’d trust you to keep up,” she says, returning the gesture as her armor clanks. 

The gambler smiles wryly. “Just stay on the beat.” 

The tutor closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. “Let’s kick some ass, rescue a princess, and put an end to the Devil’s Betrothed.” 

Her armor is too bulky to really hug. The gambler and the tutor clasp hands firmly, meet one another’s eyes, and force themselves to separate. 

**********************************************

It feels excruciatingly long before the gambler feels the rush of excitement and energy, pulsing from the little orchid on his wrist. 

He’s been at his post since the tutor left, climbing up to the roof of the pub he operated out of as he watched her disappear into the alleys. Night had fallen, but they had been counting on that. 

Just as rehearsed, he begins strumming, playing, closing his eyes as he feels their shared rhythm, passion, and energy. Despite having practiced, it still felt odd to be playing synced with someone without actually being able to hear them. He had to rely on the ghost of her in the back of his head, left there from so much rehearsal and learning one anothers’ musical habits. 

He exhaled, standing up straighter as he began to sing, low but still clear as he let his throat shape the melody. The pulsing at his wrist stopped feeling like careening, frenzied energy and began to turn into something more focused. He cracked a smile as the feeling began to spread through his body, his fingers feeling more nimble as they buzzed with the rush of performance. 

He could only assume the tutor felt that, even far across the city and through castle walls. She responded in turn, the rush beginning to feel like a blossoming warmth that unfolded from their spines, then chests, then entire body. It became instinctive how to harmonize his voice to hers, match his bass to her guitar, even without actually hearing it anywhere but his instincts searching through the chaos of the moment. 

The most crucial part of the song was coming up. The haunting, swaying melody was about to rapidly shift to something far more aggressive, and like a spark to fuel, it would be what actually ignited the spell into something real. The gambler had kept his eyes firmly shut so he could put his entire focus into the song and successfully weaving the spell with the tutor, and his chest felt like it might burst from the excitement of the challenge, performance, and intimacy of it all. 

He knew exactly when she’d shift her voice from soft and clean to a screaming bellow and her guitar from gentle strums into thrashing speed. A low, rhythmic growl grew from the pit of his stomach to accompany hers, just as they’d practiced, and for a moment, he thought he could hear her scream echoing through the clear night sky. 

There was a moment that felt like freefall, both for him and the tutor. He would have forgotten to keep playing had the air smelling of powerful smoke not jolted him back to his senses. 

He finally opened his eyes. The castle was completely engulfed in flames, taking form into a monstrous beast crowned by massive horns that howled and screeched with fury and hellfire he could feel reaching into his very soul. The greatest sense of fear, accomplishment, and adrenaline surged through his body like lighting, especially where the little sculpted orchid met the skin on his wrist. He couldn’t help but holler into the night air, his voice rough with excitement. 

“Demon king!” His heart was singing and screaming all at once. He could feel the lack of restraint taking over his careful training, his throat stinging a touch as it rasped. 

“Let’s rock.” 

He’d never felt so powerful in his life. And he could tell the tutor was feeling the same. 

*****************************************

Summoning, restraining, and banishing an archdemon was extremely hard work, as it turned out. The gambler felt like his body might give from the strain. But the idea of giving in when the tutor could feel it so close to their goal disgusted him. He couldn’t keep going on the sheer adrenaline alone, and he knew from experience the tutor wouldn’t admit she was losing steam when she definitely was. 

The demon breathed furious energy. The gambler and tutor had hoped they’d be able to get the upper hand by sheer surprise, and they’d been lucky enough to be right. But however powerful and well-practiced their spell was, however powerful the tutor’s drawings, and however powerful their musical conduits were, their luck and prep alone wouldn’t be enough. 

The gambler searched through his own memories. It began to feel like the demon was clawing at his insides, tearing away his skin, song, and soul with white-hot claws. 

The only part of him that didn’t sear with pain was the little spot on his wrist. The tutor had to be in pain too, but instead she thundered with rage of her own right back. She was going all in. He could just hear her -- you think you can take me, you horny bastard who needs a stupid centuries-spanning harem to get your rocks off? You wanna fucking go? You wanna tell me you being upset we won’t let you nut anymore is worth all the pain and rage and sacrifice you demand? 

The gambler gritted his teeth into a grin. This was the point of no return. Whatever came from turning back wasn’t worth it. At this point, there was no bluffing. There was only the belief, fueled by a lifetime of rage and rebuilding and joy, that there was a bright road ahead worth forging. 

For himself. For the princess. For the people. 

And of course, for her. 

*********************************************

The demon had lost. With one final chord and echoed shout shared between the two of them, it was dragged beneath the earth’s crust, all the way down to its molten core. 

The gambler collapsed where he stood, whooping to the clear night sky in victory and release. The city was swelling with confusion. That was to be expected, of course. The very demon this whole society had lived in fear of had just been dragged out, revealed, and locked away with no real explanation. 

As the gambler panted and stared at the night sky, he realized that the pulsing on his wrist was not of pure victory, but panicked adrenaline and fear. As his heartbeat started to slow, the tutor’s wasn’t going down at all. 

His stomach sank, and he howled in shock and despair when it disappeared entirely. 

**********************************

He’d ventured out and tried looking for her with no luck. 

The plan had been for them to meet at the pub where they’d first discussed working together (or, really, the back alley where she’d attacked him in a panic before asking for his help). He’d since moved his base of operations to somewhere else, and it was now just some nondescript, back-alley pub. Maybe she’d missed him in the chaos of the streets swelling and ebbing with panicked, confused, tired, and homeward-bound citizens. But the back of his mind screamed with the truth. The orchid no longer gave off a pulse. Either the charm was removed or -- it hurt too much to think about. 

Maybe it fell off. No, that was underneath armor -- chainmaille and her absurdly large shoulderpieces all protected it. If it’d fallen it’d still be held tightly beneath the maille, and it couldn’t be cut off easily. Removed, then? What reason would she have to take it off? Maybe someone else took it off. Who? Why? What happened in the castle after they’d summoned the demon? She’d made a plan to play and cast in the princess’s chambers after stashing all the drawings, especially while no-one still suspected anything. The warrior, sage, and sorcerer would escort the princess out during the confusion. The summoner would be the tutor’s support while she was awakening and destroying the demon king, while the rogue would help them escape once the demon was destroyed. Where in the middle of that would it make sense to take off the pendant? 

At one point the jester made his way to the pub, flagging down the gambler with a goofy smile that didn’t at all match the gambler’s mood. He was usually halfway happy to see him, even if he struggled to show it, but all the gambler could do was scowl at him as they stepped into a back corner table to talk. 

“Hoho! You’re mean to me even when you’re a big winner?” 

“Why are you here? How are you here?” 

“I walked, silly! And how couldn’t I come and congratulate you on such a job well done?” 

The jester had been an ally of the tutor’s for as long as he’d been an ally of the gambler’s. The two of them were particularly loud and aggressively silly whenever they worked together, and as irritating as that could get, they did get the job done.  

“I think it’s real ballsy of you to be here when you’re supposed to be our inside man in the castle.” 

The jester laughs sheepishly. “Aah, but the samurai and alchemist are doing such a good job of that right now. I thought ‘oh! I can take a break to check on my favorite demon-slaying, princess-rescuing criminal!’” 

The gambler glares at the jester, who flinches a little. “Haha...but I guess you’re beyond congrats right now.” The jester recomposes himself, coming down a touch from his usual exuberance. “....The princess is safe with her girlfriend, and their escorts are in good shape, too. Things are going very well in the castle for us. The high court knows big changes are happening.The Devil’s Betrothed…..it’s already a thing of the past.” 

The gambler just grunts. The jester’s face falls into a sad smile. 

“....I don’t know where she is, either. I’m sorry.”

The gambler takes a deep breath, gritting his teeth and swallowing his temper.

“Thanks for coming to check on me. But go back to the castle.” 

Without waiting for another word, the gambler gets up and leaves. 

*******************************************

He looked through many of their usual haunts before he went back to his usual base of operations. She’d camped out in a spare room there for quite some time, first only staying there for nights too late to return to the castle, then routinely sleeping there as more of her belongings migrated and made the room hers. 

The whole place was poorly lit and empty when he entered. If she wasn’t here, he was planning on grabbing every weapon he could carry and storming the castle himself until someone coughed up an answer. 

He was taken by surprise as his boot made a soft squelching noise against the ground. Something was wet underfoot. He looked closer, and he could see a faint, slick trail glinting with light, leading all the way to her room. 

He rushed and thrust the door open, not bothering with caution or thought. It was dimly lit in the room, too, but something didn’t quite feel as empty. The trail lead to her bed, where there was a figure piled in a heap. He immediately raced and reached so he could find their face, heart racing even more than when they cast the spell. 

Her face was cut and swollen in places, hair matted by dried blood, but it was definitely the tutor. It took her a couple pained, groggy moments to process and recognize what was happening, but when she met his eyes, she lit up with a weak smile. 

The gambler immediately shifted her into his arms, cradling her body. Her armor and chainmaille were missing, and she was instead in ruddy linens that were worn and wet. The gambler felt warm blood beginning to soak into his clothes. It was hard to make out in the dim lighting, but his eyes darted over her and stung as he began to take in the damage. 

The tutor tried to speak, but it came out garbled.

“Stop. Shut up, shut up, shut up. It’s not important. C’mon, save your strength.” 

She blearily waved him off and kept trying to talk, but nothing came out coherently. The gambler pleaded with her to stop, until finally she faded, leaning into the gambler’s chest as his heart thumped wildly. 

*********************************************************** 

The city had had time to calm since the Demon King had been sealed away. The high court was still in utter upheaval, but it was clear a new way of life for them was inevitable, and it would be one where they could no longer sacrifice lives to gain prestige and favor. 

Light filters in through a window in a quiet cottage at the edge of the city, and the gambler groans and squints against it. He shifts and collapses back into the bed, pulling covers over himself to try and block out the late morning light. 

The tutor gently stirs against him. He gingerly lays an arm over her bandaged middle and curls up closer to her. 

“It’s nothing,” he murmurs. “Go back to sleep.” 

“I can’t really do much else,” she says with a small laugh. “But at least I have a good cuddle buddy.” 

The gambler chuckles a little bit, pulling closer. The whole room seems to breathe as they do, and time is allowed to be as leisurely as they like.

“We’re going to have so much to do once I heal up,” she murmurs. 

“So heal up,” he replies, playing with some of her long hair. “And don’t worry about anything else.” 

She smiles warmly. “Except getting back to sleep.” 

“Mm.” He closes his eyes and sighs deeply, pressing his forehead against hers. She laughs unsurely, but settles into it with a sigh, and they drift off once again. 

**************************************

song inspo: uroboros (album) - dir en grey -- i imagined Vinushka and Inconvenient Ideal combined as the big demon-summoning/banishing song! -- driving time (song) - girugamesh, omniphobia (song) - sianvar, lots of iron f’in maiden but ESPECIALLY two minutes to late night’s cover of  The Trooper

the tutor’s armor is my paladin-self’s design! 

[neverwatchedonepiece]

594-595: "Formed! Luffy and Law's Pirate Alliance!" and "Capture M! the Pirate Alliance's Operation Launches!"

After seeing what the Strawhats are really like and realising what he’s got himself into, Law has longing visions of the apocalypse.

That look on Law’s face.

You all know the one I’m talking about.

The one that started as a sweatdrop and morphed into a full-blown look of: I deeply regret this but am in way too deep to back out now.

I watched that scene three times. Pure gold.

If You Keep Telling Everyone About Our Plan, Maybe

So I think I misjudged Trafalgar Law.

Maybe.

Still not one-hundred percent certain Law does not have another hidden agenda but... I am about seventy percent on board with the fact he has good intentions. At the moment. Like Robin said, pirate alliances are marked by betrayal, so this could change in future. (But I don’t want it to. I like Law as a good-ish guy.)

Like Nami, I was also was not expecting Luffy to accept so quickly. Maybe at the end of the arc, I thought. Have no idea why I even entertained that daft idea. This is Luffy we’re talking about. 

Law sold it as best he could without giving Oda’s entire plot away. “I’m not saying we can beat the Yonko right away. There is a chance, if we do it step by step. What do you say?”

Luffy’s daft but not an idiot. He asked Law to which Yonko he was referring. I’m guessing that was important because I honestly can’t see Luffy going against Shanks unless something really serious puts something between them. I was pretty damned interested in Law’s answer, so when Oda used that favourite trop of his: a sudden howling blizzard carried away Law’s voice, I laughed like a drain and cursed Oda and his teasing ways.

Fine. I get it. I won’t know at least until after this arc.

I also liked Luffy’s reasons for accepting Law’s offer of alliance. One, it sounded like fun. Two, he thought Tra-guy was a good guy. And three, even if he wasn’t, he had his Strawhats, who had spent the last two years training to become stronger (with the implication they could kick Law’s ass if the misbehaved).

This totally won over the Strawhats. They sort of melted into a puddle of giggling, flattered, enraged goo. Law was standing there staring like, “Wtf are these people?”

Still, as a gesture of goodwill, he unshambled all those who were able to be restored to their bodies. I am guessing is because of plot. Chopper and Franky are back to normal (Chopper had to leave with Law for a reconnaissance mission to Caesar’s lab). However, Nami and Sanji are now inhabiting each others’ bodies (because Sanji was not nearby to be restored to his own. I’m guessing you’ve got to be in Law’s Room).

Law was also not keen on the experiment kids. They were a pain. A liability. Forget about them. He’d heard from Caesar they’d been drugged. Chopper and Nami protested. They knew about the drug. They had already decided to take the kids back to their families. Law revealed the World Government have been trying to turn people into giants for hundreds of years. Why? In order to manufacture soldiers to increase their military might.

Apparently, Caesar wants to perfect the process first and outsmart Vegapunk and the World Government. (Okay, so Caesar is not still working for the WG after all. Is he that wealthy he can fund himself or is another faction bankrolling him? Maybe the Yonko Law is talking about defeating?)

Law was still unconvinced helping the kids was a good idea. “Are you willing to stay here alone?” he asked Nami.

Luffy, the Best Captain, jumped in. He would not leave anyone behind. If Nami and Chopper wanted to help the kids, he was fine with that. Sanji felt responsible for the Samurai Guy too. So Luffy would stay with them.

Usopp was so funny here. He leaned over Luffy’s shoulder and gave Law some Strawhat Context. “You think an alliance is a cooperative relationship just for some common goal, don’t you?” 

Um... yes, Law answered.

Ha. Well Luffy’s idea was different. It’s like being friends to him. And if Law was thinking of taking control, it would not be that easy. Once Luffy feels sure about something He Will Not Back Down. His selfishness, Usopp said, was as formidable as a Yonko. (”That must he hard,” Luffy said. xD)

At that point, I think Law reached his Strawhat Saturation Point. These people were like freaking aliens to him. But whatever. He’d agreed to an alliance. So he laid out his plan of action. While the rest of the Strawhats took care of the samurai, he would go research the drug behind Caesar’s back. He needed the Strawhats’ doctor. Chopper was strapped to his hat. xD

Then, when that was clearly undignified, his back.

Before Law left, he issued a warning. Caesar wanted the Strawhats and the G-5 Unit dead. Until Caesar gets what he wants, he will not stop attacking. If any info leaked about him being on Punk Hazard, Caesar would lose his perfect hiding place. This is high stakes stuff for Caesar. He will fight tooth-and-nail to win. Not only that, he is a Logia type Gas Gas Fruit user who owns weapons of mass destruction with a 300 million bounty. Law cautioned anyone who couldn’t use haki to stay away from him.

Useful intel to have, to be honest. Thanks, Law.

And it was thanks to the conversation that I now know Zoro and Sanji can also use Haki. Did I miss that or is that completely new thing?

After that, came the part of the episode that was my Absolute Favourite. I definitely did not see this coming. Before Law left with Chopper, Luffy said, “So we’re gonna kidnap the Master, right?”

“Not for any money,” Law said. “To raise havoc.”

Despite the Strawhats asking, he would not tell them what lay ahead before they even successfully kidnapped Caesar. Focus on the job at hand. He would spill all later. Then said, rather ominously, “When we get Caesar Clown, things will move whether you like it or not.”

Ooooooooooooooh....

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH.

Now this is a juicy nugget of plot. I also do not think this has ever happened in One Piece: defeating the arc villain in order to kidnap him, use him as a catalyst and trigger some nefarious skullduggery in the New World with a view to taken down a Yonko.

Caesar Clown must be really something. I guess if he is an inventor and purveyor of weapons of mass destruction, his services will be in demand within certain sections of the OPverse. 

This is cool. I was a bit miffed when I realised this arc would end quickly as it has been great so far. You guys were right. This is an intro arc that seems to lead on to bigger things involving Trafalgar Law’s crazy idea.

Also, I cannot wait for Chopper to lay eyes on Caesar Clown for the first time. Chopper is gonna have to exercise some wicked self-control to not smack him for mistreating those kids. Chopper also asked Law an interesting question: if Law was so strong and could reach Caesar Clown that easily (because Law had just Roomed himself round to the lab’s back door), why could he capture Caesar himself?

Law deflected, as he always does. “I cannot because of a problem I have. That’s why I need help from you guys.”

A problem? Must be a pretty big problem. 

And by the way, where are your crew, Law?

I am making myself suspicious again.

I need to just believe in Law, like Luffy does. Because the arc villain is making a move.

And That Move Is Called Smiley

Smiley.

Cannot get over that. xD

Caesar, you crack me up. 

He’s probably one of those deranged scientist types who give their hellbeast creations adorable names. Everyone flees from the tentacled abomination that is Mr Binky Sparkle-Pants. Everyone knows Candy Smoochy Schmoo will devour your soul.

This one is called Smiley. Smiley is a sentient, hill-sized conglomeration of incredibly toxic waste left over from the chemical explosion four years ago. Caesar gleefully explain to Monet that when he escaped custody and returned to Punk Hazard about three years back, he did not purify the island of the poison gas (*the* only good deed he had left to his name!) I mean, why would anyone do such a wasteful thing? All that poison lying around? That H2S gas he had invented that killed everything on the island in second? It’s Free Real Estate, right?

What he did was (probably) use his Gas Gas Fruit (thanks for the confirmation, Law!) to gather all the leftover poison gas and compress it into a monster, which he secured in a vault on the burning half of the island.

And he called it Smiley. xD

I guess Caesar has a sense of humour?

At any rate, this squamous behemoth was unleashed by the gang of unfortunate fodders who were trying to break into a vault at the end of the last episode. I knew they’d meet a sticky end. I just didn’t know how sticky. 

They tried to call their wonderful Master to report they were being killed by a poisonous monster. 

Sympathy? In MY Laboratory? Get the FUCK OUTTA HERE!

But Caesar was in the lab, heard the DDM, was all like, “ugggggh, so needy!” He told his main minion not to pick up the call. Why? The fodders would just be screaming “Help, a monster is killing us! Save us!” How annoying, right?

And you know what else was annoying? The amount of visitors. Ugh. So many. Caesar seems to work in euphemism a lot because all he said was, “You can stop gathering test subjects now. We have enough.”

I’m guessing that’s code for “these freeloading Strawhats and Marines have overstayed their welcome. Time to die!” He had a jolly good lol to himself while Monet studied quietly in a corner (she must have learned to block out the cackling by now or she would get zero work done).

Caesar’s knowledge of how to manipulate human nature was summed up when he said, “People tend to forget tragedies in no time!” That is harsh but true. He knew sooner or later what happened in Punk Hazard would be forgotten by the majority, leaving him free to practice his wicked experiments with impunity.

He really is a piece of work, eh?

As of now, Smiley is currently oozing towards Caesar’s lab. Zoro, Sanji and Brook saw it approach on the horizon. 

They found Kinemon, by the way! His torso fell into the lake and sank like a rock because he’s a Devil Fruit user. Because of that, the rest of his parts became super weak and he almost froze to death. If Zoro hadn’t found him, he’d be dead. At least he’s finally grateful for the Strawhats’ help. I wonder what he’ll say when he finds out they’re working with Law, the guy who slashed him up? I wonder what Zoro, Sanji and Brook will say when they find out Luffy’s working with Law?”

It won’t be a secret for long, they way Luffy’s going on. xD

NO, WE DON’T HAVE A SECRET PLAN AT ALL. WHY DO YOU ASK?

While Law was sneaking round the back door with Chopper and Smoker and his crew were battling to seize Caesar’s ship, Luffy had a Big Idea. Back at the camp, he whispered to Robin and Franky, the Strawhats who would go with him. (I’m assuming Nami and Usopp are guarding the kids and waiting for Zoro, Sanji Brook and Samurai to return.)

Smoker was having a tough time. Fighting in someone else’s body was difficult. Poor Tashigi kept turning to smoke at random and couldn’t turn back. (You know what? If this wasn’t such a serious situation, it’d be well fun to have a go in a Devil Fruit User’s body!)

Then Luffy arrived with a literal BANG! He cannoned into the snow right at the front door of Caesar’s Lab and roared, “SHOW YOURSELF, MASTER! WE WILL KICK YOUR ASS AND KIDNAP YOU!”

I swear the impact from Law’s facepalm was heard as far as Raftel.

Trip Advisor Review: Punk Hazard

“Arrived on island. Was welcomed warmly by hotel proprietor. Accommodation was clinically austere but the bar was well-stocked. Woke up one morning and I was a centaur. Not pleased. Proprietor maintains he has no recollection of how this happened. Only other guest remains tight-lipped. Refused refund. One star. Would not recommend.”

[toasttz]

How to make games: RPGs

Hey! You like RPGs, right? If you don't I have to wonder how the hell you found FAN, given our two most-active subboards being vidya and tabletop RPGs, but, whatever! Let's, for the sake of argument, assume you like RPGs. If you don't, fuck off, Greg! ... I don't know anyone named Greg, I just wanted to see if I could screw with people named Greg. Anyways, RPGs, like the houses in Harry Potter, come in four distinct flavors: traditionalist, gonzo/comedy, h-game, and "Inspired by EarthBound/The Mother Trilogy". And much akin to Harry Potter, only two of these houses actually fucking matter and the other two are just hangers-on of different genres and ages. If you're going to waste the player's time by making your H-game an RPG, you are going about it entirely wrong. Please stop dumping this unabashed garbage-fire of a subgenre on Steam, the market is beyond saturation point and requires arm floaties to compensate. And for those of you who played/know of EarthBound and want to make a "spiritual successor"... just stop. Please for the love of God, stop. There never really was a demand for this kind of thing and EarthBound was not a commercial success, so just stop if you have any humanity left in you. I don't think I can stomach anymore fucking quirkiness after the last installment - anymore stuffed down my gullet and I'm gonna shit out a My Hero Academia OC next time my bowels move. So, in truth, you have two flavors of RPG: the traditionalist and the comedian routes and both can be equally terrible. Traditionalist RPGs range from the swords-n-sorcery setting found in Ultima, Dragon Quest, and good Final Fantasy installments to the sci-fi, cyberpunk, steampunk, and emo shit found in bad Final Fantasy installments - it's a wide gauntlet. The only prereq is that you take your own storytelling relatively seriously, with some level of gravity involved in the overall major story beats. Since traditionalist RPGs are made by people with crippling insecurities about change, and the game will largely succeed or fail on the quality of its characters, I'll go ahead and make your cast for you. I'll avoid giving them names so you can customize them: I mean, some people like their fantasy heroes to be named something like "Bulk McUlraeoth Sword Arm of Jupiter" and some people like their fantasy protags to be named "Jim". Who am I to judge your self-insert fanfiction? Sword McHero Man - The guy with short brown or black hair and a generic face done by a B-list manga-ka and, depending on if you want to make him a chillaxed everyman or an edgy edgelord, you can add or subtract belts, zippers, pouches, and black clothing items according to need. He'll almost always use a generic one-handed sword and have fairly short hair. If your game strongly favors an element system, he'll be either fire or light-affinity, but not have any actual strong convictions beyond the fact that he hates 'bad guys' and probably gets his head dunked in toilets by at least 3 NPCs in the starting town. Anything else about him is ultimately superfluous and interchangeable with the next Sword McHero Man over. Childhood McBestfriend - Oftentimes a female foil to the above, but not required by law to be so. Sometimes this doubles as Sword McHero Man's Suave Cool McLancer. They will usually fill a supplementary combat role in the party, either the thief or the healbot as the story requires. If they are the love interest, they are required to be Worst Waifu(TM) by law and be replaced as soon as a competent party member fills out the roster. Typically wind or water elemented in nature, they'll either help calm the hero-man down if he is the hotblooded sort, or cheer him up if he's currently got his head dunked in a toilet. Suave Cool McLancer - Either a rival or thematic foil of the hero and maybe a rival for Childhood McBestfriend's affections, depending on story necessity. He will be a more specialized unit, either the rogue, the heavy-armor knight, or the attack mage. If male, this character will be Best Hasbando and be incredibly pretty or horrifically scarred and/or disfigured with no potential in-betweens. If female, uncommon but not unheard-of, she'll be the team's big sis figure and likely the most powerful, physically speaking. Potential for Best Waifu(TM) is high, but can also potentially double as Back McStabberton. Back McStabberton - The dark, angsty, clearly-untrustworthy one who the player will see their betrayal coming from a mile off, but will completely blindside the naive heroes. Usually they'll have stats inconsistent with the party (being either over or under-powered depending on context) and clash with their bright, anime-esque color scheme by wearing blacks or dark purples. Either a thief or attack mage of some flavor. Almost universally a male or a "devilish handsome rogue" if they get redeemed at some point. If female, they will always be DOUBLE AGENTS acting with the hero's own good in mind and will promptly be forgiven. Usually dies before the game is out. Grandpa McTeacherperson - Some plot-pivotal character who exists to either give the party a special tool, weapon, or ability they wouldn't have gotten otherwise, or elsewise transfer their own talents to the party in some fashion. Virtually irrelevant as characters since these exist exclusively as jaded props to die off to make the villains' actions more personal. Please stop using this archetype or at least TRY to subvert it into something interesting, you talentless lazy fucks. Sexy McFaceTurn - Invariably one of the bad guy's hot ladies will see a boyish charm in the hero, even if the hero is supposed to be projected upon and therefore would actually have the social skills of a duck - or worse, me. What? I did that joke already? Fuck you, this joke's still more inspired than the Tales games RPGs. Anyways, upon getting wet for the hero, she will abandon her post and all its luxuries and join the party, clad in tight, black leather and probably using either knives or whips and will be your prereq dark-affinity character. She will be the sex appeal your game sells on, so be sure to slap her on all your promo materials even though she doesn't join until the mid-late game. Male versions of this idea die. I can't explain it - it's some straight-up Mr. Poofers dark magic, they just die. Annoying McMascot - Your game needs something bizarre to round the party out with. A talking dog is common. A fantasy creature with bright neon colors is also acceptable. Just make sure that players hate it with every fiber of their being. If the design alone isn't enough, give it an annoying speech habit - like a verbal tic or a lisp - and have it talk a lot and repeat the obvious a lot. It is by law that this must be implemented. However, unlike any of the above, this, coupled with the hero, cannot be killed off. And that should more or less do ya, unless you're the type who wanted to pour dozens upon dozens of dudes into your game. In which case, congrats, you understand that doing the absolute base minimum to be called a "game" isn't the bar you should be shooting for and therefore are already on your way to being better than Squeenix. Next, you need to get to codin'! So go on Steam and buy the latest RPG Maker software when it goes on sale. You won't need to wait long, between the Summer and Winter sales. Once you have that, you already have built-in art, music, and character makers. Fuck it - creativity is hard, so let the software tend to that itself. Make some characters and name some locations, jot up a map with some landmarks and treasure, then make a bad guy. Bad guy making is easy, they all wear black or dark reds and purples and tend to always call themselves "The [Whatever] Empire". You don't even need to be arsed to make a motivation for their evil schemes. Have you seen how much Fire Emblem Fates raked in just on the goodwill left over from Awakening? I'm surprised JRPGs aren't made by fucking algorithm these days! Anyways, that just about does it for the traditional RPG. Comedy RPGs aren't quite as bound to the above and are, in fact, encouraged to break the mold. If you need some ideas to get the creative juices flowin', there's a game you can try out, you might have heard about it since I haven't stopped fellating the damn thing since I did the LP back in 2013: Hourai High. Your plot doesn't need to make sense and is better off if any causality is merely coincidental. Your characters shouldn't really be trying to 'save the world', per se, but should do so by side-effect of their selfishness and/or incompetence. Your team should have robots, aliens, fucking CheetahMen, I don't fucking know, but take everything I said above this paragraph and throw it into a shredder, make it confetti, and wail on established convention! Sweet fucking mother - BE CREATIVE. I'm gonna temporarily break facade here for just a second and say this: you know how you bitched about Final Fantasy 15? How it's a fucking boyband music video with a fucking car commercial crammed in it?! How you hated the hallway simulator of FF13? How no one bought Bravely Second? How Dragon Quest keeps getting away with remaking the same fucking game?! Here's your chance. Flaunt on the establishment. Fuck what is "popular". Make something new. Don't try to be Shigesato Itoi. Do your own thing. Break the conditioning. Get out there and make a fucking game. Make it so when people say "RPG Maker Title" on Steam, they aren't saying it like it's a four-letter word. Put some God-damn soul into it, people! And now, off the soap box. Bonus points if you add a dating sim. Just saying. Rune Factory 5 just got announced. Now, get to work. Congrats. You now know how to be the most fucking boring milquetoast thing on the planet and how to avoid that ass-cancer and do something that actually expresses your individuality and possible talent. This is the one time I'm allowing these rants to be somewhat uplifting. You're welcome.

[sasspiria]

Twin Devils - Chapter 1

Fandom: Far Cry, Far Cry 3

Ship: Jason Brody/Vaas Montenegro, Hoyt Volker/Jason Brody

Tags:Kidnapping,Isolation,Blackmail,Brainwashing,Drug Use,Burnplay,Stockholm Syndrome,Dubious Consent,Canon-Typical Violence,Slavery,Power Imbalance,Sex for Favors,Captivity,Fingerfucking,Forced Orgasm,Forced Relationship,Threats of Violence,Dark

Summary: In which, instead of deciding to have Jason killed, Hoyt decides that he's worth more alive to him than he is dead. With a proverbial knife at his brother's throat as well as the throats of all of his friends, Jason agrees and he becomes little more than Vaas and Hoyts' pet killer.

Read on Ao3 HERE

There were a lot of ways that Jason had expected all of this to turn to shit for him – Maybe Vaas would kill him and do it right, maybe Buck would have succeeded in keeping him and Keith hostage, maybe the Rakyat would hand him over to Hoyt or someone else once he outlived his usefulness. There were a lot of ways that he expected things to go down and they all ended, predictably, in his death.

Jason wasn’t dead though. Not yet, at least. One of the pirates had knocked him out – maybe it was Vaas – but that’s no surprise. He’s used to being knocked out. He’s been smacked upside the head by pistols and rifles so many times that he probably has some kind of permanent brain damage.

What is surprising, is that when he wakes up there’s no immediate danger for him. There’s… nothing. When Jason wakes up, he doesn’t see anything – it’s so dark, his mouth is stuffed up and he can’t move. He can hear chains rattling as he struggles to get out of his binds – no cloth or rope this time, no, they aren’t going to be taking any sort of chances anymore.

A feeling of hopelessness overcomes him, even as he keeps struggling – screaming and flailing himself around to get himself out of this mess. He keeps it up for what feels to him like hours, any by the time that he has tired himself out he can barely breath and his body is marred by self-inflicted bruises.

Long after he’s calmed down and sedate, the space around him is still pitch dark and he still can’t see a thing. It occurs to him that they might just leave him here to die. Why bother shooting him, when you can just leave him to the elements? Leave him to starve and dehydrate after begging and screaming for help. Odd. He never would have thought that Vaas would be so detached as to kill him like that, he always thought that the pirate lord had a more personal touch – a more deft touch – with murder.

“It’s simple like this,” Jason thought, feeling grateful in an alien sort of way. He wouldn’t need to worry anymore – about anything, not his friends, not Citra, not The Rakyat, not even Riley. As selfish as it was, he was a little relieved and he almost has a sense of peace as his head begins to swim and his body swings heavily on the chains – going limp as he passed out again and slept for what he was sure would be the final time.

The first thought that Jason had as he regained consciousness was that it was too fucking bright, like people were shining flashlights directly in his eyes while he had the worst hangover of all time. It was fucking miserable. “Jason, Jason, Jason…Jason Brody.” A man with a South African accent said, “25 years old, born on a Military Base in Bell’s Grove, California. You moved around with your family from base to base every three to six months until you where fourteen and moved back to California.”

He could hear Hoyt – that’s who this had to be, it sounded just like the man on the radio call – flipping through pages and Jason guessed that he got his file somehow. It didn’t matter how, but he had to wonder if Willis was playing both sides and set him up. It wouldn’t be a surprise. “Your father died in combat when your were ten…and your mother is a goodwill ambassador, for the UN. Important family, with a lot of high expectations that someone like you couldn’t live up to.”

Up until this point, he had been talking about Jason and not to him, but then Hoyt asked him a question,“What would your dead, war hero dad or your goodwill ambassador mom think if they found out that their son is a murderer?” When Jason didn’t answer the slaver’s expression went from jovial to angry and disrespected, “Hey, Jason look at me?” Hoyt called his attention, snapping his fingers in the younger mans’ face. Hoyt spoke evenly and calmly, “I asked you a question, when I ask you a question I expect a fucking answer. So, what do you think your goodwill ambassador mommy would think if she found out that her son is a psychopath, hm? Think she’d be scared, or might she be proud of you?”

Jason didn’t answer. He couldn’t. He had no idea where Hoyt got all of that information about him but he didn’t care. He knew that all the man was trying to do was egg him on and it was working, fuck was it working. He struggled to get himself to his feet, barely managing to stand – shaking the whole time as he tried to launch himself towards Hoyt. He landed a foot away from the man, a chain around his neck compressing around him and choking him half to death as he collapsed onto the floor.

Hoyt didn’t seem impressed with his display of aggression. “See, I told you he would throw a fit when he woke up.” He commented in a casual tone of voice as Jason coughed up spit laced with vomit and blood, as he hyperventilated with panic overtaking his senses. “He’s so fucking touchy… but I see why you like him, Vaas, I really do.” He looked over at Jason purposefully, “He’s a good killer. A goddamn machine. He really could be useful to us, so long as someone keeps him on a tight leash and makes sure he takes orders…”

Jason frowned and worked to gather the strength to speak, “If you’re going to kill me, just kill me.” He said in a blasé sort of voice. “All of this menacing talk is…well, it’s not as cute or charming as you think it is so if you’re gonna kill me can you just get it over with already?” He didn’t really expect them to respond to what he said, but he needed to say it – say something to them, look them in the eye and tell them that they could go and fuck themselves.

Jason had kept his eyes on Hoyt, so he didn’t notice Vaas walking up behind him until the pirate lords’ arm was braced over his throat – restricting his breathing as he did so. “What the fuck?” he snapped at Vaas, “What the fuck?” His voice came out quiet and raspy in his initial panic.

“Shh, shh, shh… shut the fuck up, Snow White.” Vaas whispered in his ear, smiling against his cheek as he clearly felt Jason’s heart beating in his throat. “We’re not done talking yet. Don’t be rude, hermano, you’re so fucking rude.” With that, the pirate lord turned his attention back to Hoyt.

“I was going to kill you, at first.” Hoyt hummed, “Maybe torture you a bit, cut you up, fuck you even. If I had the time… but then I had a talk with Vaas and I realized, why kill you when I could get my moneys worth out of you? So, I’ll give you a choice, Jason. You can either work with us, and we’ll let your friends go home. They’ll be safe, so long as you don’t fuck us over.”

Hoyt smiled in a way that made him look like a parody of a kindhearted person. Jason snarled at his expression – he hated him, more than Vaas and Buck combined. “We’ll be keeping an eye on them, oh, and you’re mother, just in case you try. Or, you can say no – I will bring your brother and all of your little friends down here, kill them in front of you and leave you to die.”

A big part of Jason wanted to spit in Hoyt’s face and tell him that he’d rather die on his feet than live comfortably on his knees but he didn’t have that option. It wasn’t just him that would be getting tortured and killed if he did that. “Some choice.” He said to the men in front of him and shook his head in defeat. “Fine. I’ll… do whatever you want. Just let them go.”

Jason didn’t realize that he had been crying until he felt the wetness all over his cheeks. It was all so fucking surreal and unfair. It wasn’t supposed to be like this, he was supposed to save his friends and get the hell out of here. Not end up right back where he started, only worse off than he was before.

“Atta boy.” The slaver hummed, one of his calloused hands gripping Jason’s jaw hard enough to bruise as he held the younger mans’ face in place. He was so close that the smell of cuban cigars and bad cologne suffocated his senses. Vaas was too close too, he could feel the pirates’ beard scratch over his neck. It was all just too much for him. It was all just too much, too soon and too fast.

“You made the right choice.” He continued on as he forced Jason’s jaw up and put out his cigar on his throat, eliciting a ragged scream out of him as he did so. “Take good care of your puppy, Vaas. Make sure he doesn’t shit the bed.” He said as he walked out, leaving Jason and Vaas alone again.

He didn’t know what to expect from Vaas – he rarely ever did – when Hoyt left them alone. The only thing that he could be sure of, was that it wouldn’t be pleasant for him. Vaas was gonna hurt him, just because he could, because he had proven himself the bigger and badder monster between them.

He expects violence, but violence doesn’t come – not yet, at least – and instead all he can feel is the dull throb of pain as Vaas inspects Jason’s bruising and the burns over his throat. “Tch, he got you good didn’t he? Fucker just can’t help himself…” He said, speaking more to himself than to Jason. “Doesn’t matter though. It’s just you and me right now, Jason.” Vaas murmured to him, before he hoisted the younger man up into his arms with way too much ease to be natural.

Jason had been too weak to struggle or even snap at Vaas as he loaded Jason into his truck – he was still chained and collared like the animal that he had no doubts he would be treated like from now on. He wondered, as his vision faded to black again and he fell into another fitful sleep, how long it would take for him to just get used to being treated like that.

[suntypes-blog]

this is very long and not really edited godspeed [f18 wrap-up]

__The more I think about 2018 the less I want to dive in. People post when they’re happy, when they have something to share and show off, so naturally I’ve been inundated w square after square of “the happiest year of my life!” and “2018 was so sweet!” We’re taught that every year should be better than the last because that’s progress. Life is a charge against entropy and if you’re the sad ones that get caught in the current- you’re losing. (1/1/19 )

__It’s almost funny how triumphantly I set off for 2018. Sophomore spring was fresh but so perfectly well-worn and I sank freely into that tempurpedic mattress of campaign affirmations and idealistic friendship dynamics. Not to say I’m finishing the year, or more accurately starting 2019, in a sad place- there’s just less of the surety I felt prior which I’ve always told myself was weakness, but now that I’ve been transported here to this blank post that’s a diagnosis I don’t think I can stand by. All this rambling to say: I’m learning to question myself in the micro as I choose to zoom out and reckon with all dust filled corners to present a me I’m proud of. I’m rerouting.

But that’s not exactly what this is about. This is for Fall 2018 because heck yEaH I’m a student and my life is dictated by the academic calendar!! I’m introspective as fuck but this semester took a distinctly reclusive (comparatively) and ~berkeley~ turn. (1/9/19)

__I have never before moved with such bone-deep tiredness. I have never before cancelled meetings or meetups to stay home and sleep. I have never before relied so solely on chemical energy. I have never before cried quite like that. I have never before shaken with anger quite like that. But this is all internal, in-my-own-head concerns. Though i lived dictated by color-coded rectangles on a phone screen I was never buried below and I count that as a win.

Headspace is conditioned by context and a week ago I wouldn’t have been able to look back this comparably chipper. It wasn’t a good semester and it wasn’t bad- all circumstances withstanding it was possibly the best it could’ve been. I went in cocooned in mantras of “you’re going to die” and “please drop something” but commitments aren’t necessarily always our own choice and i quite plainly refuse to acquiesce to someone else’s estimate of my own capacity. I can drive myself mad but ultimately i know my own limits. I know what’s worth it and what’s not and if my mental calculation has landed me at square wtf then so be it.

There are different energies at play- maybe this is what kept me afloat. The weariness i feel from overstudying is far removed from that which burns the rubber in my soles running to put out fires. I view myself from a distance in variations of lists, linear pathways, and interval meters and in my mind’s eye these energies float steadily at the bottom of my mental screen. A dip in one is offset by a rise in another and though I may put aside sleep my body screams for in favor of a conversation with a friend- ultimately my meters balance. Maybe i’m mental for computerizing my physicality but it’s been survival successful. A late night studying is oddly rejuvenating against the foil of drama and one well timed call fills me to max with magic wrought from hard earned familiarity.

I made an effort to schedule alone time so i could pursue the things that are tied to no other aspect in my life that hold an untainted peace. Goodwill and embroidery satisfied that and more, and to me it’s a precious thing. There’s no long term goal but it feels like an investment in just me and god damn it i’ll be selfish here. Solitude was never something i desired in the past but fall forced a mental switch for sake of sanity and though it felt like i relinquished control to some deep subconscious i’m thankful now.

It really is true that people are the most important determinant of one’s joy. I’m fucking lucky, i know, to have the friends i do both here and in irvine. Home is a funky concept but i breathe deeper in comfort and there’s nothing quite as wonderful as comfortable silence with others. All those prior “have never before”s made fall foggy but peaks above are indeed there and zoomed in are the manifestation of the feeling of being held. Closeness and trust are something i think we all hope for in our relationships with others and to me there’s no greater reassurance than knowing you are held despite whatever wild emotions or crises like to scream your faults.

Though i’ve been actively combating it, sharing often still blares weakness in the hollow of my head. My mind runs tests and scenarios no one needs to know of and sprints both too far in front and behind so really what’s the purpose of opening it a crack for it just to be beat down in the stampede? All abstractions aside one of my goals for the semester was to learn how to share in media res and not purely after it’s perfectly packed, wrapped, and slapped with a bow.

Of course this touches nothing of my on paper responsibilities and asuc, stacks, school ran circles around me, but hey i got through with initial goals semi-achieved and though my cynicism may have grown it’s all conditional in the end.

This isn’t a psychoanalysis of all existing connections but far more me-driven. This is me trying to progress and as much as the people i’ve been blessed with mold that I aim to be satisfied with the steel frame that is within and frankly forever stuck. To sum things up and purely because i have a raging crush on lists, have the following:

I like to theme my semesters and fall was a mission in three parts:

Staying genuine

Sharing struggles in media res

Personal branding

A few things I told myself throughout:

I would allow more time for hobbies whether such time existed or not

I would spend time with the people I care about no matter how inconvenient (hello postgrads ily)

I would fulfill all my responsibilities as presently as possible and hold myself to my own standards

Yeah I like creative outlets but that’s not my future job

I’m one person and as much as I love compartmentalizing it’s time to consider cohesiveness

Major shifts, good or bad:

You don’t love Berkeley any less, but you no longer want to stay forever.

Your tolerance for people that you find annoying is nearing zero.

You love to be alone and to just lie on your rug doing nothing, not even thinking.

You’re addicted to thrifting.

You acquired a newfound love for exclusion yikes.

Art!! A lot!!

You’re still more closed off, but mostly by convenience and no longer by a profound sense of unease. (For example: sharing all this doesn’t scare you shitless! a concept!)

Things to work on in 2019:

Not apologizing for things I’m not actually sorry about just to seem polite

Write more thought essays

Not immediately writing off things I disagree with + productive confrontation / don’t fester

Spend less

Hone in on what you want- career mostly but also choose an art to grow

Church attendance

Doing things because you feel convicted to not just because you think you should

Call mom and dad more 

Good job on:

Staying committed to friendships

Finally getting that tattoo

Not compromising your values w drama

Finding better music

Finally looking externally how you feel internally

Grateful for:

Friends that pour into you and hold you even when you make it hard.

Rough situations that allowed for much needed conversations and adapting

Facetime even with shitty wifi

Newfound breadth of friends and thus learned experience of others

Collab playlists

Surprise epiphanies born from unexpected discussions

Escape

Big love to:

Robin

Grace

Jess

Camille

Katie

Audrey

Karlo

Jeremiah

Angie

There’s no moral or lesson learned- I guess this is just me fighting against myself so really it’s all just perspective in the end.

xx

[romyshq-blog]

hello lovely people! i’m cathy and i’m super excited to be here with my trash bby, slater. she's messy, so i hope she fits in here!  if u need an enemy, messy ex situation or contemptuous ex-friendship connection, look no further than this bish right here. under the cut you can read about her (she’s a hot mess!!!) and visit her pinterest board here if u’d like (her name is usually rachel but i decided to go wildt and change it *sweats nervously because i actually hate change*). 

( MARGARET QUALLEY / CISFEMALE / SHE/HER ). [ ROMY SLATER ] is a [ TWENTY-ONE ] year old [ UNDERGRAD ] student studying [ JOURNALISM ]. they are known for being [ RESILIENT & PERCEPTIVE ], but also being [ CAPRICIOUS & CONTEMPTIBLE ]. if there was a song that described their life, it would be [ ACRYLIC BY FOG LAKE ].

first thing’s first, you should call her slater. in fact, unless you’re in one of her classes where they take attendance, you probably don’t know her real name is romy. she hates her name and has been going by her last name for as long as she can remember. 

she’s from new york. her dad is very demanding and tempered and her mom is carping, cold and judgmental. so she didn’t grow up in a great situation. 

her dad owns a bunch of properties in the city and in new jersey and they’ve made him very wealthy. they’re mostly crap apartments, motels & strip clubs. he has a lot of criminal ties and is pretty much just a creep.

he has a lot of cops, district attorneys, city council members, deputy mayors etc. on his payroll from bribery and/or blackmail stemming from his strip clubs and the dancers and prostitutes who work there. not to mention his mob affiliation. sooo basically he’s teflon. 

slater’s mom is a social climber who won’t leave her husband despite him being….Not Nice™ since she wants to live lavishly. she’s long island trash...very real housewives

her mom is very selfish and refuses to take any responsibility for the way her life choices have fucked up her daughter while also constantly criticizing slater and her behaviors as if slater just…made herself into the person she is today?? and wasn’t molded by her parents and environment, ya know??

anyway, slater’s mom used to pharmacy shop and put slater on drugs to curb her justified behaviors. like having anxiety due to growing up in a dysfunctional and abusive situation. but she also did it to have slater basically labeled as “mentally ill” and on meds to keep her quiet about their family secrets. so slater has always felt like she’s messed up, even as a kid :///

slater still sees her parents occasionally on breaks and holidays and you can expect her to act out in interesting ways after being forced to go home. 

personality; 

sO! if slater had a label or trope or whatever, she’d totally be the anti-heroine. ya know, the girl who does fucked up shit and can be amoral and you want to hate her but she’s also sympathetic in a way and good (deep down). 

warning: she’s a messy girl to be involved with. she’s got this emptiness inside of her. a hollowness. (hint; it’s depression). she uses anything she can to try and fill it up. drinking, drugs, sex. but she’s incredibly selfish & impulsive in her pursuits and ends up hurting people. a lot. and she always hates herself after but then just does it again.

she’s not a sociopath or narcissist in a clinical sense. she’s actually an insecure, self-conscious ball of anxiety but pushes all that down and plays the Cool Girl role. she does things she knows are wrong and can be a manipulative bitch. then it all eventually bubbles over like a pot on a stove, and paired with the guilt she feels, it causes a few public and many private meltdowns. but she's usually always the source of her own interpersonal issues tbh.

like, you can confront her with receipts of shit she’s done and she’ll just nod and stare at the ground and walk away. but then go into the nearest public bathroom and sob and feel so bad. but then??? still?? never??? apologize???? she’s a trip. 

her aesthetic is uncombed hair, scuffed docs, flannels, torn jeans, tshirts from goodwill with moth holes. doesn’t shower or sleep often and chews her fingernails into stubs. like, she almost makes it a point to just look...Bad.

she gets really good grades because she can be very manic and intense. people in her high school used to tell her she had “crazy eyes” when she got like this because she gets very focused, perfectionistic, talks a mile a minute and you can practically see the gears turning in her brain. she works well under extreme stress, which is why most of her papers are typed up the night before their due date on five cups of coffee and a half pack of cigarettes. 

perceptive of others and can be manipulative and a liar to either a. get what she wants or b. hide her transgressions. she was raised by narcissists so....this is what ya get.

she’s complicated. because on one hand, she wants to be a good person but on the other hand, she fucks people over and betrays people a lot. 

i actually have a headcanon of how she lost her core group of high school friends that’s a good insight into her M.O. if you'd like to hear it:

so senior year slater got drunk and slept with her best friend alyssa’s boyfriend. she didn’t do it to be malicious. but she was too selfish, drunk & thinking about herself to care about how fucked up it was. she felt so bad about it but then caved and did it again and they had an affair. slater eventually broke it off, bottled up her guilt, continued the friendship with alyssa.

soon after, alyssa got pregnant by the same boyfriend. slater knew that alyssa’s bf was trash and supported her friend through an abortion.

but THEN, the boyfriend came clean and admitted the affair long after the fact. so alyssa thought slater supported her abortion for selfish gains because SHE wanted her boyfriend and (rightfully) felt betrayed. when in actuality, slater had long since stopped fucking him and only wanted what was best for alyssa when she supported her through the abortion. SO she did a bad thing in the past but still had good intentions. however, the past came back to bite her and she lost everything. don't get me wrong, she's not the victim in this situation. she fucked up. but not in the way her friends thought. so when she held her best friend's hand in the procedure, that came from a real place of love and she thought she was doing the right thing. however, she did do unforgivable things to the friend she loved. like i said, she's complicated because you can't outright say she's a soulless monster but you also can't justify or support her actions. 

YEAH! that’s my messy slater. she can never make it out of a situation as the good guy. she makes mistakes that are unjustifiable but she has a good heart and isn’t a horrible person inside. she doesn’t know why she is the way she is but she hates it tbh. she hates the things she does and the way she feels. but she just!!! keeps!!! fucking people over!!!! like, there’s no sugarcoating it: she’s done some terrible things for awful reasons and never apologized for any of it. but she regrets. she just can’t seem to break the cycle. (she's v much inspired by rachel goldberg from unreal as well as gretchen cutler from you're the worst, mickey dobbs from love, camille preaker from sharp objects and mavis gary from the film young adult!!)

plots;

i’m a HOE for drama, as you can probably tell my my angsty, messy character.

so maybe ex-boyfriends on bad terms or ex-friends. someone slater fucked over n won’t take responsibility for what she did

OR someone who fucked slater over for a change. taste of her own medicine tbh

maybe someone naive and innocent she can corrupt since misery loves company

childhood friends or enemies, family friends, a cousin maybe? characters with criminal connects who maybe know her dad??

fellow journalism majors that hate her for giving journalism a bad name cuz they’re actually dedicated to journalism and integrity n slater sleeps with sources and barely ever shows up or turns things in on time lmao

a professor she’s fucking lol idk 

someone who can see her at her worst. 

someone who’s innocent and good and slater actually tries to protect them, like a sisterly bond

trouble-maker, burnout friends. or toxic friendships

friends with benefits 

[mar-gega]

You Selfish Sokovian!

Anon Request:  Ok woah! I didn't even know you wrote Pietro imagines until I read your recent post (it was fabulous btw). How about a fic where she's a huge flirt but doesn't really mean to be like she's just a generally affectionate person and it comes off as flirting. Then Pietro gets jealous and there's a lot of fluff 

A/N: I think this one turned out to be a little similar to ‘Pietro and the Pie’ but I hope that you still like it? The flirting bit was a bit of a struggle for me, and if you think it’s bad then I apologise in advance!

Warnings: Not much, apart from bad innuendo and poor writing. Oh, there’s fluff.

Word count: 2.3k

‘Morning boys!’ Your voice echoed through the gym. You were not usually a morning person but you've already had a coffee AND when you came downstairs there was a plate of cooked bacon with your name on it. Literally. A sticky note was placed on the edge of the plate with Steve's distinct handwriting.

Good morning, Grumpy Face! Accept this offering as a goodwill gesture and an advanced apology for the training we’re putting you through this morning. See you at 8AM Sharp. X X

‘Ooh, double kiss?’ You wondered out loud before grabbing the crispy strip of perfectly cooked bacon with your bare hand. That’s how you knew it was shaping up to be a good morning, indeed.

‘Someone's unusually cheery!’ Sam was the first to notice.

‘I got two kisses from the Cap with my breakfast…’ you smiled at the blonde super soldier who has just appeared from around the corner carrying a full case of isotonic drinks.

‘I thought.. If Steve was in a good mood, maybe it could rub on me?’ You winked at him and instantly thought of a joke. And because, let's be honest, you had no filter you just blurted it out.

‘The mood, I mean. I don't need the Cap rubbing anything else on me!’ Sam exploded with laughter and had to add his jab too.

‘Not that you would mind anyway, y’know what I'm sayin’?’ You bit your lips and looked toward the other man in the gym, the blonde wonder boy, Pietro Maximoff, who, though smiling, didn't seem that into casual innuendo. Maybe it was just too early in the morning for a little banter for him?

‘I mean… Look at the man… Who wouldn't mind a cheeky rub?’ you said a little more quietly and especially directing it at Sam. He, on the other hand, was ALWAYS up for playful innuendo, no time of day (or night) when he didn’t appreciate your potty mouth.

‘Okay, Missy, if you’re done verbally assaulting my dignity, I'll have you warm up on the treadmill.’ You groaned at Steve’s words - you hated running. Maybe you could just slowly jog your way through it and he wouldn't notice?

‘Oh, and don't worry! I've already set the program for you!’

‘Great…’ You huffed dramatically, so that he could hear your annoyance. ‘If I don't complain, do I get an extra reward?’ You pushed your luck.

‘Oh, what's that?’ Steve pretended to not hear you and began looking around the room, turning his head around many times before stopping on Sam's and Pietro’s faces. ‘Did you hear something? That buzzing sound? Can you two hear it too? So annoying…’

‘Kiss my ass!’ You shouted from your treadmill, already marching at a steady pace.

‘You wish!’ Steve shot back and all you could hear is Sam's loud laughter echoing the room. It was great to be so casual and free around all the men in the compound. Sam Wilson has made it a personal mission of his to bring the Cap up to speed with modern talk, encouraging him to be playful and a little flirty with the women. And you? Well, you always came off as flirty, but really, there was not much to it. A few cheeky innuendos here and there, maybe because of how comfortable you felt around the compound that made you come across so forward all the time? You never thought much of it, everyone around you seemed to really embrace that side of you, as the more comfortable you felt, the easier it was to joke and flirt. The rest of the morning you spent by going through a gruelling workout with Steve and Sam. And to your disappointment there wasn't much time to interact with the favourite of yours - the Sokovian Pretty Boy Maximoff - he opted to spend all of his morning by the weights. He was usually a lot more quiet than everybody else which you found quite endearing. Deep down, you had a real sweet spot for the guy. Silently hoping that he'd be about the compound so you could catch up with him, after taking a shower, you decided to pop out of for a coffee. You grabbed your favourite and bought one for Pietro too. If that wasn't going to be a conversation starter, what would?

When you returned you headed straight for the outside terrace, where you were sure to find him - the sun was shining, it was the team’s day off - where else would he be but outside enjoying the weather?

Your suspicions were quickly confirmed. There he was, right by the bar, helping himself to some fruit punch. As you set off on your way towards him you walked past Sam who didn't miss the fact that you were carrying coffee cups.

‘Mmm, for me? You shouldn't have!’ He smiled at you.

‘You wish!’ You shot back and winked at him.

‘Come on, I deserve it!’ Oh, this was going to be fun! You though to yourself.

‘I deserve it more, that workout of yours really knackered me!’ You stopped for a moment to finish your exchange. With the corner of your eye you noticed Pietro looking in your direction.

‘You’re a lightweight, but I’m sure in time I can get you into shape...’ He lowered his sunglasses down his nose and wiggled his eyebrows at you.

‘I bet you would… Look, this is coffee, I need it, but I’ll find you when I’m in a mood for some chocolate…’ he chortled loudly at this and sat back in the lounge chair, shaking his head, admitting a defeat.

‘Oh that's how it's gonna be?’

‘Oh, that's how it's gonna be.’ You winked at him and turned on your heel toward Pietro, leaving chuckling Sam behind.

‘Hey, handsome!’ You cooed when you got closer to the blonde. ‘Got you something delicious to tickle your taste buds!’ He sent you a tight lipped smile and crossed arms over his chest. You extended the cup to him but he didn't take it. Instead he looked you straight in the eyes and cleared his throat. ‘Why do you have to be like that?!’ He hissed at you. This was a strange move and it instantly took you aback.

‘Like what?’ You jutted your hip out as you shifted your balance on one leg. If you could, you'd put your hand on your hip in a full-on ‘come at me, bro’ pose but you still held both of the coffees in your hands. Pietro stared down at you, still refusing to take his drink. He shook his head in annoyance and when he looked at you again, his eyes were squinting.

‘Why do have to act so… so…’ he moved his hands up and down, from your feet to your shoulders, as if he was presenting a piece at an auction for everyone to admire ‘So… EASY.’

Did you just hear it right?!

Your eyes snapped wide open, anger boiling your blood. Oh, he struck a nerve there.

How dare he?!

‘WHAT?!’ You screeched and he flinched a little at your tone. You slammed his coffee on the bar and as you turned you were ready to give him a piece of your mind.

‘How fucking dare you?!’ You quickly advanced on him. He must've only just realised how angry you were because he took a couple of steps back, as if that was going to make you stop in your track!  

‘You total asshole!’ You extended your finger and pointed it in his face. ‘You don't get to judge me! Who do you think you are?! I might be loud and flirty but I am certainly not easy!’

His eyes flickered between your moving finger and your face, surely it was the time he realised what he said was so hurtful.

‘I didn't say you were easy…’ he mumbled. It was beyond your understanding how he was standing there and acted so casual. You took a second to assess the situation. To think that up until now you had a real sweet spot in your heart for Pietro, the slightly shy demeanour that he usually sported was something rarely seen on guys, and how he - up until now - had found your sense of humour a bit crass and too much, it was endearing, really. If you really wanted, any guy in the compound would succumb to your advances. It's something you never acted on, but you could sense that the way you handled yourself and how open and flirty you were being meant men found you attractive. But Pietro… he was a different type of fellow. With him, your cheap blunt jokes didn't always work, you were only rewarded with a small smile; to get him laughing would take a real clever joke, a super sarcastic one. And when you did make him laugh, it really made your day.

That same, not easily amused and shy man, was now standing if front of you, refusing a perfect cup of coffee and calling you easy. That same guy that you somehow found attractive, all of a sudden has lost his appeal. He seemed nothing but a sexist pig and he wasn't even sorry. This didn’t seem right at all!

‘You said I acted easy!’ You growled and moved your face closer to his.

‘Yes, but I'd never call you easy! The way you act sometimes…’ he struggled to maintain eye contact, and he began stuttering his words, nerves getting the better of him.

‘WHAT?!’ Oh, you weren't going to let go. You're never wrong about people, and if Pietro really wasn't the sweet shy guy you pinned him down for, you needed to make sure.

‘It's intimidating, OKAY?!’ He was the one raising his voice now. You dropped your shoulders and looked for his eyes. And when you met his, there was a shot of electricity that surged through your body. For a few seconds neither of you would drop eye contact, however, it was Pietro who blinked first.

‘My god, Y/N! You're so confident, so funny, so flirty…’ he rubbed his stubbled jaw as he searched for the right words ‘It's intoxicating… drives me crazy...’ he released a loud sigh and looked up to the sky, as if that was going to help him!

Meanwhile, you stood there, confused. You thought you were having an argument. Yet right now you had Pietro stuttering and breathing heavily in front of you, giving you compliments…?

‘What is going on, Pietro?’ You said in a demanding voice.

‘Oh fuck it…’ he muttered under his nose. He shifted in his spot and cleared his throat twice before speaking again.

‘I don't want you flirting with everyone around…’

‘Well, thought shit, pretty boy, that's how I am…’ you snapped back immediately. He smirked a little and took another deep breath.

‘I know. I actually like that about you.’ He said quietly.

‘I don't understand’ And you were completely confused. You didn't know whether to be angry or smitten, he liked you but he thought you were easy? These were not normally the two feelings that went together… You body was still really tense, but your brain started registering what Pietro was saying.

‘I don't want you flirting with everyone else because… Selfishly, I want you all to myself, for you to only flirt with me.’ He nervously cleared his throat again and put his hands on his hips to stop them from fidgeting at his sides.

You took a moment to think. Was this his way of saying he wants you two to be more than friends? If it was, that poor boy sure knows how to go about it the wrong way! You scanned his body up and down - he was nervously shifting balance from one leg to another, his chest was moving up and down at an alarming rate and he was biting his lip furiously - how he's not bit through it was beyond you! Ok, so it started to make sense now.

You smirked at him and took a sip of your coffee. He stared at you expectantly, clearly waiting for you comment on his confession. ‘You know… You're real cute when you're nervous…’ you dared to send him a wink. He released a breathy chuckle and smiled back at you. ‘And you're a real pain the ass…’ you added.

‘Oh, wouldn't you want to find out?’ He replied, making both of you giggle a little at this.

‘Sorry, couldn't help myself.’ He chuckled. His hands were still on his hips and he still looked very nervous, so you took it upon yourself to make the next move. You stepped closer to him and used your spare arm to wrap around his small waist. You felt his body relax into your touch and, after a few second, his arms were around your back, returning the hug.

‘I'm also sorry for the misunderstanding earlier.’ He whispered in your ear.

You smiled to yourself. Of course you couldn't stay mad at him. Especially not now that you know how amazing his chest feels...

‘You need to make it up to me!’ You whispered back to him. He hummed in agreement and replied immediately.

‘Whatever you want, baby.’ Your head flooded with at least a dozen of inappropriate jokes but it was a sweet moment you two were sharing so rather than spoil it, you opted for keeping your mouth shut.

And honestly? This man was probably the only person that's ever managed to keep you quiet. At least for now, because one thing’s for sure - you were certainly hoping not to stay quiet later that night…

Okay everyone, so this is it? So far I’ve had really mixed reaction to these Pietro fics, what did you think about this one?

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[heartsoftruth]

until now i thot Ney@PSG was just a way for him (and his pai) to get more money/advantages from barca by using PSG as a pressure point ... But now, after what Geri and Masche said, he apparently really considering leaving ... It's not just a mind game with barca's direction, he is actually serious. I still don't know what to think about it ...

Anonymous said:“Do you wane be someone who we hear of when you play in the CL only or one we also wants league matches live?” This got me thinking, maybe PSG could bring him a little more peace. Less media exposition, less pressure. On a personal level, i think it could be good for Ney … On a professional level, Barca is way more competitive of course. I understand why he take his time to truly think about it even if for the fans it is a hard time.

He wants to win the BdO. If he wants to win it in France he or has to score 40+ but especially win the CL. That will be historical. 

Anonymous said:I want him to leave. I think he needs it for his growth. But not like this and not PSG 😭

@imahighfunctioningdisaster​ said:I just really don’t see what’s appealing in going to PSG. (Except maybe for the money, but that what’s interest NSr, not NJr.) Ligue1 is so bad, like there is nothing spectacular or interesting to play in french football. There aren’t good opportunities or way to make yourself more famous, no good club (bc PSG is not a good club, not at all). (And it’s coming from a french person who doesn’t follow la Ligue 1 because of how bad it is.)

I dont see the appeal either tbh. I really dont see it. STAY!

Anonymous said:Neymar, it doesn’t get any better than Barca. You are a part of the best trio in football. You’ve won cups & you get praised for how incredible you are. But you’ll throw it away for money? A Brazilian friend persuading you too? If he leaves to PSG he goes to a shitty league with no competition. No one will care how many goals he scores. He won’t be alongside some of the best players in the world. But at least you got that money right? What a disappointment. Even if he stays, I don’t care.

Anonymous said:Ney will be hated by the fans bc of thinking about leaving. Ofcourse he’s thinks about leaving his dad wants him to go to psg. But I think Ney should man up and tell his father what he wants for once.

Anonymous said:I’m mind blown at how his father is sitting back and letting all this backlash happen, why is he ruining his sons reputation. Money is great and all but as a father your child should come first, his happiness should come first always.

Anonymous said:The damage is done already, Cules don’t want Neymar to stay even the once who really liked him are turning their backs on him. At this point he might as well just leave. I don’t know if he’s even aware of it. But he will be when the Camp Nou welcomes him with boos and whistles.

Exactly, it doesn’t get better than Barça and hell to the no at P$G…

I hope he stays. I’m keeping positive. I hope tonight will be a good came again and maybe some stay Ney chants and he will see what he can achieve with this team. 

He will just have to make up a lot with the fans. 

Anonymous said:Hi i’m sorry to bother but why would JB fans be mad at him? Did something happen? Again sorry for bothering youHi, you don’t bother me. I just dont remember what I said about JB… Anonymous said:hey ash well am a madridista but i wanna say that i really wish ney to stay although this will harm and threaten real Madrid but i want him to stay bec i love him and if he stays within a couples of years he gonna be the best player in world and 2nd its amazing to see such a unique talent in la liga :) am sorry if i interfered in barca issue while i am a Madrid fan good night all xoxox

Aaawh thank you! Thats very nice of you to say! I didnt know RMA fans visited my blog, but your words are too kind! It;s great to see how you appreciate him

Anonymous said:I feel like Geri messed up, meant positive about Neymar, but some things he said come out negative, he made him sound like incompetent child who can’t think for himself, and made it sound like he’ll never lead club cuz he’s not Messi. Not a good msg to send out there. I’m sure he didn’t mean it like that but it came out like that. We all know Ney is still under influence of his dad but he made big choices against him in the past and hes not a compete idiot, I think ppl underestimate him too much

Geri spoke his mind and the truth. I know what Geri means with the child comment and it isn’t as negative as it may seem. I thought he said some interesting stuff in a time where the subject of all this drama isn’t speaking. 

Anonymous said:watching stories from Neymars friends pisses me off even more, they really are such fucking parasites! he does all the work, in the middle of this hot mess they’re just fucking around, partying in messy hotel rooms, all just follow him around and live of of him and his success like leaches, they are no use. How can he be grown up surrounded with ppl like that 24/7?? Are they gonna still sit in his living room when they’re 50? pathetic….

I hvae no idea. I hope they tell him fucking stay at Barca idioto.

Anonymous said:If its abt leadership eventually ney will leave cos lio is the undisputed leader here&he fought his way to be here. Its not like he randomly became the leader over the years he has cemented his place. At the start it was a struggle even for him and right now tbh it would be extremely disrespectful and wrong to ask leo to step down because why should he he isnt declining? Or has shown any signs of it either even at the juve game both goals he was the starting point of it his inch perfect passes

True. He knows Leo won’t step down and is the natural leader. That;s why he might wanna  leave. 

Anonymous said:It’s not lio imposes himself on others infact last season he played in the midfield and became Europe’s top scorer he didn’t exactly took away chances from others but rather he is that good he can play in all positions. He by his talent is the natural leader of the squad. He is the best player in the world. Some people try to make it look like lio is a dictator hence ney is going& nobody acknowledges that even messi on his part sacrificed his play to suit msn. He isnt exactly self centered

Exactly! Leo shouldn’t even be brought into this discussion. Every player knows to what team they go to and who the natural leader is. Leo is a team player, not selfish but everyone respects him as the leader. 

Anonymous said:Sorry…. he said that his making this very clear he loves Neymar more then Barca and better then being with the best player in the world and that he won’t find this somewhere else, and that he needs to enjoy the team, the city which is Barca and he won’t find it anywhere elseAnonymous said:Nah Neymar has massively dissapointed me! Is he really that stupid that he will lose whatever goodwill he has left with fans even his teammates for carrying this on WAY too long. If it was a silly brumar rumour or something to do with Bruna he would be the first person calling out the journalist or posting some silly posts to end the drama but with HIS own life and career and the integrity and respect for a club that has done their best to accommodate him he keeps mute! He should leave tbhAnonymous said:Okay bye Neymar 👋🏽😒!!! I’m sorry if he really wanted to stay as Barca he would have said something by now, which just shows that his actually considering leaving Barca for a club where he’ll only be recognized in the Champions League?! I’m done he has strung everybody along far too long! I’m disappointed in him!!

I get the disappointment because same, but I still want and hope he will stay. Lets hope he makes the right decision. 

Anonymous said:I’m soooo tired of this Neymar drama. Thank God for Lewis, at least one of my faves is treating me right.

Well Lewis also has a lot of drama surrounding him always haha. 

Anonymous said:Neymar’s father did the impossible…Congratulations 👏👏👏*sarcasm* A majority of FC Barcelona fans (90%) now hate Neymar.he Can’t really say anything??This situation is so annoying.If he wants to leave, he need to SAY. EVERYONE is tired of this waiting.

It’s such a mess…