#based off random items i found in my room (part I)

[promptsbytaurie]

dialogue prompts based off random items i found in my room (part I)

"You know what this space needs? A bulletin board. With pictures."

"Hah, yeah. My mom made that blanket."

"You do not need this many trophies displayed."

"I didn't know you played volleyball."

"Ooh, a diary. You got all your little secrets in there?"

"You have a concerning amount of books."

"I used to have a stuffed animal like this."

"I've counted three Coke cans and I haven't even looked at your desk yet."

"Oh my god, you were so cute as a kid!"

"You drew this?"

"You have a list of all of your friends? Wow, that's narcissistic ... uh, why are there only three?"

"Oh, I used to love this book."

"A mini fridge?? Are you rich?"

"Speaking to an empty room. Hah. Now I'm going insane."

"Huh. Nice photo. ... We were happier back then, weren't we?"

"You own a concerning amount of snow globes."

"Why is your bed so big?? You're like, three feet tall."

"I found a Kit Kat. Hope it wasn't expired because I just ate it."

"Have you heard of curtains?"

"No wonder you're so angry all the time. I would also be angry if the neighbors liked mowing their lawn at five in the morning."

"There are seven Pringles cans in your trash. Are you okay?"

"I've never seen you wear makeup??"

"Secret stash of candy. Classy."

"Look, I'm just saying, this space needs a little pizzaz, y'know?"

"Do you think your brother would be mad if I sat on his bed?"

"There is dog hair everywhere."

"Are all of these journals full??"

"'Do not enter.' Skull emoji. Did you seriously print out a sign for your door?"

"You don't have a lock on your door??"

"Can I just say... love the giant self-portrait from third grade. Not creepy at all."

[softxsuki]

Hi!! Congrats on 1.5k! May I please request 10 troupe with Shinichiro from Tokyo Revengers x fem!reader? Thanks in advance and I hope you have a good day! 💜

1.5k Follower Event Trope 10: Tokyo Revengers

Trope 10: Marriage of Convenience

This event is CLOSED. You can check out the masterlist here.

Pairing: Bonten!Mikey x Fem!Reader

Warning: mentions of killing, bad childhood, stalking, injury, blah

Genre: idek, kinda fluff?

Post-Type: Oneshot (so much for drabbles smh)

Word Count: ...1.1k (oops)

Note: Hey! Thank you so much. So for my tropes, you're only supposed to send in a trope number and fandom name, then I pick which character from that fandom I think it matches with the most! I've also already written one of these for Shinichiro hence why I've written this for Mikey. I hope you still enjoy it though, I love this trope! Also side note: I’ve read like 2 seconds of Bonten Mikey but I felt it fit this trope more SO if this makes no sense, you know why :)

Marriage was the last thing on Mikey’s mind, until your father approached him with a contract that included you and part of the city he owned, in return for protection from Bonten and the chance to make Bonten grow even more powerful. Naturally Mikey agreed, taking little interest in you as a factor, but desiring to see his gang flourish even farther.

As the daughter of a gang leader, your role since birth had been to be used as a means to help your father, ensuring he was always well off. There was not a day when your father thought about you or your own feelings. 

You were handed over to Mikey straight away, allowed to pack up the few clothes that you had, along with any other personal items. Meeting with him briefly to sign a few marriage documents, signing away your life, and ultimately leaving one prison and entering a new one–or so you thought.

For the most part Mikey left you alone to do as you please, only giving you a few rules to keep you safe and away from the darker areas of their base where you were staying. But you were given your own room that was nicely decorated, new clothes that fit you perfectly, and the freedom to do as you please within their building. It was more freedom than you’d ever had in your life.

Even though you were trapped in what you thought was a loveless marriage, at least everyone treated you respectfully. Though, Mikey found himself opening up to you in ways he’d never opened up before after all the trauma that he befell in the past. He admired how you carried yourself, standing tall and proud despite being thrown in an unfamiliar place by force, the least he wanted to do was make you comfortable…but why?

He found himself inviting you to the dining room for meals with him, quite enjoying your company even if you ate in silence. Flowers and other gifts were left by your bedroom door, shocking you. Why was he doing this for you, wasn’t this just a marriage of convenience? There was no need for heartfelt gifts and attention like he was giving you.

But Mikey couldn’t help himself, he felt lighter around you as if he could finally breathe again and it was such a relief–a good change from the usual heaviness that clouded over him. He realized you were slowly becoming someone he wanted to keep happy and safe; he wanted to protect you from the cruel world that existed outside those walls, the cruel world he was also a part of. 

Mikey kept his feelings to himself, aside from the random gifts he’d leave you and quality time he’d spend with you every now and then. That was until one day you were granted access to wander outside in the city, saying you needed fresh air. Enemy gangs were always keeping a close watch on Bonten headquarters, just looking for any weakness that could cause the huge corporation to plunder, and finally they had one–you. 

Word that Mikey had taken a wife spread quickly in the underground world, a potential weakness of the big boss man behind Bonten, everyone was waiting to get their hands on you to bring Mikey crashing down–and that’s exactly what happened.

A few blocks later as you walked peacefully through the cool streets, loving how calming the area was at night and enjoying your new found freedom, that all came crashing down as you felt the presence of someone following you. 

At first you thought nothing of it, but every turn you made, they made and when you turned around to glance behind you, they’d stop walking and pretend to be busy with something. You quickened your pace, your heart beating out of your chest at the prospect that you were in danger and needed to get back home quickly. The man noticed this and also fastened his pace, getting closer and closer to you.

You begin running, but you’re not fast enough as a hand wraps around your wrist, pulling you down to the floor.

“Gotcha,” the man grins. “Let’s see how riled up your husband gets when we send your head back to him.”

Fear fully floods you as the man takes out a knife and approaches you with it. He only manages to scrape your cheek though before adrenaline kicks in and you push him back with the strength you didn’t know you had, jumping back to your feet and running full speed back to your home–back to Mikey.

Upon returning back to your home and bursting through the door with blood running down your face, mixed with tears, you ignore the questions of Mikey’s men who were keeping watch by the front door and run to your room.

Urgently, the men report to Mikey who jumps up from his seat and runs to your room, bursting your door open, not caring if you were decent or not.

“What happened?” He demands, closing the distance between you as he approaches your bed where you’re sobbing into your pillow.

When you don’t speak, he sighs and gently takes your hand, pulling you into him. “Let me see,” he softly says, guiding your chin up so he can get a better look at your face, gritting at the cut that had been so close to hitting your eye. 

His fingers wipe your tears away and slowly graze over the cut–he was upset. “Who did this?” He hisses. Who would dare place their hands on his wife?

You felt surprisingly relaxed and safe in his arms as he held you close, never once breaking eye contact with him, you had no choice but to fill him in on what happened during your walk.

“I just went out to get some fresh air and take a quick walk, but I noticed someone following me. I tried getting back here before he could catch up to me, but he was too fast. He said,” you gulp, fear once again filling your body as you remember the man's words. “He said he was going to send you my head back.”

Mikey was seething now. Not only had someone harmed you, but they’d also threatened to kill you? 

“Sanzu!” He screams, calling his most trustworthy man to enter your room, to which the pink-haired man appears immediately. “Have a few men patrol the area, I want any suspicious men taken in, I don’t care if you bring in everyone, I want him found, whoever it was that did this to my wife,” he grits, holding you tightly to him. 

Though anger was bubbling up inside him, he couldn’t help but feel slight relief that you were still alive and safe in his arms. He couldn’t lose you too…

That man would be tracked down and made an example out of. No one would dare try to harm his wife again. This marriage was now real to him and Mikey would do anything to protect it–to protect you.

EVENT REQUESTS ARE CLOSED

REGULAR REQUESTS ARE OPEN

Posted: 10/23/2023

[aethelwyneleigh27]

Playing Minecraft with Ellie Williams

x Builder!Reader short headcanon list

Loser!Ellie makes an appearance if you squint

ꕥ HOPE YOU ENJOY! ꕥ

My rules for requests and characters I can write for

TLOU Masterlist

Ellie Williams dating playlist made by yours truly

A/n: Hi lovelies! Lia here, this post is completely self-indulgent because I was playing Minecraft earlier and thought of this. I am so obsessed with the Cherry blossom biome shit that I've literally been building with it nonstop. Little update, more Cod and Resident Evil content to be posted soon.

Disclaimers/warnings: OOC?, Unrealistic, I'm so sorry but English is not my first language so please don't come after me.

ꕥ Ellie who is definitely the one carrying the both of you during playing.

ꕥ She's the miner and you're the builder situation, she's over in the mines slaying mobs and collecting loot while you're all the way up in the quaint little survival base you built.

ꕥ Beds next to each other for sure, Ellie insists. You want your own room? Not happening, y'all are sharing one room. Dyes her bed green and effortlessly finding dyes so that you can have your favorite color as your bed.

ꕥ "Babe, look what I found!" Que to her doing the little Minecraft crouch and giving you a flower she found while exploring.

ꕥ Said flower is now proudly displayed in a pot at the kitchen area.

ꕥ Doesn't care if it's corny, you're Minecraft character will virtually kiss hers while little "mwah <3" messages pop up on the chat.

ꕥ Nerd Ellie who custom made Minecraft skins so that they both looked like you guys. (Meanwhile Jesse has a default Steve one)

ꕥ She's a completely different person when gaming with Jesse than she is gaming with you. She would literally spawn kill him just to piss him off but she'd literally hold a little fake funeral if you died (not by her hand, never by hers) and you'd respawn and see a little makeshift graveyard next to your guys' house.

ꕥ Has done speedruns before but she'd rather just chill with you. Whenever you're not around to game with her, she does little things that don't affect the build but definitely something you'll notice when you're back.

ꕥ When it's all four of you playing, you, Ellie, Dina and Jesse. It's automatic that you're always with Ellie. Jesse once accidentally killed your dog and Ellie was pissed, like "purposefully lagging his game" pissed.

ꕥ She definitely steals loot from Jesse. Poor Jesse is always the victim of the shenanigans of the sever while Dina is chilling and doing her own thing.

ꕥ Wants you on her lap whenever you're gaming, though that would be difficult if you gamed on PC so maybe keep it on mobile.

ꕥ Ellie who had to convince you to on survival with her because you always just played on creative. She promised to protect you from the scary mobs, especially creepers.

ꕥ Need materials? You got it, doesn't matter if she has to go to the end or the nether she'll go and get you what you need.

ꕥ Asks you to cook the items she hunted, joking around while with Jesse in the mines (she has lured him into lava more times than you can count) telling him she needs to go back home to her wife (you of course).

ꕥ Loser!Ellie who literally prefers gaming with you rather than anyone else, it's one of her most favorite ways to spend time with you.

ꕥ Ellie who notices how much you love the cherry blossom biome so she makes an effort to get you materials to build with. Saplings, planks, and logs. You name it, she'll get it. Even going as far as to plant it around your guys' house.

ꕥ Always leaves signs around whenever she leaves without your knowledge, she once left a sign out in your garden with "I love you - Ells <3" and you've never taken it off. It just stayed there, being part of the aesthetic of the house you made together.

ꕥ Knows random ass Minecraft facts and tells you whenever something reminds her of it. Not that you mind, you love listening to her.

ꕥ Finds mods that she thinks you'll like, if she doesn't find it she'll try to make her own mods but it's never really successful. At least she tried <3

[topgun-imagines]

For My Daughter

Requested: yes

Summary: When Bradley rushes home from training, Maverick follows him and discovers something he never would have guessed. Bradley has a daughter.

Word count: 1.3k

Warnings: Crying baby, mentions of death, mentions of abandonment by a parent.

Note: Based off the song ‘For My Daughter’ by Kane Brown. This is pretty different than any other story I’ve written. (Not really a reader insert)

Pairings: Bradley ‘Rooster’ Bradshaw x Daughter

The Dagger Squad had finally made their way back to the hangar after a long day of training. Maverick was trailing behind them slightly. The older man watched as Bradley fiddled anxiously with his sunglasses. The pilot was the first one to the hangar, quickly collecting all of his belongings before waiting for their instructor to return. None of the other aviators seemed to notice the way Bradley was about to sprint out of the hangar. He glanced at Maverick, almost pleading with the man to make things quick. He had somewhere that he really needed to be.

As if the older man could sense his desperation, Maverick made his final notes quick and bid the class goodbye. Rooster was quick to leave the room. He rushed to the locker room and changed quickly.

In mere minutes he was in his truck, pulling out of the parking lot and rushing to his house. He made the dive very quick, most likely breaking numerous laws in the process. He pulled into the driveway, jumped from his truck and ran up to the door. The door was already unlocked, meaning all he had to do was yank it open and rush inside. “Amelia?” He frantically called out. His wide eyes glanced around as he moved through the living room.

Moments later he could hear loud cries coming from the kitchen. “In here Rooster,” He entered the room seconds later, looking around until he found Amelia and his daughter. She was seated at the kitchen table, rocking the small baby back and forth to try and soothe her. Bradley cooed softly before moving to take her from the young girl's arms. The baby continued to cry even in her father's arms. “I’m not sure what’s wrong. I’ve tried everything.” Amelia spoke up, gesturing to all of the baby items littered across the table.

Bradley only nodded, gently swaying his daughter to try and get her cries to stop. When they only got louder Bradley sighed. Ever since her mother had walked out a few months ago, Bradley found that his daughter was only growing more and more restless. Some days it seemed that without her mother, his daughter was almost inconsolable. “It’s alright, Amelia. Thank you.” The girl only smiled at him. She moved to collect her belongings and pack them into her bag.

Just as she was finishing packing up, there was a knock on the door. Bradley’s daughter began crying louder. Amelia moved to open it, allowing Bradley to try and comfort his daughter. He could hear the door open and suddenly the house was quiet save for the cries of his daughter. Bradley waited for Amelia to return, half expecting it to be some random door-to-door salesman. However, when he saw Maverick walk into the kitchen with Amelia trailing behind him looking somewhat anxious, he realized he was extremely mistaken.

The young girl smiled at him as she grabbed her bag. Bradley mouthed a thank you one last time before she disappeared from the room. He could hear the door close behind her seconds later. His eyes moved to the man standing in the middle of his kitchen. Maverick’s eyes were focused on the small bundle in Bradley's arms. His eyes were wide and his lips were parted, a look of shock painted across his face.

Bradley cleared his throat, causing Maverick’s eyes to dart up to his. “I didn’t know you had a daughter.” The older man spoke, his voice slightly raised to be heard over the crying baby. The pilot nodded, bouncing his daughter in his arms. Ever since the uranium mission the two of them had been working toward rebuilding their relationship but his daughter was very important to him. He had decided that he was going to wait and tell Maverick when the time was right. It seemed as if the universe had decided that now was the time.

Still standing in the doorway, Maverick watched as Bradley struggled to calm his daughter. He was just about to move to reward when he hesitated. While he wanted to help Bradley calm his little girl, he didn’t want to overstep. “If you want,” The older man started, taking a small step forward. “I can help?” It ended up coming out as more of a question than a statement, Maverick’s hesitancy carrying through his voice. Bradley glanced up at Maverick before nodding slightly.

Maverick took that as his cue to move forward. With the younger pilot's permission, he scooped the little girl from his arms and started rocking her back and forth. Bradley watched as the older man adjusted his daughter in his arms, moving her so that she was in a position to burp her. Groaning, Bradley tipped his head back and stared at the roof. How could he have missed that? In only a few minutes the baby had burped, instantly ending her cries.

Bringing the baby back into a cradled position, Maverick began walking around the kitchen slowly. Bradley led him out of the kitchen and into his bedroom where her crib was set up. Once they were in the room, Maverick set the baby down into her crib and turned on the mobile above her. That instantly seemed to peak her attention, her wide eyes focusing on it as it spun. The both of them watched as her eyes slowly drifted shut, her small lips parting as she finally fell asleep.

They headed downstairs, Maverick trailing after the younger man as they headed back into their kitchen. “Want something to drink?” Bradley questioned. Mav nodded, mentioning something about a water as he sat at the table. The younger pilot returned a few seconds later with two glasses of water. “How did you know to do that?”

Chuckling quietly, Maverick sipped his water before answering. “That’s what we did for you when you were her age,” Bradley sat in stunned silence until Maverick spoke again. “Your dad showed me how to do it one day when you were being particularly fussy.” Mav laughed at the memory. That brought a smile onto Bradley’s face.

They both sat in silence for the next few minutes. That was until Bradley spoke up. “I’m sorry for not telling you about her,” Maverick could only shake his head. He understood why Bradley never said anything. He had seen the stress that Carole had when she was raising Bradley without a father. Now her son was raising his own daughter by himself at a much younger age. He couldn’t imagine how hard it must have been for him. “Really I was. It’s just hard without her mom around.’’

Nodding, Mav took a sip of his water before speaking. “You know kiddo,” He started, drawing Bradley’s attention with just those first few words. “If you need help I’ll always be here for you.” Bradley could only smile. He fought his hardest to not let himself cry, although he found it hard with all the emotions he was feeling. It was nice to hear that his father figure would be there for him and his daughter. He always had fears that he was going to end up just like his father. That he was going to end up dying while on duty, leaving his daughter to grow up without a father. Considering the fact that her mother had walked out on them, Bradley was all that his daughter had left. He had made a promise to her that she would never have to find out what it is like to grow up without a father. A promise that he intended on keeping.

“Thank you for your help today Mav,” Bradley smiled at the older man, finishing off his cup before setting it on the table. “And I’m glad that you’re gonna get to be a part of her life. I’m sure she’s gonna love having her grandpa around.” Now it was Maverick’s turn to try and hold off tears. He could only return the younger man's smile. Bradley was right. He was really looking forward to being a part of her life.

A/n: Thank you all for reading! Feel free to send in any requests.

[curiouser--and--curiouser]

Staring into the Flames

Ashton Greymoore x Reader

Summary: Ashton loses his shit when you get injured.

Fluff, angst, hurt/comfort, gender-neutral pronouns, raging Ashton, injured!reader.

Warnings: swearing, violence, descriptions of injuries.

Word Count: 3.8k words

A/N: Time for some Critical Role content, because I'm a raging nerd. And I'm in love with Taliesin Jaffe. God, all his characters give me such gender envy! Also, for context, this is written in the wake of c3e33, so I need comfort from the trauma 😭 Anyway, enjoy my beautiful punk rock babe <3

Watching Ashton Greymoore have emotions was one of your favourite things to do.

Sounds strange, I know – borderline creepy maybe – but you just found him so fascinating. Everything Ashton would ever do was based entirely off impulse. He wanted to steal some random arcane item he knew he would never use? Done. Rile up that complete stranger just because they didn’t like their hat? Did it last Tuesday. Take you off on a completely random unplanned date right to the top of the Lantern spire just because they wanted to? Absolutely.

All these impulse actions were based off impulse thoughts and impulse emotions; emotions that he feels so fucking strongly. I mean, just look at the destructive power his anger and rage can bring upon his foes in a fight (you do look, you look very hard…). Their feelings swirl like the kaleidoscope shining from their head, and you found it simply hypnotising to watch those feelings spread across his body. You could watch the cogs turn in Ashton’s brain for hours, seeing each new emotion spread across his body like lava.

One of your favourites was the slow realisation that you had stolen permanently borrowed something of theirs: a certain red and black jacket, perhaps. They would be rummaging around their room, thinking they’ve gone mad because they could swear they left it right here. Evidently they were too dead asleep that morning to notice you slipping out of the bedroom, the jacket claimed for yourself. Eventually, he would come bounding into the main room of the Crook House, finding Milo tinkering away at their latest project, and you lounging in a chair wearing his most prized item of clothing. It would take a minute for him to even notice what you were wearing. “Y/N, where in the fuck is my j-“. There we go. You got to sit back and enjoy as the realisation of your thievery spread through his body like a wave on the shore, every one of his stance and posture and facial expressions each slowly changing down throughout him. It was captivating. Although not for too long as soon a smirk rose to Ashton’s face before they were barrelling at you, you both tumbling onto the floor in a mock fight to win the grand prize of the jacket, as Milo looked on with a smile and a shake of their head at these idiots in love.

Oh yeah, in love. So in love. Which thankfully was reciprocated on both ends. It had, in fact, been your staring that had helped get you together. Subtly wasn’t your strong suit - sure you could sneak into Ashton’s room silent and assassin-like without him noticing, but you weren’t as skilled at hiding how much you just stared at him, getting lost in every single part of the earth genasi. And… they noticed. Luckily, Ashton had also been pretty enraptured by you over the past couple of weeks, meeting pretty frequently on jobs as both colleagues and rivals. So, Ashton’s impulses being Ashton’s impulses, they walked right up to you after one of said jobs and asked you out right on the spot.

“Angel, I could feel your eyes on me for the last three hours, wanna go get a drink so I can return the favour?”

Of course, you said yes, and from then on you have been pretty much inseparable. You now lived at the Crook House and could now stare all you liked. And so could he. He really did. God he’d do anything for you. You were the best thing to have come into his life and he was not about to let you go any time soon.

Definitely not today.

Today, you two, for once, weren’t together; you had some things to buy in the market and Ashton had to go for one of their many strange meetings with Jiana Hexum. So, you walked through Elder’s Post, pushing through the hordes of tradespeople and customers alike, keeping your coin purse close to your side away from any thieves lurking. You had already picked up some food for the household plus some bits and pieces of metal Milo wanted for Fresh Cut Grass’s repairs, and then you moved onto the trickier task: healing potions. They were pretty essential, especially given how much you two got hurt on jobs, particularly Ashton - gods, he got beaten up a lot - and, sure, you could ask FCG for help, but you didn’t want to overwork them. Sadly, your group weren’t exactly rolling in cash so, shall we say, less reputable vendors of potions had to be your main source.

This included one particularly awful man, Rackoth. He was a leering, lecherous man, spindly and towering over most people. He was also a swindler with prices way too high for substandard potions at best. Both you and Ashton had had run-ins with him in the past and nearly none of them ended well. Unfortunately, all your other sellers were out and you were in a bind - FCG was undergoing some internal repairs with Milo at the moment, and so was largely out of action. Hence, you had to grit your teeth and bare Rackoth and his usual ways. His sunken, hollow eyes bore into your soul as he offered up some wildly off-colour “healing potions” at some astronomical price. Usually, you would try to keep your cool and try in earnest to haggle him down, but after one too many not at all innocent placements of his bony hands on your waist, you had had enough. You smacked his hand out the way hard and snapped back at him, calling him out on his extortionate business (and maybe also insulting his mother in Deep Speech - honestly, you can’t quite remember, it was all a blur). Suddenly, you felt a burn across your cheek as Rackoth punched you with a force you never expected from the scrawny man. You stumbled back in shock, but he launched forward to meet you, gripping you by the neck. You could feel his jagged nails biting at your skin as he roared at you to never return to his shop again, throwing you down onto the ground after he was done. The customers around you all gave strange looks as you picked yourself and your belongings up, no healing potions in hand, and carried your hurt pride home with you to the Crook House.

Mercifully, you found the house to be still and silent when you arrived. You were safe in your own home at last. The adrenaline of the altercation wore off and a few tears fell from your eyes. As you wiped them away, you noticed blood smeared across your fingers, from your injuries presumably, so you trudged your way with a sigh into your and Ashton’s room to clean yourself up. You passed a mirror as you walked down the hall, finally seeing the extent of your injuries with a groan: thick red blood dripped down the side of your face, matting your hair, and purple was starting to bloom around your eye from the punch. You winced as you lifted your chin seeing more purple marks at the top of your neck along with five punctures to your skin from Rackoth’s nails leaking a small trail of blood. With a turn, you saw the muddied and scuffed back of your jacket from your fall and emitted a groan in pain as you turned slightly too far. Your back would be black and blue in the morning thanks to your impact onto the cold stone ground. Honestly, you’ve looked better.

Gritting your teeth, you collected your strength and pushed on into your bedroom, but almost screamed as you were met by the sight of your partner sprawled on the bed counting coins from a leather pouch. He wasn’t meant to be back yet.

“Hey, Angel, you’ll never guess the fucking bonus we got from Jiana for that extra information. She was fucking thrilled-“. Ashton stopped as his eyes fell on you.

In any other circumstances, this would’ve been a beautiful show.

The swirling colours in the glass in Ashton’s head seemed to almost speed up and spark out as their mind processed your injured form before them. He blinked slowly as his piercing eyes scanned over you, searching for the answer… there. His beaming smile dropped into one of concern as his eyes widened to the size of saucers. He breathed out a quiet “what the fuck?” in disbelief, before he suddenly took off, scrambling off the bed with zero coordination, but zero care for anything except you. Ashton stood on (and probably broke) most of their belongings as they ran over to you, immediately bringing his firm, calloused hands to your body as he checked you over. His eyes burnt a hole through your clothes with their intensity as he examined every single part of your body for more injuries - worry was the only emotion in him now. Ashton’s searing gaze on your body was usually a very good feeling, but you could see the bubbling anger low in him.

“Hey, Ash, I’m not dying!” You said with a pitiful attempt at a chuckle, trying to laugh off your injuries and put your boyfriend at ease. “I’m okay, really.” He clearly didn’t believe you as his roaming stare continued, logging in his mind everything he saw. His finger and thumb gripped your chin as he brought it up, inspecting the bruising to your neck, breathing out in disbelief. Rising their gaze to your face, Ashton gently prodded the bloody wound on your head with shaking hands. You pulled back slightly with a hiss of pain and that anger in him rose. Someone had hurt you. Red leaked into his eyes like a poison as they narrowed and focused on your own, still brimming with unshed tears. Already impossibly close, he took a step forward, towering over you, noses almost touching and hands coming back to your face. The delicate way he cradled your face in his large hands almost shocked you, the softness of his movements contrasting his hard, rocky palms. One thumb gently brushed away a stray tear on your cheek, both hands trembling as they grasped onto you.

“Who did this to you?” Ashton spoke so softly so that no one but you could here, but with so much menace for whoever the fuck thought they could touch you. Any attempt at him concealing his anger failed as it seeped through every pore in his body, every cell almost vibrating independently, ready for a fight.

“Ashton, really, it’s ok,” you counter again, trying to calm that fury in them that made you love them so much.

“No, it’s fucking not, who was it?”

“Ashton, it’s really not important-“

“Y/N.” He was firm. Final. You sighed before looking down slightly in defeat.

“Rackoth,” you breathed out.

“What. The Fuck. Did he do?” Ashton enunciated every single word, so slowly, so precise.

You stumbled over your words for a minute as you felt his gaze on you. He did deserve to know. That and the tiredness in your soul made all the words come tumbling out.

“I was getting healing potions because you’ve got that big job for Hexum coming up, and Milo is working on FCG and - shit! Letters needs a break sometimes! – but all our usual guys were out so I had to go to Rackoth. But that bastard stuck his prices up again. And they barely looked like healing potions - fuck me, Ashton, our bath water has more healing properties than that shit! And I was just so pissed off and. And... h-h-he had his hand on my waist and I just wanted to rip my skin off so I pushed him off and shouted at him and his potions and maybe his mother in Deep Speech? So he punched me. And grabbed my neck. And through me down. So yeah…” You stood in silence for a few seconds, taking a breath after your outburst, before you raised your head again to watch Ashton…

Now, here came the rage.

Ashton’s back straightened to an even higher height than before; every bone in their body tensed into a sharp point with their fists, now by their side, clenching, nearly popping joints. Their teeth clacked together in a bite, bared and ready to rip the throat out of the culprit of this heinous crime. The mesmerising colours beneath the glass in his skull seemed to swirl faster, getting brighter and brighter, threatening to violently burst free into chaos. The anger was white hot now, bleeding from his eyes and dripping down every tort muscle to a pool at his feet. A deep snarl sounded at the back of their throat, animalistic and ready to hunt.

“That piece of shit,” Ashton yelled out incredulously. “Fuck! That lanky piece of shit! That fucker’s going down!“ They had never sounded so serious in all their life. And so you needed to take action.

“Ashton. Babe! It’s okay, just leave him he’s not worth it.” Yet, it was not okay, and he was not paying attention. Like a flash, Ashton was at the bedroom door and screaming out.

“Oi, Grass! Grass! Where the shit are you?”

“They’re powered down. Ashton, don’t worry-“

“Argh, fuck!” they shouted, now moving at pace throughout your shared room. Trinkets and knickknacks alike were tossed around - no, thrown around - as Ashton scrambled from place to place at lightning speed, searching for something unknown. He grunted as he rummaged even further; you simply stood in the centre of the room, slightly startled by your partner’s sudden burst of movement. Eventually, with a cheer of triumph, from under a pile of multicoloured fabric he pulled out a slightly dusty red vial. Despite the slight discolouration, it was clearly a healing potion long forgotten and Ashton was soon back in front of you, pulling the cork out.

“Wait, no, I don’t need that,” you protested, “Ashton, you need these a lot more than I-“. You were cut off by Ashton shoving the neck of the bottle right into your mouth mid-sentence. The glass clinked against your teeth at the force as Ashton tipped the bottom of the bottle up, pouring the entire potion down your neck. You gagged as the bitter liquid hit the back of your throat. For all the difficulty of drinking the healing potion, it did thankfully begin to help you, like water refreshing you after wandering the dessert for a month. A dull ache passed through each of your injuries as the skin started to knit back together, eventually leaving no trace of ever tarnishing you but the now drying blood. You spent maybe five seconds checking over your body and by the time you looked up again, Ashton already had his trusty glass hammer clutched tightly in his hand. You had one last chance to stop him.

“Ashton, please, just stay here with me. You kill him and you’ll get caught and then gods know what will happen to you!” You pleaded to them, grabbing their arm, not wanting any more trouble for the day.

“Angel, I regret to inform you that I honestly don’t give a fuck,” Ashton growled lowly. “If that bitch thinks he can touch you and get away with it, he’s got another fucking thing coming.” He grasped the side of your head softly again, brushing a lock of hair behind your ear.

“I’ll be back soon,” he whispered and rose to place an uncharacteristically gentle kiss on your forehead, before sprinting out of the room, one mission on his mind.

And there you were left, alone, staring off at the space your sparking barbarian once stood.

Even in times like this, he was beautiful to watch.

A singular tear rose in your eyes and fell as your exhaustion battled with new anxiety for Ashton’s safety. Of course you enjoyed your mountain of a boyfriend sweeping in to beat down those who had wronged you – I mean, who wouldn’t? – but your dear Ashton also had a tendency of not being the subtlest creature in the world. Sure his mystic colourful powers could occasionally let him pass through like a ghost, but not always. Frequently, they could be found in a fight, on the run from a fight, or on their arse thrown out for being in a fight. But they were just silly bar fights; this was personal. You just didn’t want him in trouble and it would bite away at you until he was back in your arms, safe.

However, predictably, exhaustion won out and you soon fought yourself flat out on the bed, still caked in your own blood, but no energy in your waking spirit to clean yourself up.

The next – how long had it been? – was spent in a daze, maybe sleeping, maybe just staring off, disassociating from the stresses of the day. Until Ashton emerged back through your door with a slam, sprayed slightly with blood that did not look like his own. You didn’t raise your head from the pillow, still waking from your haze, but you watched through glassy eyes as Ashton quietly placed down his trusty hammer in the corner of the room, slipped off his boots and padded over to you. He gently perched on the side of the bed and reached a calloused hand down to stroke your hair. His fingers were so tender and threaded through, caressing your scalp, almost sending you back to sleep. Gazing up at them, you saw the same intensity as before flooding their eyes, but this time the rage was gone, now replaced with so much love. Everything Ashton did carried that fire, that passion, but it always moulded itself into new shapes and forms, sometimes surprising even you. That’s probably what drew you too him, that fire, always burning bright out of every pore on his tough skin; no matter what he did or felt, it was always with such ferocious and intensity that you couldn’t look away, only stare further into the flames. But they never burnt you. They caressed you, held you, protected you at all costs. Not always in the safest of ways, but the intention was good and pure.

Ashton softly smiled at you and, without looking, reached back to find a (vaguely) clean cloth and started to dab at the dried blood along the side of your face. You stayed perfectly still, letting him work, enjoying this rarely seen quiet Ashton. They cleaned you up surprisingly well despite this not being their forte, moving from your face down to the marks on your neck, doing their slightly clumsy best, trying to remember the kinds of actions FCG would perform when in cleric-mode.

When all the dark red streaks had gone from upon your skin, Ashton placed down the cloth, but kept their hand cupped around your face. You threaded your own fingers with his and looked up.

“You get him?” you whispered.

“Yeah, I got him,” Ashton replied, just as softly.

A rush of emotions took over you all of a sudden: the relief that that fucking man who touched you so horribly had been dealt with, the pain of your whole bloody ordeal, the adoration you felt for your soft punk rock who cared for you so well, even in the ways he was not as accustomed to. You choked, more hot tears running down your cheeks. Ashton immediately bundled you up into their strong arms and held you in a tight hug against his chest.

“Aww fuck, Angel. Okay, okay, come here,” they cooed into your ear as your cries muffled into the leather of their jacket. “Don’t worry, baby, I’ve got you. I’ve always got you.” And you believed every word of it. You grasped onto them like a lifeline with heavy and shaking breaths as you slowly pulled yourself back from the brink with his help.

“You okay now?” Ashton asked after a while and you nodded looking up through your eyelashes from your place on his lap.

“Shit, I’m sorry did that, Y/N. Fuck, I was just so fucking angry! I don’t care about a lot of things, but, goddamn, I care a lot about you. And I never wanna to see you like that again. I’ll do anything to make sure you don’t.” Ashton poured his heart out to you, his brutal honestly always hitting you right in the heart. You sat up and pressed your lips to his in a passionate kiss. Your eyes fluttered closed as you gripped onto each other like you were the last things left in Exandria. The kiss deepened as your tongues slid across each other, tracing the other’s lips and swallowing their sighs. You pulled away for breath, but remained trapped in Ashton’s warm grasp, as he continued his assault of kisses over your cheeks. They came to rest soon, forehead pressed together with yours, soft eyes staring into yours in peace.

“Fuck, I love you, Angel,” Ashton murmured, his love and devotion towards you on display for all the world to see.

“I love you too, Ash,” you whispered back with a beaming smile. Ashton gave you one more quick peck before he shifted his position, lying down on the bed with you remaining on top of him, still encased in his arms. You both laid there in silence, listening to the other’s heartbeat, until Ashton spoke, brushing the hair out of your eyes.

“What was that you said before about Deep Speech?” they asked and you giggled at his curiosity.

“I may or may not have insulted Rackoth’s mother… in Deep Speech,” you admitted shyly as Ashton’s eyes widened.

“That’s so cool. Wait, how do you know Deep Speech? Who are you?” they marvelled at your admission as you sniggered. “What did you say? Like in Deep Speech.” You repeated the deep grinding growls you had shouted at Rackoth and your partner’s jaw dropped.

“Okay, that’s hot, please talk to me more in Deep Speech,” you laughed out loud at Ashton’s antics (and remembered that information for later…). “I wish I’d brought you with me now. It was fucking great seeing him scared. Shit, I robbed you of your revenge quest, didn’t I?” Ashton carried on rambling, clearly having enjoyed being your knight in shining armour. Note to self: ask them later what they actually did to Rackoth…

“I swear to the gods if you said ‘Smiley fuckin’ day!’ just before knocking him out, I’m breaking up with you,” you joked. Ashton held a hand to his heart in mock hurt and tickled you away from your non-injured body parts as you cackled.

Your old friend exhaustion soon popped back up again as you let out a yawn, burrowing yourself further into Ashton’s body, nuzzling into his neck. His arms hugged you closer.

“Get some rest, love, I’ll be here when you wake up.”

You took their advice, letting your dreams overtake you, staring at the one you loved most until your eyes eventually closed.

Ashton would protect you. They always will. Come what may.

[pilot-posting]

🔞 "Asynchrosis" Pt. 3

After the first day of deprivation, I'm not feeling too awful. I'm lying in the medical quarters. My bodysuit was taken from me by the wards for cleaning, they'll bring it back, I know, comfort items aren't forcibly stolen from patients like they are in the small-time navy, but in the mean time I feel just, terribly exposed. My last remnant of connection to it, even though it's only temporary, makes me feel this strong twisting in my stomach, like there's something just physically unright.

I had decided to pass the time by plugging my halo into the simulation docket, the chords were a little uncomfortable, trying to reach all the way up to my head, but it was worth it to feel connected to anything, really. I chose to watch a series of onboarded mech combat training simulations. Unfortunately, the simulations didn't put me into the mech, as they were for recruits. These ones had me sit on the sidelines, watching them fight, and demonstrating simple moves, counter measures, movement tech... the instructor droned on about some random bullshit as I plastered my face against the invisible barrier which prevented me from entering the arena. If training simulations simulated liquids other than oil and coolant, I assure you, my drool would have been covering that barrier, but I digress.

When the simulation ended I tore the chord out of the halo port and let out a deep sigh, looking down at myself. I was wearing a pair of army grade boxers and a t-shirt. That was all I could really muster in the morning. I winced a little before reaching my right hand into the boxers. I palmed at my tip first, then slowly shifted the hand down the length of my girldick until I reached base, I felt it throb needily in my hand, my breathing grew slightly labored as I stared at my bulge through the boxers.

"Room?"

"Yes Emerson?" The AI assistant responded,

"Lights and blinds." I said the order before it even finished saying my name.

"Of course Emerson." the blue lights overhead shut off, leaving only a series of downward facing lights illuminating the floor. I immediately shoved the boxers down, flinching as I felt the harsh surface of the elastic run over my length and tip, before it bounced up out past the boxers, kicking them off the rest of the way I immediately started stroking, my moaning sounded more like whining as my eyes rolled back a little. I twitched and convulsed slightly as my heels pushed into the mattress, arching my back against my pillow to thrust up into my fingers. My free hand wandered, it ended up running along the various connection ports across my body. I found myself unconsciously fingering them, rubbing their cold metal exteriors before eventually sliding deep enough into them to feel the strong silicon carbonate, a softer rubbery material, the ports interiors felt warm around my fingers, the deeper my pointer finger poked in, the faster I stroked myself~

In my head I was inside The Nagarrond, its beautiful tendrils and wires connecting to me, integrating me, accepting me... I yearned for that feeling, as I imagined it wrapping itself around me, and squeezing me, squishing me into it's frame or mold. I needed it to penetrate me and encapsulate me. I am it's life force, it uses me to survive, and my brain controls its function. A symbiotic relationship. It's only natural to want to be 2 parts of a whole with something so... needy.

Static overtook consciousness as I faded off into this spiral, I'm sure this, repetitive cognitive action did wonders for convincing the cerebral medicinal specialist assigned to oversee my response to asynchrosis synapse therapy I was sane. I found myself rolling over and grabbing a pillow, folding it over my girldick and thrusting repeatedly into the slit I made, holding it tight as I plowed it into the mattress. My moans grew louder and I started mumbling, useless little words lost to my hysteria, until eventually it ended up as yips and yells as I exclaimed Fuck! Oh Fuck! and Oh my gods oh my gods oh my gods~! I plugged myself into the simulation docket again I was so needy, I watched warship grade functions coolant spill out of a Class-F Galligos' jugular at least 12 times before finally shooting cum into the pillow, it had been the first time in 3 days.

On average I climaxed at least 30 with it...

[youthinkofacoolname]

Hi there! You know how a few weeks back you explained how to add CC to The Sims 4? Yeah, that kinda ruined my life I'm obessed now help was super helpful and surprisingly easy! You're totally right that it makes the game so much better.

I was wondering if you can share some of your fave ones, or if you know websites that have particularly good content to add. I found some great stuff here on tumblr but hey, why not ask for some recs? ✨

Hey! I'm so glad I was able to drag you into my addiction help! Here's some mods that I think are essential for my game that you might like too! (putting it under a read more for convienence to all those uninterested)

^Vicky has a ton of great mods but the ones that change traits, such as 100 base game traits and More CAS traits, plus Better CAS Randomization are literal game changers and I can no longer play without them

^Another great modder but especially for "My x" stuff, that stuff adds realism (like a better memory system) but also small visual details, like a blush when flirty or eyebags when exhausted. They're small details but I personally like it when my sim's eyes get teary when they're sad

^If you're planning on decorating your house at all (although you don't have to cause there are some gorgeous houses on mod sites and the gallery) this is a must. Idk why EA decided that mirrors can't be moved up and down but it's dumb move

^This one is great for adding more realism for weddings. It gives you options such as "Shop for ring" "Sign prenup" and "Shop for dresses". Now they don't really do anything (the mod will send your engaged sim and their partner off the lot for a while and they come back with a mood buff) but I think it adds a nice touch for story telling purposes and is probably the most fun part of planning a wedding

^LittleMsSam is another modder who is absolutely great, these are a bunch of her smaller mods,. There's a ton of them and not all of them might not be needed but I reccomend looking through them because there are some that are life changers (like famous sims gain followers automatically, which makes staying famous way easier)

^This is the most important mod on my list. I don't know if it bothers you as much as it bothers me but I hate it when I tell my sim to go to another room (whether to use the bathroom or check on their baby) and they pause to sniff the the air or to point out a mess, this mod basically makes it so that they do those things while still walking to save time. As much as I love all these mods, this one is probably the best

^This one is really good if you're planning on adding toddlers to your family because it gives you more items that can level up their skills (which can be really hard, esp without a wabbit tablet/their parents are busy)

^Me personally I prefer the method of moving NPCs into my house and then killing them when it comes to making money but if you prefer to make money the conventional way this mod adds more jobs your sims can do

https://twitter.com/PandaSamaSims4

I've decided I'm just gonna reccomended Pandasama because they also make a ton of really great mods

~~I'm gonna reblog with some of my favorite occult mods because I'm running out of space~~

[soundofseclusion]

5. Turnip Boy Robs a Bank

Release: 2024, PC/Switch/Xbox One Beaten: January 27th, Xbox Series S (Game Pass) Playtime: 6h 49m (100%)

Turnip Boy Robs a Bank, the sequel to Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion, is a strange game in many ways. Aesthetically and thematically it matches the vibe of the first game, albeit with humor and writing that's just a little bit tighter. Mechanically, it is considerably different from its predecessor, focusing on a run-based system that relies on a bit of randomization. It pulls off both its tone and its gameplay, for the most part, very well. This review will be long, and Tumblr is letting me implement "read more"s again, so I'm using one here.

I want to hone in on that element of randomness though, because I made the mistake of going into this game expecting it to be constructed like a roguelike. The way the game is actually set up is that there's a consistent map with mostly consistent enemy spawns, but certain locations on the map ("elevators") lead to pre-constructed rooms that will be rolled randomly each time you begin a run anew. These "elevator" rooms seem to be basically a few different levels whose layouts are mostly not randomly generated; the only major element of randomness in terms of navigation is whether the consistently-placed elevator door is going to teleport you to room A or room B. The weapons that drop in each run are an actual element of randomization that feels more akin to a roguelike, but the world itself does not feel random.

So what that leaves is a gameplay loop where you enter the bank on a timer (which can be expanded), and make choices between progressing through the non-changing portions of the bank--consisting of picking up side quests, discovering obstacles which you need to get an item for to progress through in the next run, memorizing the layout for easier navigation, defeating bosses--and entering the randomized elevator rooms that appear in that run. The consistent thing in every run is trying to snag money, which can be done in multiple ways and is pretty fun to minmax. The money can then be used on upgrades and story-progressing items.

I actually ended up liking this core gameplay loop a lot. I found that as time went on, I was able to be more efficient with my time, which felt pretty satisfying. It's overall a pretty well-designed core experience that doesn't get tiring or boring and gives you a lot of things to do during its runtime. It's not designed to be an infinitely replayable game like most roguelikes, but I think it's probably better for that.

There were mainly two things I didn't like. The first was actually a pretty minor gripe, and it was that I went through about 2 hours of gameplay continually checking for a side quest NPC but never getting the elevator room that would take me to interact with them. I couldn't remember what that room looked like, and so I spent a ton of time checking every room that spawned in case it was the one that would house that NPC. It ended up being the final thing I did in the game, and I did spend a good 20 minutes exclusively trying to get that one room to spawn. The reason this is still a "minor" gripe is because, for the most part, I had other things I was completing during the act of looking for this NPC, so I didn't feel like my time was totally wasted. But still, the randomness can sometimes be to the game's detriment.

The other thing is a major gripe, and it's the ending of the game. The only spoilers I'll be providing here are spoilers about the mechanics of the end game segment and why I didn't like it; feel free to skip to the last paragraph if you want to avoid that.

The "story" ending itself was fine. Pretty good even, I'd say. Gameplay-wise, it fucking sucks. You're expected to do a boss rush, which in the case of this game, consists of navigating through four corners of the map and defeating each boss located there. It's not as simple as "fight boss 1, fight boss 2." You have to actually navigate through rooms filled with enemies and obstacles to get to each of those boss fights. On its own, that boss rush isn't that bad, and actually becomes kind of fun as it tests your knowledge of the map layout, a skill you've honed naturally throughout normal gameplay.

Unfortunately, the boss rush is followed by a chase sequence in a new but equally large version of the bank that again asks you to navigate to each of the four corners of the map. The chase sequence involves attacks that basically take out a third of your health if you get hit by them, alongside tanky, new enemies and strange terrain. Again, on its own, this is fine. But if you die during this phase, you have to redo the boss rush again on the next run, meaning you need to redo a reasonably difficult thing that takes about ten minutes before every attempt at the final boss chase sequence. It's weirdly punishing in a way that feels deliberate and I think it was a pretty bad choice.

But like, okay, I still ended up really liking my time with the game. I was salty about the end game for a bit, but after some rumination, I don't think it ruins the experience. I also have a feeling that ending is going to get patched to be easier at some point in the future, because it seems like a pretty obvious misstep. All in all, yes, I'd recommend Turnip Boy Robs a Bank if you're a fan of the first game. If you've never played the first game, I think they're both worth checking out, but this one is a vastly superior game.

[snazzledazzletm]

Decided I’m posting some lore info on my Slender Script (mansion rewrite) AU starting off with how the mansion functions in this AU! Click Read more if interested :)

BASICS

The mansion is a magically enchanted abandoned area; managed and controlled originally by Surrender. However, due to Surrender's now lack of magic control, it is now in disarray.

A never-ending, ever-changing mansion with only a few kept standards. Many inter-dimensional portals are hidden in random doors; attached to varying random dimensions such as the canonverse, 2010 fanonverse, or the Marble Hornets universe.

——————————————————

THE KEPT STANDARDS

There are only a few kept standards, here is the list.

- Technology: Some form of technology or set up gaming console ranging from the 70s to modern-day tech. It may appear anywhere and in multiple places. This is for the videogame-based creepypastas.

- Main dining hall: As expected, a kitchen and a general area to eat. How it appears may vary. One Moment it's a cafeteria, the next moment it's a formal dinner table.

- Circus: the circus is Laughing Jack's room, completely monochrome aside from a few rare occasions where color may appear. The room, like the rest, is randomly generated; however, it will always be a large room.

- Party room: "The Party Rooms", or less formally known as Splendor's room, are bright and colorful rooms with varying assortments of party items. One room may be inflatables galore, while another may be more of a pajama pillowfort-style party room. There are often multiple of this room.

- Clinic: The clinic is essentially the medical bay for all of the Creepypastas. Many medically based pastas are here frequently such as: Nurse Ann, MenderMan, and Doctor Smiley. Eyeless Jack also frequents here due to his medical expertise. This area also occasionally connects to Mender's room.

-Break Room: Mender's room, also frequently nicknamed "The Break room" due to its frequent connection to the Clinic, is a oddly heart-focused room aesthetic-wise, and tends to change with the clinic's layout.

- The Dresser: This is Trender's sewing/dress-up room. Usually filled to the brim with craft supplies he swears he'll use (he doesn't). Though he's eager to supply any pasta who comes across his sewing room a new outfit to wear.

- General pasta rooms: These will appear as soon as you are officially part of the group; however it may take time to generate. Each is unique to every creepypasta.

- His office: this is where Slender is most frequently found, at a long table office filled with books that seem to change each time you glance at the shelf.

- The Quiet Place: This is Surrender's room. It's relatively normal by Mansion Standards and is often in darker blue tones. It is impossible to speak in his room.

——————————————————

That's all for now! I will update next with Info on this AU's interpretation of the Slender Brothers (as well as explaining my offender replacement, Mender).

Have a lovely day/night! -Snazzy

[madness-writing]

Diemos with phobos memorys p2

[Original post][Part 1]

Deimos had been awake for a few days now pulled from test to test to make sure he was fit to work. After this last test he was finally given a clean bill of health and was aloud outside of the small medical facility that had been his life thus far. He was given a bag with basic items he needed including his uniform. it matched phobos' the biggest difference being the extra lens on the goggles. He was eager to get out of the medical gown he had been stuck in and put it on.

It only took a few moments for him to feel like there was something crawling under his skin anywhere that the fabric touched him. He quickly pulled it off suspecting someone had tampered with the outfit but as he inspected the uniform he could see nothing wrong with it. He put the it back on since he had nothing better to wear. It wasn't like it was that bad of a sensation. He could wait until he was back at the tower to get a replacement.

------

He couldn't wait. It was all he could focus on. every time he shifted the seams on his uniform felt like they were cutting into his skin. (they weren't he checked) when he spotted an armory he ducked inside eager to get any change of clothes. On one side of the room was a wall of weapons and on the other was spare uniforms for all of the agents in the facility. He started going through the different uniform pieces trying them on only to find that they were also painful. (Was it him?) Eventually he tried on soldat under armor it was a black skintight body suit it lacked the seams that the other clothes did and was soft to the touch, It didn't bother him like everything else had so far. He cut off the part that went over his his head leaving behind only enough to cover over his nose. His face wasn't supposed to be seen by the average grunt he was above that, a God in mortal form. No one could see his flaws (it didn't mater that he didn't have the scars that made phobos make that rule in the first place anymore)

He continued to look through the uniforms with the under armor providing a barrier against his bare skin. Agent pants. A light weight bullet proof vest and a different set of goggles. No cape or helmet. It was barely presentable but it only had to last as long as it took to get to the tower. He could get a new outfit custom made there.

------

He eagerly made his way out of the base. waving down the two engineers that were ment to give him a ride to the tower. They did a double take upon seeing him.

"Back up were here for the new director not some random soldier"

Right... they wouldn't recognized him in his make shift outfit would they. He reached into his bag and pulled out his ID showing it to the engineers they looked between each other. One pulled out a small device and held it out to him. It was a DNA scanner that was typically used to verify the identity near identical soldiers. He stuck his finger on the small point on the end. The engineer looked at the screen and nodded.

"Sorry for the delay director" the engineer stepping off to the side so he could access the door to the car.

------

As they drove back to base he couldn't help but notice the two engineers seemed nervous. Whispering to each other seemingly arguing. Eventually one turned to to him.

"I apologize for our unacceptable behavior earlier we should have been able to recognize you. We are ready for whatever punishment you deem fit" the engineer said with a flat monotone voice

Deimos paused. Punishment? Why would he Punishment them just for that.

"You were only doing your job." He said "Impersonating a director is a serious offense and I wasn't wearing what you were expecting me to. You also found a solution quickly so I was not held up proving my identity." He replied quickly. he wasn't sure why these two were being so hard on themselves.

After that the car returned to relative silence though it was a bit less tense now. Deimos looked out the window soon he could get back to work. He could hardly wait.

[radar-of-minecraft]

Minecraft Items Challenge Attempt 2: The Bountiful Update: Finale

I updated the last of the visible oak in my base, replaced it with dark oak.

Then I brewed up 6 water breathing potions to deal with the ocean monument

I bred and killed some sheep so I could get mutton.

I then set off to look for an ocean monument, encountering sheep and pigs stuck in leaves, which appears to be a Bountiful Update glitch that was fixed in The Combat Update. I also found a chunk error shockingly close to my base.

I killed a bunch of rabbits in order to get their drops, which is alot easier because of how much slower rabbits are in this update than in current Minecraft. I got the rabbit's foot after just 11 rabits, which was really lucky considering rabbits only have a 2.5% chance to drop their foot in this update.

And there it is, the main draw of the update!

It is really dark in here for a structure with its own unique light block

Here's an Elder Guardian

Mining out a bunch of the monument blocks, I don't think i will use this in any build, but it would be nice to have when prismarine slabs and stairs are added in Update Aquatic

I stumbled into the sponge room, even though I thought I had explored the whole monument when looking for Elder Guardians, and then I went back to the central room for the gold blocks

on my way back I stumbled into a mob spawner on the surface, and it had a name tag and diamond horse armor in it

I forgot to pick up my bed, so I have to run through the night, I would literally never do this pre-Combat Update, but I've gotten really used to classic Minecraft combat, so I'm feeling confident (perfect timing too, considering this is the last update with the system)

Oh hey, a beacon, that must be my base

uh, where is my base, oh my god the game did crash right before I explored the monument, my base must have gotten reset again, dammit, now I have to go back to a backup and do the update again

Oh wait, this is just my end portal, I totally forgot I had a beacon there, and I can't even use the end to get back to world spawn, because I left my bed 4km away on some random island

There's my base, and there's my beacon

Up next it was time to craft up the rest of the items I needed.

I also fixed the Beta 1.7 collection system, the pistons were extended when I swapped out the glowstone in my floor for redstone lamps, so I replaced some of the pistons with wood, I decided to fix this issue by swapping the redstone lamps out for glowstone right above this part of the collection section

I also removed the redstone lamps from the smelting room at the base of my tower and replaced them with sea lanterns

In this update I added Cooked Mutton, Raw Mutton, Rabbit's Foot, Rabbit Hide, Raw Rabbit, Prismarine Shard, Prismarine Crystals, Wet Sponge, Prismarine Bricks, Prismarine, Sea Lantern, Dark Prismarine, Sponge, Cooked Rabbit, and Rabbit Stew, thus completing The Bountiful Update

Next Update I will finally finally finally get an elytra. And hopefully the dragon refight doesn't glitch like the original fight did.

[teefa85]

So in honor of the one month countdown till Tears of the Kingdom, I did a Randomizer Seed.  And THIS one had some hilarity!  I literally started in a shit place on Death Mountain, but had a Potion Shop and Ring Shop literally next to me, and a Gambling Cave right above!  Oh...and Magic Sword was super close as well so it was an easy Up + A to grab it!  There was also FINALLY finding the Wood Sword, only for the White Sword to be in a dungeon only three screens away.

(lots of stuff and the map of a really tiny Level 9)

So I have this new thing where I think up possible Dungeon names based upon their looks (the “name that inkblot” game the commentators do during rando races) or quirks (like finding the Recorder in a dungeon where Digdogger blocks the Triforce or having three Hearts in Level 1/8).  There were some good ones...

We had “Triforce as Far From Start as Possible“ for 1, “Why is the Compass One Room Past the Triforce" for 3, and "Triforce Near Start, Compass at the Other End" for 5 (one of three ideas for 5...it was a gem of naming conventions).

Besides the joke on distance, 5 was either "Right Weapon For Right Enemies" (had Silver Arrows inside, was full of Pols Voice) or "Hint to Find it Inside Itself" (the Old Man telling you which part of the world 5 was in was hiding in 5).

Level 6 was either "All the Bosses Up Front" for having every boss that rolled in there being close to the beginning or "Three Freaking Segments" for having, well, three segments.

Accidentally left Second Quest Enemies on.  And both Levels 7 and 8 have the possible name of "Where the Blue Bubbles At?" for having ONE room each with Blue Bubbles as the reds infested the whole thing (and for 8, I hadn’t yet found the Letter since it was Power Bracelet blocked and I hadn’t found that yet).  To be fair, 7 could also be called "100% Ladder Block"  for a Chevy Room in the only direction from the entrance while 8 was also "Keys and Cardio" as it was where all the key drops rolled and had Hearts for both staircase items.

And then there was 9!  Which, based on the map, could be called one of the following...  "Ganon's Tiny Boat" (43 rooms and looks like a boat) or "All the Navigation Items Near Start" (seen on map) or "Useless Old Men" (explained on map) or "Ganon and Zelda's SW Party" (both were in the SW corner and you could even get to the Kidnapped’s room right off the boss)

Thankfully, for my sanity, the Level 9 Enemy Set was the Pols Voice one and not the Darknut or Lynel ones...

[maniculum]

The College of Grotesque Arts -- Week Eight

For new people, I’m doing the Dungeon23 megadungeon project, basing each room on the marginalia of a different page in the 14th-century Luttrell Psalter. Previous entries in this project can be found here.

First, apologies for length. A couple things in this one got away from me, and this week’s material ended up substantially longer than the previous two combined.

Also, this is the section I was mainly thinking of when I said that this level was more labyrinthine than Level One. Either Appendix A or my dice (or, I guess, the crude sort of analog machine made by combining the two)  just decided to go:

I was actually worried I was going to have to cheat to get to seven rooms — usually it’s the other way around, and I have to stop rolling & cut off various excess passages & doors because I don’t want any more rooms in this section — but we got there. Barely.

Anyway, the disaster map and everything else can be found below the cut:

Room 2.19: f.37v

Appendix A wants this room to contain a monster, some coins in invisible pottery jars, and a magic item. It also wants it to be 20x30, but I’m expanding it to 40x40 because that’s a lot of stuff and the material I’m getting from the page needs space too. And because there’s room to do that, since it’s a tiny room in a twisty little maze of passages, which looks ridiculous anyway. (I do this more often than I mention; I’m just bringing it up here because of the quantity of stuff and the egregious nonsense of this section of the map.)

The room is large, with the counters and cabinets that mark it as a dedicated laboratory space. None of the equipment is intact, and the counters/cabinets themselves are practically destroyed despite being made of stone. There are quite a lot of scorched scraps of ancient parchment notes lying around. Bits of loose stone from the counters, walls, ceiling, and floor litter the room, along with the bones of at least three people. Something went deeply wrong here.

So, the manuscript. This page is a little difficult to work with because it’s just got a couple examples of “worm/vine with face” and… this.

So, all right. That looks like a priest who’s so mad he’s literally fuming, scolding a pair of civilians about how the Bible does not condone their Nondescript White Blobs. However, I think it’s meant to be a martyrdom; they’re probably stoning him. Which would explain why some forgotten reader of this manuscript was angry enough to smudge out their faces like that. No idea who the martyr is; the little flag on his robes is probably a clue, but I’ve got nothing. A red saltire on a white field is the Cross of St. Patrick, but looking that up tells me that this is actually a modern-era thing and can’t be traced back to medieval times. So identifying it as the Cross of St. Patrick is not actually any more helpful than identifying it as the state flag of Alabama. The stuff on his head… not sure either. It might be those flames that let you speak in tongues, but I’m not an expert on Christianity, so I’m just going to leave that alone.

Anyway, since this is what I’ve got to work with, I’ve decided this room is haunted. Which, frankly, more parts of this dungeon should be. I need to make a mental note to start doing more of that. The ghosts are Wandregisilius and Scolastica, two apprentices of Februaria who died due to a sabotaged laboratory experiment. (I won’t blame you if you’ve forgotten, but things got real bad between the wizards near the end of this place’s actual use.) Something exploded, which is why the room is so badly trashed. (Also, those names were chosen off my list as “names that sound wizardly” rather than rolling at random; the two figures in the manuscript are probably meant to both be male, but… #feminism?)

Wandregisilius and Scolastica are, unfortunately, not particularly hinged as ghosts go. Maybe it’s being stuck down here for centuries, maybe it’s something to do with how they died, maybe they’re just Like That. They react with extreme hostility to anyone entering the laboratory, and throw the broken stonework at them with surprising force. (For stats, take an incorporeal undead of your choice, give it telekinesis if it doesn’t already have the ability to throw stuff, and call it done — I know I said “ghost” earlier, but that’s just a generic term.) Wandregisilius and Scolastica don’t seem to have any kind of grasp on reality; they’re just reflexively hostile and violent at this point. If your PCs manage to subdue and speak to them somehow, they’re angry, confused, and have extremely fragmented memories. The fact that they’ve been like this for centuries is probably news to them, but they won’t remember you told them anyway.

They’re pretty certain (correctly) that they’d be able to move on to the afterlife if they, or someone else using this room, successfully completed the sabotaged experiment. However, they’re not working towards this because (1) they’re completely mad & can’t stay tethered to sanity long enough to do anything about it and (2) it’s pretty much impossible. All of the equipment is trashed, and the extremely rare materials & reagents they were using destroyed. Even if they were completely stable, they’d need a lot of expensive and hard-to-find stuff to make this work, much of which would require expeditions to far places or at least negotiation with a few highly specialized merchants… and they can’t even leave the dungeon. They’re tied to the room where they died, and while that tie is flexible — they can roam this level with some discomfort, and even go to other levels if they push themselves — the exit from the dungeon is an impermeable barrier to them.

I mentioned that there was a third body, so here goes: this was Lefwin, an adventuring cleric who tried to do an exorcism here. It didn’t go well. His equipment is still with him, including coins and at least one magic item (there you go, Appendix A — skipping the pottery jars, though).

Room 2.20: f.38r

Did the same as with 2.17 and expanded a small room to fill the available space. This roughly-triangular room with a 20-foot-high ceiling looks like someone has tried to convert it into a barn of some kind — the “ground floor” has a number of stalls around the edge, and there’s a loft of sorts over for a “second floor”.

This is, in fact, exactly what has happened. This room is the home of Anura, a lab-monkey descendant with human-level intelligence. Apparently this is the result of some kind of experimentation on her ancestors, and the intelligence gene or whatever crops up every so often in the population of monkeys that inhabit the dungeon. (If you read the Hork-Bajir Chronicles as a kid, it’s like that.) Treat Anura as an awakened monkey with a few levels apiece in rogue/expert and a martial class of your choice (not barbarian). (Also, yes, that name did come from my 13th-century name list, and yes it does mean “frog”; she named herself after a word she liked from a scrap of lab notes. I don't know if that connection existed when medieval parents were naming their daughters or if it's pure coincidence.)

Anura is a bit isolationist, but she treats the PCs with polite hospitality if they conduct themselves properly. She behaves like a yeoman farmer or minor knight. She occasionally works for the Gatekeepers as a sort of independent contractor, providing information regarding the dungeon (and access / guide services as needed) in exchange for outside goods. (Most of the Gatekeepers don’t like venturing too far out of their safe areas, but Anura grew up here and is more comfortable moving about / more familiar with the dangers.) She will likewise be willing to help the PCs for goods or money. If the PCs are strapped for cash, she’ll accept stories, songs, and other bits of culture / entertainment, but will insist on the PCs talking slowly, repeating themselves, and answering questions as they relate these things so she can transcribe while they talk. Anura knows the contents and layout of this dungeon level in detail, but her knowledge of other levels is more vague the farther down they are. It’s dangerous down there, don’t you know — she’s only ventured to the deeper levels a few times, and hasn’t been below Level Nine at all.

Some of the empty stalls are used to store Anura’s worldly possessions: you’ll find saddles sized for her, falconry gloves, and other equipment necessary for the care & husbandry of goats & owls. Luxury goods include: a selection of nice outfits tailored for her; a couple volumes of literature she’s copied or transcribed herself, along with a supply of ink, writing tools, and pens made from dungeon-sourced feathers; a book that collects several texts on hunting, falconry, & animal husbandry; and a small sack of coins. Her most expensive possession is the +3 longsword, also sized for her, which she wears on her belt at all times.

The barn, as I’m sure you’ve guessed from the image and the above description, houses a few goats in the stalls and owls in the loft. These animals are trained and domesticated; the owls are local, but the goats are purchased through the Gatekeepers. She uses these to practice the arts of hunting and falconry to the extent that she can in the dungeon — after hearing about them in stories of outside culture, she was able to order a book on the matter through the Gatekeepers and learn how to do them properly.

Room 2.21: f.38v

No Caretaker, ghost, or any other creature that was in existence while the dungeon was still a site of active research will enter this room. The doors are intact, but locked. Examining the doorframes will inform the PCs that they used to be magically warded and trapped, but someone has permanently deactivated those spells, carefully scratching out exactly the right runes and removing exactly the right material anchors for the spell. Each door has a note painted directly on it: “ONGOING PROJECT”. The notes are signed “Markewart”.

This room is very similar to Room 1.5 — the center of the room is occupied by a set of tarnished, rune-covered pillars that support some kind of magical field, and an extremely complex, very broken control device is set into the wall in the southwest corner. (The description of the control device in 1.5 can be used here as well.) There are, however, two major differences. First, someone seems to be working to fix the control device — many of the old, rusted parts seem to have been removed, and some have been replaced. Many of the parts have been labeled, and there are various notes scratched onto the wall in charcoal. There is also one note painted onto the wall: “DO NOT TOUCH” in large letters. The other major difference is that the magical effect doesn’t seem to be fully functioning as a stasis field. The stuff inside is moving. Moving very, very slowly, but still.

Inside the field is what appears to be a chunk of some other plane overlaid on our reality. On the surface, it looks like it’s all in miniature, but it gives the impression of being something vast and terrible that just appears small because you’re seeing it from very far away — even though, you know, it’s right there. This is a bit vertigo-inducing. It’s a nighttime ocean scene, the water level with the floor, where the sea is somehow both intensely tempestuous and as smooth & calm as glass. Thinking about that too much makes your brain hurt. The water is very clear, but you still can’t see the bottom; admittedly, that’s mostly because you can’t really get the right angle to look straight down, but something about it makes you certain that the water goes down for miles. (Were this scene fully, really present in this room, the water would cut through all the lower layers of the dungeon, but it is of course not.) Serpentine creatures swim through the depths, creatures that are smaller than an earthworm from your perspective but are also fearsome leviathans. 

At the very center of the field is an elaborate golden palace, seeming to float on the top of the water while remaining perfectly motionless. It’s only a foot tall, but like everything else in this scene, despite looking like the world’s most intricate miniature, it weighs on the mind like a tremendous work of cyclopean architecture. There are lights in some of the windows — it’s clearly inhabited. Glowing orbs on the top of each tower cast a baleful light over the waves that may or may not exist. Equally intricate, and far tinier, are the golden boats moored along the edges of the palace. One boat is near the edge of the field, with a crew of lilliputian/brobdingnagian humanoids aboard. Their faces are too small for the PCs to make out their expressions, and the crew can’t see outside of the field at all, but were the two sides of the field able to look at each other properly, the PCs would see that the crew’s tiny faces look down on them in scorn and hatred as if they were some sort of particularly offensive insect.

Asking the Gatekeepers about this will reveal that repairing the control mechanism is indeed a project of Markewart’s, and helping him with it would probably be an excellent way to curry favor. Giving that help is pretty difficult, though — the mechanism is much more comprehensively destroyed than the one in Room 1.5, and is also sufficiently different that knowledge about one doesn’t necessarily transfer to the other. Markewart is in fact convinced that it’s impossible, but persists in making the occasional stab at it because Agnes (his boss, in case you don’t recall the Gatekeepers section from a while back) is very interested in getting access to that golden palace. (The Gatekeepers are profit-motivated — the unicorn in a similar situation on Level One isn’t as interesting to them as this room. A captive unicorn might have some value, but probably not enough to be worth the trouble. This, whatever it is, is definitely very valuable to someone.) Markewart may also share, if he thinks the PCs can help, that he’s been trying to find a way to communicate with the people inside the field — the settings the machine is stuck on block sound in both directions, and prevent the people inside from seeing outside. From their perspective, the field is a blank wall.

If the PCs somehow have intense and specific knowledge of this sort of thing, or some way to acquire said expertise, they may, through some heroic effort, figure out a way to repair the control mechanism and allow sound, sight, or even people to cross the boundary. This should, I want to emphasize, be tremendously difficult and time-consuming. (If they managed to fix the mechanism in Room 1.5, you can concede that they have experience in this area, but again, the devices are not fully analogous.) Slightly easier, but still very difficult, would be to repair the mechanism in such a way that it’s possible to turn the field off and return those inside to their proper place. Unlike in the unicorn room, there seems to be an extra layer of protection keeping someone from just breaking the pillars: what appears to be a permanent forcecage encloses the whole thing.

Just in case the PCs actually accomplish such a herculean task, here’s what they’ll find.

The Court of the Fathomless Folio

One of Februaria’s side interests was aquatic life, as is somewhat indicated by the high-magic aquarium she installed in her tower. Using the extraplanar specimen-abduction device installed in this room, she often explored the contents of the strange pockets, demiplanes, and border zones on the outskirts of the Elemental Plane of Water. Until one day she pointed it somewhere new and got this.

Februaria was not sure what she was looking at, but was an experienced enough wizard to recognize certain types of red flag, and swiftly realized she’d gone fishing and inadvertently hooked Cthulhu, metaphorically speaking. As, again, a wizard who’d been around the block enough to know these sorts of things, she was pretty sure that “just put it back where it came from and hope they didn’t notice” was not an option. She locked all the settings on her machine to keep anyone from taking the stasis field down, then systematically destroyed every part of the mechanism that would allow someone to unlock it. She put the permanent forcecage over the field, left the room, locked all the doors and destroyed the keys, put traps and wards on the doors just in case, and forbade the entire College from ever entering that room in the strongest possible terms.

This was the correct decision. Ensnaring the Fathomless Folio for even an imperceptible sliver of time in between heartbeats was already an unforgivable insult, and had she let them back out, the College of Grotesque Arts would have been destroyed shortly afterwards — rather than being torn apart by escalating interpersonal conflicts several years later.

The palace on the other side of the field is the Court of the Fathomless Folio, a rogue fae court presided over by the exiled Ishmateutha, Marchioness of the Sulphurous Depths. They are excluded from the greater Realm of Faerie due to some impenetrable fae politics, which is why they’re out in this distant border zone near the Elemental Planes, and why there have thus far been no reprisals for their kidnapping. Like other Faerie courts, you can expect them to be arrogant in their inhumanity, alien in their reasoning, casual in their cruelty, and terrible in their rage.

Were the Fathomless Folio released, they would at once seek satisfaction for their imprisonment. Februaria, dead these several centuries, is not immediately available for vengeance — though certainly the Marchioness will begin negotiations with whatever presides over the afterlife Februaria landed in to acquire her soul — so they’ll start with anyone else who can be argued to be complicit. That will include (1) anyone who has ever set foot in the College of Grotesque Arts, up to the moment the Court was released, and (2) anyone descended from someone who was part of the College’s operations while it was active, or descended from their family if there is no direct line through which the sin can be inherited.

The first category is a threat to the PCs (as well as a number of adventurers who survived a trip through this dungeon, plus any sapient dungeon inhabitants, and of course all current & former members of the Gatekeepers), so it’s the most directly relevant. The second category is far more destructive in the big picture, however. Between the wizards & their apprentices, the campus staff, and the mercenaries they hired for security, the number of people involved is sizable. And given the passage of several centuries, the family trees have had quite a lot of time to branch. This category thus includes an enormous quantity of people, spread out over every level of society, almost none of whom have any idea the connection exists. This is, in short, an existential threat in a bottle, and the order of the world will be overturned if the Court is ever released. 

It’s also inevitable. The fact that Februaria managed to trap the Fathomless Folio was a bizarre fluke of interplanar physics, and probably would never have worked if she were trying to do it on purpose. The only thing that’s kept them from seeking their vengeance long ago is the stasis field — there’s not much you can do when time isn’t actually moving for you. However, this has not fully worked, the fae within being sufficiently powerful to bend the rules of frozen time; the glacially slow movement one can see from the outside of the field is theoretically impossible, but it’s happening nonetheless. Even now, Ishmateutha is very slowly preparing a spell that will allow her to break the stasis field through her own power. From the perspective of the Fathomless Folio, they will have been trapped for less than two days; from the PC’s perspective, it’s still about 200 years before Ishamteutha will effect the Court’s escape. 

There’s probably an oracle somewhere right this moment who is terrifyingly aware that a fae Armageddon could happen at any moment in the next couple centuries (the delay isn’t guaranteed if Markewart or someone else manages to fix the device). Anyway, um… sorry for potentially derailing your whole campaign.

If the Fathomless Folio does become something you have to deal with, I’m afraid you’ll have to do the stats yourself — it’s a substantial job, and I don’t have the time for it in this context. (I.e., in a Dungeon23 project that only a handful of people are reading, and in a scenario where, even if someone does run the dungeon, it’s extremely unlikely the PCs will end up in a situation where it’s relevant… if I ever go back and edit this after it’s done, I’ll add in a proper appendix on these folk.) Anyway, if you need to do stuff with this, I recommend you use existing stats for high-ranking faeries as a numerical reference, and maintain an ocean theme (read up on deep-sea ecosystems and maybe flip through Moby Dick). Ishmateutha herself  should probably be at least close to a CR 20. Also, keep in mind that the Fathomless Folio are not going to be tiny after their escape; the fact that they appear so now really is just a trick of perspective over an interplanar vantage point.

Room 2.22: f.39r

This room feels a bit odd to the senses. To people standing inside it, it seems as though there’s a strange odor in the air, and an audible vibration, and a sensation like your hair standing on end from electricity — but if one tries to focus on any of those, it’s not actually present. It doesn’t really smell any different from the rest of the dungeon, there’s no extra noise, and your hair is right where it usually is; it just seems like these sensations are present.

There is a set of stairs going down to the next level in the northeast corner.

In the center of the room is something that has pretty obviously been added and maintained by the Gatekeepers with some effort and expense: an iron fence held up by metal spikes driven into the stone floor, forming a square in the center of the room 20 feet on a side. Within the fence, a series of long planks have been laid over the floor, completely covering whatever is under them. A sign on the fence reads “FORBIDDEN”. 

If they investigate what’s under the planks, the PCs will find the Pit of Symphysy. (And if they just hop the fence and step on the planks without being really careful about it, they’ll probably fall in; the planks aren’t nailed down.) This is a deeply flawed experimental method for easily creating grotesques; the bugs were never hammered out and it shouldn’t be used. Within the pit is a strange magical field; if multiple living beings enter at once, they are fused together in a random fashion. (Drat, I’m going to have to write rules for that… see section below.) At the bottom of the pit, there are the remains of a number of unfortunate mutated bugs, mice, and bug-mice; nothing down there is currently alive, as anything trying to stay there over an extended period of time is repeatedly fused with whatever else wanders in, eventually resulting in a non-viable creature. This means that if only one PC falls in, if they can get themselves out without anything else getting in, they’ll be fine. Unless they have a familiar or something with them. (Familiars may be exempt if you so choose, since they’re already kind of merged with the mage’s soul. Mundane animal companions do not get the same consideration.) Or if you want to be really mean and make them merge with, like, a louse on their skin or something.

Incongruously, this room is also inhabited by a small flock of bluebirds. They like to perch on the fence.

The Pit of Symphysy

Any two living creatures that enter the pit are combined in a randomized fashion to form a Symphytic Grotesque. (A living being that is not a creature by the rules , e.g. a mundane plant, can be treated in whatever way makes most sense to you. I’d recommend just giving the subject a few unusual qualities based on the non-creature and skipping the tables.) If more than two creatures enter, combine the first two, then combine the result with the next one, and so forth. If the creatures enter simultaneously or in such a way that you cannot identify which order you should combine them in, randomize the order. (If you're not interested in the details, scroll until you're past the tables.) Make the following changes:

The Symphytic Grotesque’s creature type becomes Aberration.

The mass of the Symphytic Grotesque is slightly lower than the combined mass of the constituent creatures. Change the resulting creature’s size category to match the new mass if necessary, making adjustments for space, reach, height, length, and so forth in whatever manner makes sense for the resulting configuration. For reference, the maximum (typical) weight for each size category is as follows:

Fine:  ⅛ pound.

Diminutive: 1 pound.

Tiny: 8 pounds.

Small: 60 pounds.

Medium: 500 pounds.

Large: 2 tons.

Huge: 16 tons.

Gargantuan: 125 tons.

Colossal: n/a

For each special ability or quality possessed by one creature and not another, roll a d4. On a 4 the ability/quality is lost.

If the creatures somehow have mutually-exclusive qualities, the one that comes from the lower-CR creature is lost. If the creatures are the same CR, both are lost.

This also applies to unusual methods of movement — flight, burrowing, &c. Adjust as necessary given the resulting configuration. (E.g. a human merged with a bird might be able to fly, but if your results indicate the wings are tiny, absent, or misplaced, then they probably can’t.)

CR adjustment: I guess you’re just going to have to go by vibes. Maybe average the two if you really need to know and don’t want to work it out?

Each time the Pit of Symphysy is used, there is a chance that the resulting creature is non-viable.

You can decide what percentage to assign based on how deadly you want this to be.

The percentage should increase if you’re merging more than two creatures.

The Symphytic Grotesque retains all memories of the constituent creatures, though it may or may not retain their intellect depending on table results. If the heads of the constituent creatures remain separate, each head retains its own memories; if they merge, the resulting head has the memories of both.

To determine the specific configuration of the resulting creature, use the following tables in the manner instructed below. (Note: Still can't figure out the best way to put tables on Tumblr, so they're images again.)

1. Designate one of the constituent creatures Creature A and the other Creature B. If you’re asked to flip a coin, heads is Creature A and tails is Creature B.

2. Roll on Table 1 (Body). If this is a creature that’s gone through the symphysy process before and got any result on this table other than “Seamlessly Merged”, roll separately for each torso.

3. If your result on Table 1 was “Seamlessly Merged”, roll on Table 2 (Heads Merged). If you got another result, roll on Table 3 (Heads Separate). Separate heads operate independently. If one of the constituent creatures already has more heads than torsos, you may choose between the following options:

Treat them as a single head that happens to be a cluster

Roll separately for each head

Roll for one head and distribute the others over the body using Table 5 (Limb Misplacement)

4. Roll on Table 4 (Limbs) once for each limb on whichever creature has more limbs. — e.g., if Creature A has four limbs and Creature B has eight limbs, you’ll roll on this table eight times. Tails count as limbs for the purpose of this table. Note that the type of limb (arm, leg, tail, &c.) is not specified in this table. After you’ve made your rolls, decide (or randomize) which limb to assign to which result. Try to maintain the same general ratio between different types of limbs as the constituent creatures, to the best of your ability. If you got anything other than “Seamlessly Merged” on Table 1 (Body), default to attaching each limb to the torso that they fit the best (e.g., human arms go on human torso, bird wings go on bird torso).

5. Roll on Table 6 (Abilities) for each of the six abilities. Subtract three from the result when rolling for Int and Wis; add three to the result when rolling for Con and Dex.

Congratulations! You now have a bouncing baby affront to the gods.

Room 2.23: f.39v

Trellis-like lattices are placed in front of each wall of this room. Another is built into the ceiling in a sort of drop-ceiling configuration. A half-dozen pillars with a similar trellis-like structure are spaced through the room. 

On these trellises are a flock of flying vines. They’re similar to the biting vines in Room 2.1, but with a pair of bat-like wings on either side of their head. Their flight is somewhat clumsy, as their vine-like body trails far behind them. They’re much more mobile than biting vines; here is a set of altered stats you can use for them.

Flying Vine: CR 2; XP 800; N Medium Plant; Init -1; Senses Low-Light Vision; Perception +8

DEFENSE: AC 16, touch 9, flat-footed 16 (-1 Dex, +7 natural); hp 13 (2d8+4); Saves Fort +5, Ref -1, Will +1

OFFENSE: Speed 10 ft., climb 10 ft., fly 20 ft.; Melee bite +3 (1d6+2 plus poison); Space 5 ft.; Reach 10 ft.; Special Attacks Constrict, Poison

STATISTICS: Str 14, Dex 8, Con 14, Int 1, Wis 12, Cha 10; Base Atk +1; CMB +3; CMD 13; Feats Alertness; Skills Perception +8

SPECIAL ABILITIES:

Constrict (Ex): A Flying Vine can crush an opponent, dealing 1d6+2 bludgeoning damage, when it makes a successful grapple check (in addition to any other effects caused by a successful check, including additional damage).

Poison (Ex): A Flying Vine can poison those it attacks.  A Flying Vine's bite attack will inflict a poison on its victims that has a fortitude save DC of 13, a frequency of 1/round for 6 rounds, causes 1d3 con damage, and takes two consecutive saves to cure.

Room 2.24: f.40r

There are a number of bones scattered around this room.

This is the lair of a harleon, a scaled-up and improved variant of the harcats from Room 1.27. The harleon has striking blue fur and a vine-like tail that crackles with a golden light. It is aggressive and territorial. I honestly think that covers what you need to know.

Harleon: CR 6, XP 2400; N Large Magical Beast; Init +8; Senses Low-Light Vision, Darkvision 60ft; Perception +15

DEFENSE: AC 19, touch 13, flat-footed 15 (-1 size, +4 Dex, +6 natural); hp 68 (8d10+24); Saves Fort +9, Ref +10, Will +3

OFFENSE: Speed 40 ft.;  Melee bite +13 (1d8+6 plus disease) , tail lash +8 (1d8+6 plus grab and shocking grasp); Space 10 ft.; Reach 10 ft. Spell-Like Abilities (CL 8, DC 11 + spell level): At Will: Shocking Grasp; Special Attacks Disease, Grab.

STATISTICS: Str 23, Dex 19, Con 16, Int 2, Wis 12, Cha 10; Base Atk +8; CMB +15 (+19 grapple); CMD 29; Feats Ability Focus (Tail), Improved Initiative, Run, Skill Focus (Perception); Skills Acrobatics +15, Perception +15 Special Qualities: Magical Beast Traits, Part Plant

SPECIAL ABILITIES:

Disease (Ex): A Harleon’s needle-like teeth are prone to communicating disease. Pick any disease you’d like to throw at your PCs; if you don’t want to choose, filth fever is a sensible fallback.

Grab (Ex):  If a Harleon hits with its tail attack, it deals normal damage and attempts to start a grapple as a free action without provoking an attack of opportunity. Grab can only be used against targets of a size Large or smaller. The Harleon has the option to conduct the grapple normally, or simply to use the part of its body it used in the grab to hold the opponent. If it chooses to do the latter, it takes a -20 penalty on its CMB check to make and maintain the grapple, but does not gain the grappled condition itself. Creatures with grab receive a +4 bonus on combat maneuver checks made to start and maintain a grapple. A Harleon may use its shocking grasp ability only when it has a target grappled.

Leap (Ex): As a move action, a Harleon can jump up to twenty feet in any direction, including straight up. This does not provoke an attack of opportunity.

Part Plant (Ex): Anything that is Part Plant has a flat 50% chance of ignoring any paralysis, poison, or stun effects. They gain +5 to any save against mind-affecting effects and sleep effects on account of their brain working a little different now. Sneak attacks on something that is Part Plant have a 10% failure chance; the organs aren’t all where they’re supposed to be. They can photosynthesize so long as their leaves are exposed to sun during the daylight hours; this cuts their food requirement in half. Their sleep requirements are also halved. Any magical effects that target plants (e.g. control plants) have a 50% chance of working on them; any effect that does damage to plants does half damage to them. To any spell or effect that checks a creature’s type, they count as a plant in addition to their original creature type.

Room 2.25: f.40v

This appears to be a long-empty storage closet. The only thing on this page besides leaves is a dude hanging out at the bottom looking unhappy about a picture of an animal, so I guess he’s what’s here. On one hand, that’s nice since this is a small room and there’s not a lot of room for stuff… on the other hand, now I have to figure out what this guy’s deal is.

Meet Avenel, a new member of the Gatekeepers. Avenel has exactly one level in an NPC class — Warrior, probably, but feel free to make him an Expert or a Commoner or something instead. He’s… basically being hazed. Some of the other Gatekeepers active on this level got him drunk and dumped him in here with nothing but a blanket (which he’s now wearing) and a note indicating it’s on him to find his way back to Room 2.26. The note also warns of some of the dangerous creatures in the area, but it’s not very clear. Whoever wrote it was semi-literate, drunk at the time, or both. Mostly it’s badly-rendered pictures of monsters with notes like “eats people” or “nope”. Avenel is particularly worried about the picture of some sort of leonine creature that reads “nearby — watch out”. (It’s the harleon in Room 2.24.) Avenel will be very grateful if the PCs can help him find his way back safely. And maybe lend him some pants.

Well, that certainly ends my streak of keeping things brief. Including two rooms with contents that required subheadings makes this one of my longest entries, I think. Drat.

Edit -- I forgot to mention:

Room 1.28

This is where the elevator room from the first level ends up if the PCs use it to descend.

[beyondspaceandstars]

“We Go Way Back”

Relationship: Yelena Belova x Reader Warnings: angst, attitude, possible vague Black Widow spoilers Summary: Your and Yelena's date night takes an unexpected turn when a surprise guest shows up at your shared apartment. A/N: So. I saw Black Widow on thursday....i loved SO much.......maybe even found a new comfort character..........and now here we are :) please enjoy

Masterlist

You were just finishing up dinner when two arms snaked around your waist. You giggled, staring down at the sautéed vegetables, as you leaned into your girlfriend’s touch.

"Smells good," she mumbled against your neck. Light kisses were beginning to litter your skin.

You sighed. "Thank you, love," you said, giving everything a final stir before turning off the burners. You went to start carrying items to the table, thinking your girlfriend would let up on her hold on you, but that ended up not being the case.

With a joyous laugh, you playfully scolded her, "Yelena, please," you smiled. "Do you want to eat or not?"

She hummed. Her hands drifted now to your sides and began creeping their way to your hips and thighs. "Depends on what you had in mind."

You let out a faux surprised gasp. "You’re shameless." You shook your head and peeled her hands away from you. She let out a little defeated sigh but you just shot her a playful look and continued with your initial mission of setting the dining table.

Thankfully, this time, Yelena lent a helping hand as opposed to lending her hands…elsewhere. The latter was a common occurrence, especially before date night dinners, such as ones like these. There had been one too many meals you were forced to reheat everything after you let Yelena get carried away.

After the food was placed — a nice spread of local meats, fresh produce, and bakery bread — you began working on getting plates and cutlery. Yelena had taken it upon herself to start breaking out the wine. She brought out two bottles you had just bought that morning based on the recommendation from the butcher. You maybe took cooking and dinners a bit too seriously, hoping everything was right especially when it was for your love.

You set out the cutlery just as Yelena finished pouring two (hefty) glasses of wine. You shot her a smile in thanks and began filling each of your plates. You did have to pat yourself on the back a bit, everything smelled wonderful.

Once you two had full plates and eager stomachs, you sat down and dug in. Yelena immediately let out an exaggerated moan as she practically devoured the meat. You blushed at her enthusiasm.

"This is wonderful, dear," Yelena praised and took a sip of her wine. "Very reminiscent of my momma’s cooking."

Your ears perked up at your girlfriend’s mention of her family. She did that every now and then, slip in random comments about them. You liked trying to explore it but knew the topic was a delicate one. You trod carefully.

"Yeah?" You asked, moving some vegetables around on your plate. "Did she cook a lot?"

Yelena shrugged. "We’d have dinners together, all of us, pretty much every night."

All of us. You had heard so far of a mother and a father but could there be more? Or were you reading too much into it?

Eventually, you settled on, "Family dinners sound very nice." That was enough, you thought. Just safe but still engaged. You eyed Yelena as she continued to eat. She hadn’t noticed you stalled or, well, she probably did, but wasn’t saying anything. You took large gulps of your wine, impulsively.

Just as your liquid courage was getting to you to maybe inquire further about your lover’s family, a hard knock at the front door disrupted the entire dinner. Both of your movements stopped abruptly. You looked between the door and your girlfriend.

"Were you expecting someone?" You asked.

Yelena shook her head. Her fork dropped with a loud clang as she pushed away from the table. In quick, determined strides she collected the gun kept in the side table in the living room. You watched her, quite stunned by her response. You don’t think you ever actually saw any of her guns come into action. When you first moved in, she just explained they were a precaution. You never asked what kind of precaution. You feared you were getting your answer now as Yelena walked to the entryway.

Gun drawn, pointed dead on with the wooden door, she called out, "Who is it?"

"You can put the gun down." Surprisingly, that was a female voice answering your girlfriend’s demand. Your brows furrowed in curiosity. You watched for Yelena’s reaction but she was still so stoic and intense.

Yelena scoffed. "Are you sure?"

Probably a bit foolishly, you decided to chime in. "Love," you said, "is everything okay?"

The female on the other side of the door spoke again, this time with an element of shock in her voice. "Love?"

Yelena let out a dramatic sigh as she relaxed her stance and surrendered her gun, placing it on the little table in the foyer. What seemed to be a bit reluctantly, Yelena opened the door forcefully.

Despite the mystery woman finally being revealed, it answered approximately zero of your questions. There, in the doorway, stood a redhead whose unamusing expression mixed with a slight smugness matched your girlfriend’s. The two just stared at one another, neither dared to move, as if they were challenging one another to try it.

Curiosity finally getting the best of you, you stood from the dining table and slowly made your way to the front door. Your fingers fumbled in nervousness as you stepped with caution.

"Hi, there," you said with a weak smile and gentle wave. The redhead’s eyes flicked over to you only briefly. Still, you continued, "Are you alright? Do you need something?"

"Oh, do I."

Yelena shook her head. "The only thing she needs is to leave."

You turned to your girlfriend, "Who is she?"

"Natasha," the redhead explained. "Me and your love here," she nodded towards Yelena, "we go way back."

You didn’t know how she had the air in her but Yelena let out another ridiculous sigh and stomped away. Like some defeated child, she took her seat once more at the dining table. You had never seen her like this before, so unattached and dismissive. You wracked your brain on how to mend this.

You turned back to Natasha. "Please, come in." Natasha took the offer quite well and gave you a nod of thanks before entering the apartment. You followed her into the dining room.

"We were just starting dinner," you explained as you raced for the kitchen, grabbing Natasha her own set. "Sit, have some food."

Natasha mumbled a "thanks" as you began filling her plate now with food. You even offered up some wine despite Yelena’s weird look she shot you when you reached for it. You ignored her odd behavior and took your seat once more. Somehow, the tension from the situation just got worse. Neither woman was eating now.

You cleared your throat as you prepared to dig into your meal once more. "I hope it’s still warm. If not, I can pop everything in the oven to warm."

No one said anything.

"Alright then…" You shrugged. "If I may, how exactly do you two know each other?"

That was the question that opened the flood gates. Yelena turned to you abruptly. "She’s my sister."

"Sort of," the redhead quickly retorted.

Your jaw went slack. Your appetite completely abandoned you now as your interest was greatly piqued. "Your sister?" You asked and looked between the two women. Well, they didn’t really look alike…

"Not biologically," Yelena explained. "We just kind of…lived together for a while."

"I see," you nodded. You scraped your fork against your plate, awkwardly. "If I may again, what brings you here, Natasha?"

The question certainly made Yelena perk up as she stared down her sister — or, whatever they considered each other. You resisted the urge to grab her hand under the table, unsure of what level of affection she was comfortable showing in front of this woman.

"Some business to attend to." Short and sweet. You felt these two were definitely related on some level.

"This couldn’t have waited until the morning?" Yelena gritted.

Natasha shrugged. "I guess it could’ve but then, apparently, I would’ve missed out on this lovely dinner with you and your… your, what? Girlfriend?" She took a bite of food. "Hmm, tastes close to someone else’s cooking." A shrug. "Anyways, I didn’t know you dated."

"You don’t know a lot of things."

"Okay!" You explained, trying to salvage whatever was left of this civilized conversation. Natasha and Yelena shared a look before turning to your flustered state. "We’re very happy you dropped in, right, love?" You glanced at Yelena. "And you’re more than welcome to stay, Natasha. I’m afraid all we have to offer is the couch if that would be okay."

Natasha glanced behind you at the living room before nodding. "That would be great," she smiled.

***

It wasn’t until you were standing at the kitchen sink cleaning the dishes from dinner that Yelena approached you to talk. Natasha was off getting ready for bed and your girlfriend hopped on this opportunity.

"I’m so sorry," she said as she stood beside you, taking on the role of the dryer in your little dishwasher assembly line. "I-I don’t even know where to begin. I’m sorry she dropped by, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about her—,"

"Love," you shook your head, giving her a sympathetic look, "it’s okay. I’m not really mad you didn’t tell me or that she’s here. From what I gather, it’s a complicated relationship."

Yelena let out an annoyed huff. "You have no idea." A beat. "But, still. I shouldn’t hide these things from you. She was a big part of my life and now you… you’re a big part of my life. It’s only fair."

Your heart warmed at her admission. She could be quite the affectionate one when she wanted to be. Quickly, you leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. She tried hiding her blush but failed beautifully.

"For what it’s worth, she seems very interesting," you shrugged. "I think she could be fun to get to know. Probably has a few embarrassing stories about you as a child."

Yelena gasped. "Don’t even think about it."

"Too late," you giggled, mentally marking that down as a subject for conversation. A brief silence passed over you two as you finished up with the dishes. Reaching the end of the chore, you said, "So, should I be on the lookout for any other siblings?"

Your girlfriend chuckled. "No," she admitted. "Natasha is it."

You let out a content hum in understanding. "One day we should have them all over."

"Them?"

"Yeah," you nodded, "your whole family. A nice, big family dinner. That could be exciting, right?"

Yelena rolled her eyes. Whether it was playful or not, you couldn’t quite tell. "That’s certainly one way to describe it."

[arcadejohn127-9]

How would the demon boys react to some random demon saying that they "went soft" while they were with MC? love your page btw x

Oh ho ho I see! This is going to be fun! And thank you, I love seeing everyone's support!

Lucifer:

Him? Soft? Impossible

The audacity that lesser demon had was almost respectable

But he wasn't going to let it slide

"Perhaps I've been too kind to beings like you, if you truly believe I've grown soft you won't mind me practising my new equipment on you-"

"Luci? What cha doing? I've been looking for you."

As soon as he saw you he didn't even realize the love sick expression on his face

The lesser demon snickered

He realized he didn't keep his mask up

They believed they were going to go free due to his embarassment

But they only made him grip the demons face tighter, his sharp nails digging into their flesh

"not right now, I'm currently putting a demon in their place-"

"oh okay! Don't take too long, you promised you'd help me go shopping, there was a really cute outfit and I don't want to miss it."

"yes, of course, now run along."

You kissed his cheek, thanking him for taking you out

He happily sighed

Quickly placing a kiss on your lips before you left

His head snapped back to the demon with a blood thirsty smirk

"where were we?"

Mammon:

Him?! Soft?! He's got a reputation to uphold!

Like his rep isn't already destroyed by being a bunch of witches servant

Whilst he is feared for his status as a demon, in general his rep is more 'famous guy who Everyone respects but will laugh at him at any given chance'

But Don't tell mammon that

So when a leaser demon says he's gone soft due to you he's insulted

He grabs the lesser demon by the collar, yanking them towards him, pulling down his shades just enough to show off his furious glare

"You're real bold for speaking up against me like that, I'm the avatar of greed! I can destroy your well being with just a slight influence-"

You came marching towards him, brows knitted

"Mammon!!!! Stop picking fights, you promised we'd go to cafe today, I even made sure we'd get matching couples items."

You shoved your phone in his face, showing off the link he sent you

He wanted to go to the cafe due to the couple's coupon and the fact you were allowed matching gifts you can buy

"You Damn human-! Can't you see I'm in the middle of something?! The great mammon needs to defend his rep!"

"you're wasting your time, the cafe is going to get packed if we don't go now."

He didn't budge, trying to counter you but you just raised a brow

You let have a few moments before Rollin your eyes

"I'm going without you."

"BABY NO!!! DON'T LEAVE ME-! I'M COMING I SWEAR!"

He immediately hugged you and was pouting, complaining you embarassed him

But he quickly forgave you when you kissed the corner of his mouth, reminding him he couldn't jump into trouble or else his grades will be effected

Lucifers orders of course

Levithan:

"I will summon Loton on you for even perceiving me!"

It was a bold move on the lesser demons part

And today the ocean demon didn't feel like being talked to by anyone so hearing this made it even worse

He raised his hand in the air, magic glowing at his finger tips

The lesser demon gulped, regretting thinking Levi would be easy to mess with

"Levi, don't summon Loton, we'll get in trouble."

He didn't even realize you were there nor did he notice you arrive

He pouted, lowering his arm and started quickly moving his arms as he spoke

"But they're saying I've grown soft! That's insulting to demons! Especially high ranking ones! It's basically saying I'm a loser!"

"As a high ranking demon, just ignore them~ you're just fine~!"

You didn't want to deal with getting levi out of trouble because he flooded one part of R.A.D so you went to save the confident lesser demon

You grabbed his shoulders, nuzzling your cheek on his

He wanted to push you away due to embarassment and the fact it was in public

But he couldn't help but do the same, squishing his face next to yours with a massive blush on his face

"You're not helping-"

"You're great, let's go back home and finish the game we were playing."

The lesser demon was spared.....for now

Satan:

Does he look like the type to go soft?

Sure he was normally a pleasant guy to be around but soft???!

Despite his charming smile and gentle peaceful presence, he was known for being the most aggressive out of his brother's

So some lesser demon saying he's soft? He wanted to just scoff and ignore it but it chewed at him

"Soft...? Hm, you won't be saying anything when I'm done with you, you'll be too busy crying and gurgling on your own-"

"There you are! I wanted to give the book you let me borrow back- am I interrupting?"

You looked between the cowering demon in Satan's grasp

His horns flickering in out and out, his expression immediately going soft when he looked at you

"yes but what did you think of the book? I thought the characterization of the main lead was the selling point of the whole thing."

"oh definitely but chapter 104 had the best arc."

Satan opened his mouth, removing one his hands off the other demons throat to point at the book but his finger curled

Deciding to not argue with you

"I'll have to debate you on that one - excuse me I need to finish it here before I can debate you on arcs, I won't be long."

You nodded, kissing Satan's cheek and gave the lesser demon a sympathetic look

The lesser demon couldn't enjoy their freedom for long as Satan turned back to them, snarling

Let's just hope he decides it isn't worth his time for that demons sake

Asmodeus:

"me? Soft? Honey, I'm never soft~ I'm always hard~!"

The lesser demon cringed

Asmo crossed his arms, deflating slightly as his joke didn't land

Sure he was offended Someone would call him soft

But it's not like really based his reputation as being some intimidating thing, he wanted to be loved and admired!

But being soft can get you disrespected

So something has to be done and asmo is known definitely by his brothers for getting physical when needed

"Don't look so disgusted, you do understand who you're talking to, right? The avatar of lust - I'm able to bring out all your desires, I know you like things rough so let me show just how violent i can get-"

"hey, are you done threatening-flirting? Whatever you're doing, I need help with some design choices."

You definitely didn't know what you walked in but the lustful demon was your best bet to go to

He was currently caging a lesser demon to a wall and harshly gripping their chin

You just wanted a second opinion on your clothing designs!

"I'll be right there! Can you hold on for a moment please?"

You nodded, sensing the angry aura coming off him

"sure, I got wipes in my bag incase you need them."

"you're wonderful, I love you~!"

He sent you a few air kisses as he smiled at you, you shook your head at his affection

You were thankful you didn't look back because as soon as you walked away you heard a scream

And you were pretty sure it wasn't a good one

Beezlebub:

The lesser demon sure had balls to approach this walking mountain

Was no one intimidated by jocks anymore?

They snarled and teased that he was going soft, expecting a reaction

But Beel just glared at them, his resting bitch face coming in handy

"don't talk to me."

It wasn't long before you found him, he was walking through the halls heading to the main door

"heyy Beel-y, What's up?"

"a demon said I've grown soft....have I?"

You blinked a few times, not expecting the question

You definitely didn't expect the Insecure look on his face

The closer you got to him he was definitely a softie, he was always gentle with you and is super kind

To you, he hasn't changed at all

"I think you have from what I've heard but I don't think that's a bad thing, you can still hold your ground and it just means you're letting yourself not be on guard."

"that makes me feel better, you always know what to say - I'm hungry, let's go eat."

You linked your arms with him, both of you smiling

"sure! I heard there's a nice dessert place opening up!"

Belphegor:

"I think you're talking to the wrong demon, I haven't grown soft."

Again, lesser demons are getting too gutsy towards these demon brother's

Belphegor has never woken up and not chose violence

Sure he was a big cuddle bug and sleeping most of the time

But he could be absolutely ruthless -In words and actions!

"Belphie, I'm heading to the study room, wanna join?"

You didn't really care he was about to go toe to toe with another demon

Knowing he was going to win anyway but you did want to give him a chance to get away

He was on thin ice and could be put on house arrest if he kept acting up and pranking people

"I'm in the middle of threatening Someone right now."

"Alright, don't go too crazy or else you'll get in trouble but I'll be waiting, I bought a pillow for you to sleep on~"

You tugged the pillow out of your bag, wiggling abit as you showed it off

You were already walking away before the sleepy demon could say anything else

He glared at the lesser demon

"I'll prove them wrong another time, too much energy wasted if I did it now."

He immediately went jogging after you, looping an arm around your waist and nuzzled his cheek on your shoulder

[mittensmorgul]

For anyone interested in long-term residence in the supernatural fandom, please have some observations I’ve made over the decade I’ve been here. Take it or leave it as you will, but I’ve found all of this info useful over the years I’ve been here.

I wrote this yesterday, and it achieved its mission of identifying the sort of folks who would react negatively to it (i.e. a lot of block lists have been updated), so now that it’s been edited for content, it’s going under a cut (because that is how we do things on tumblr in general, unless we have a deliberate purpose for annoying readers with excessively long text posts) for the sake of people who actually do care about the fandom and its history. If that’s not you or your reason for being here, then keep on keeping on with your own thing, I guess. For those who are interested, there’s a lot of fandom resources some of us have been building for years that you might enjoy knowing about.

First off, I’ve been informed by a few friends who’ve read through this for coherency’s sake that it sort of reads like a *shakes cane from porch* fandom grandma complaint, but honestly... I earned this rocking chair and goshdangit imma rock now. So apologies for any “back in my day” vibes or faint aroma of tiger balm this post might give off. Then again, it’s loosely based on a similar post from 2012 so like... time is a flat circle anyway I guess.

1. There is no such thing as “tumblr famous,” unless you’re referring to the hilarious and delightful fic of the same name (please go read it, you will cackle). Posting Hot Takes for imaginary Clout™ on this site is kind of pointless in the long run. Sure you can post solely for the sake of stirring shit and getting notes, but the majority of the folks who do aren’t long term residents of the fandom. They’re just tourists moving through our little beach town for spring break. If you’re actually intent on moving to this corner of the fandom for an extended stay, please bother to really feel out the permanent residents and understand the culture and general mood of the neighborhood. It bears no resemblance to whatever’s going on across town where all the bars and beach parities are happening, and those loud, drunken revelers are, again, gonna disappear back to their regular lives or on to the next party eventually. That doesn’t mean the fandom is dying, it’s just evolving.

(funny how I had several comments implying that I’m just trying to keep the fandom from evolving with this post, because I sincerely do want the fandom to continue on for years to come, and that is impossible without evolution. We can evolve without self-immolating, though. mostly i included point 1 for an excuse to push ancient but hilarious fanfic on you.)

2. Once you post something here, it’s been unleashed to the fandom winds. You never know where it will end up, or who will comment on it or add to it. Remember that time Misha tweeted the link to the Epic Cockles Love Story post? No? It was wild. That was 2012. They all know we’re here, and how to find us if they want to. Please don’t take it to their doorsteps.

Obviously if someone is being a dick on your posts, please feel free to block them, but the whole entire point of this site is to engage people with your posts. Being big mad that someone reblogged your post with comments or supporting evidence, or happy headcanons or “HECK THIS IS GREAT BECAUSE (insert personal story about their experience or whatever else made them Feel Things about your post)” is frankly ridiculous. If your goal is to avoid any sort of engagement with your posts, then maybe try instagram instead. From what I understand, there is a SPN fandom presence there, and nobody can tarnish your original posts with unwanted commentary. But the ability to reblog with additional commentary is a FEATURE of tumblr that builds community through conversation. Otherwise we’re all just talking to ourselves in a vacuum, and that’s what actually kills fandoms.

(and for the folks who just want to blog how they want to blog and don’t want people to engage on their posts at all, please feel free to block anyone you want, as well... nobody wants to step on your toes, but most of us also don’t want to walk on eggshells wondering if this post is one of the “do not add comments for any reason” sorts of posts, either. This is a huge fandom and most people can’t even begin to keep track of every creator and their url du jour, and what their personal rules might be regarding interaction with their content. Including a “please don’t add comments” note at the bottom of your posts-- and not in your tags that won’t even show up on reblogs, but in the actual body of the post-- would sincerely help avoid any awkward or unwanted interactions, too. At the end of the day, you are in control of your own fandom experience and the block button exists.

For the record, I block zero fandom blogs (which is why I posted this, I wanted it to reach a wide scope... refer to the opening paragraphs as to why).

3. Since this post was partly inspired by a tag I left on that post going around about how “previous tags” mean fuckall on this site (which you can read here), just a reminder that if you like someone’s tags or feel they add value to the post, part of the Peer Review structure of tumblr encourages you to PASTE THEM INTO A REBLOG. If you do this, then at least credit the person who actually wrote the tags! Don’t just copy someone else’s tags into your tags on your reblog of the post without credit either. They were not YOUR tags. (I have had this happen to tag rambles I wrote and someone else got credited with them on a subsequent reblog and it is FRUSTRATING). Just... don’t even bother to write “previous tags” because WHAT PREVIOUS TAGS?! Nobody is gonna bother to chase back the chain of reblogs trying to find where the mystery tags came from, friendos. That way lies madness.

(for the record, since some folks seemed to focus on this point solely, writing “previous tags” on a post isn’t inherently a BAD thing, but for anyone who actually is here for more than one-off shitposting, then it’s sort of a pointless thing in the long run. This wasn’t intended to suggest people who ARE here for one-off shitposting are bad or “doing it wrong,” but for people who might actually want to preserve that hilarious joke or insightful comment. People delete posts and entire blogs all the time around here. Links break. I get that the upcoming generation just shrugs at that and moves on with their lives, but heck... you don’t have to accept that all entertainment is disposable if you don’t want to. There’s a bizarre sort of nihilism plaguing us all about the impermanence of pretty much everything that feels like something we should be fighting against rather than buying into wholesale, even in our escapist entertainment. I’m just exhausted by the complete loss of joy in community.

*shouts from the peanut gallery* IT AIN’T THAT DEEP, JUST GET SOME FRESH AIR AND LOOK AT A PUPPY OR SOMETHING

Yes... yes it isn’t really that deep, but bigger picture in the state of reality we’re all entirely disillusioned with, are we supposed to just give up on everything, including the things we cling to because they bring us a tiny spark of hope that we’re not all just trapped in this dystopian nightmare and things might actually be worth living for?

*peanut gallery clinging to burnt husks of peanuts in a barren peanut field* but this is how we have chosen to cope

Okay... you do you... I feel bad for you but if that’s the case then this post is NOT FOR YOU. AND THAT’S FINE. I honestly do not care if you don’t care! I mean, I’m sorry anyone has to live in a world that drives them to that mindset, but I understand. This post is for anyone who might look at their lives and their choices and think “no wait, I unironically enjoy this and want more from the experience of that enjoyment than I’m currently feeling.” Everyone else can continue with their lives as usual.)

4. CONTENT THEFT IS NEVER OKAY. PERIOD. Things like “credit to the artist” or tagging gifs or images you found on pinterest as “not mine” isn’t actually credit. If you can’t source an image or gif set, DO NOT POST IT! We don’t REPOST (i.e. save an image and then create a new post with it as if it was our own creation). We REBLOG (click the little square arrows and reblog from the actual creator). That goes for gif sets, fanvids, screencaps, meta, fic... everything.

(hopefully everyone here already understands this one, but I felt compelled to include some “these are stupidly obvious” reminders anyway, since this is ostensibly some sort of advice column. This is the equivalent of the warning label on your toaster reminding you not to use it in the bath. Like... duh...)

5. Close kin of item 4 is SOURCE YOUR SHIT. 

(for 100% disclosure purposes, I specifically discussed this one in this specific way because of an influx of anon ask messages I received in the wake of the finale. Literally the inciting incident for creating this entire post was what I can only assume was a joking ask about a comment Misha made at a con years ago. Someone actually bothered to take the time to type out those sentences to me. I have no idea what they were expecting in reply, or what could possibly motivate them to send this comment about something so entirely random from, again, several years ago. Just a joke? No idea, but whatever... it got me thinking that there might actually be people who are new to the fandom who MIGHT actually care about the fandom history, and maybe they just don’t know where to go for that info, or how to even begin searching through 16 years of history for things they might actually find enjoyment in, rather than just hauling random out of context garbage out on main and pointing and laughing about it now. People are actually allowed to care about things. It’s not cringeworthy to actually care about things, and you are not alone in actually caring, and there’s this whole big room over here full of people who are thrilled to share in that with you. This post is intended FOR THOSE PEOPLE SPECIFICALLY, so if that is not you, please just continue walking by.)

Yes, I know lots of y’all are new around here right now, but dredging up stuff from years ago that fandom has completely debunked and presenting it as TRU FAX again is just exhausting. We’re not trying to be party poopers, but seriously, we have seen it all and are mostly done with extinguishing bags of flaming dog poop on our front porches for the umpteenth year in a row. I’ve seen a lot of posts that have the same tone as “I saw Goody Proctor dancing with the devil” or “I heard kylo ren has an eight pack” and just... the information is there for anyone who cares enough to find it.

This goes double for “why is nobody talking about this thing I just discovered while watching the show for the first time?!” And, oh hon, we have talked it all into the ground over the last fifteen years. We’re happy you’re discovering it again, but I promise we talked about it plenty when the episodes originally aired. We have such a rich meta history that lots of us have worked really hard to preserve. I encourage you to seek it out, if nothing else than as historical artifacts. The way we have discussed the show has been a 16-year evolution. People have written literal doctoral dissertations on this show. Your shitposts are fun! We love reliving our own experience through fresh eyes, and seeing your wonder at experiencing it all again for the first time! But y’all didn’t invent this fandom in the last six months, either.

Meta Sources and Minerals provided by our friendly neighborhood fandom archivist, @lets-steal-an-archive

Academic books and articles about SPN 

A collection of Meta Essays going back to s1 and organized by topic (all of this has happened before, all of it will happen again)

SPN Heavy Meta Archive (s1-3)

Mel’s Dreamwidth archive of meta (s1-12)

Oranges8hands Dreamwidth archive of meta (s1-15, with many similar entries to Mel’s... though ymmv on viewpoint in a lot of these too)

Anyone remember Fandom Wank? Not the concept but the actual LJ... No? Okay have a link to SPN topics that ended up there. Through 2013. We have seen so much... including several fandom containment breaches.

for all your art sourcing needs, please see @theroadsofararchive, the repository for so much fandom art.

need to find a gif of something? canonspngifs is a vast repository of gifsets of the entire series. If the gif you want to use in your post happens to be the first gif in the gifset, in the tumblr gif finder thingy just paste the permalink to that post from canonspngifs (which is easily searchable by episode, character, location, situation, quotes, and sometimes even color and clothing items the actors are wearing... it’s really well organized, especially for tumblr >.>) and the first gif will be automatically linked with credit to the gif creator attached. It makes life easy that way. It’s also convenient when trying to remember something specific but can’t remember what episode it’s from. I’ve used the site to jog my memory before going to the superwiki armed with more specific search results to find episode quotes and references. Or sometimes I just scroll through all the nice gifs for fun, too.

Need a screencap of something and know exactly which episode it’s from? Try Home of the Nutty. You might not find the exact screencap you’re looking for, but they have a complete set of caps of every episode, and it’s an incredibly useful resource for quick reference checks and the like. Just give pages a chance to fully load before clicking on the next one. The site is easily overloaded, but it’s still free to use (and again, with credit... Pretty much every screencap on my entire blog is from HotN unless otherwise credited).

As you can see, this is a fandom built on preserving our history. You absolutely are not required to engage with any of this if that’s not of interest to you, but I can only assume that there are people who would be interested in it if only they knew it existed and how to find it. Well, now they do.

6. A few more notes on tags, and how they work on tumblr. The first 20 tags on your ORIGINAL posts are searchable sitewide, so if you want to be able to find something again, tag that thing first before going on general tag rambles. The only place tags on reblogs are searchable is on your own blog. So you don’t have to put 50 tags trying to get a post seen if it’s a reblog. You’re just spitting into the wind at that point. If you have a filing system for finding things again, then by all means add those tags (again, in the first 20, so they’re searchable), but you don’t need to tag a reblog “destiel” and “deancas” and “dean” and “cas” and “dean x cas” or whatever. Pick one for your personal blog’s filing system, that’s all you need.

(this was only added because tagging and searching on this site is so very broken... I get that a lot of folks don’t care about ever searching their own blogs again for anything, so this one only really applies if you do often find yourself trying to find old posts. If not, then it’s not really relevant.  It took me years to work out a decent tagging system, and at the beginning of my time here I never thought I’d end up camping out here for a decade and falling this deep into the fandom, and I regretted my lack of consistent tags only years later when I realized I actually wanted to be able to go back and find specific old posts again. So... for anyone who wants to err on the side of caution, working out a sensible tagging system really helps if you’re here for the long term. I personally tag content by episode, because some of my other general tags are so large as to be practically useless as a search term. But whatever system you choose to file stuff on your own blog, it really only has to make sense to you. And again, if this is pointless advice for someone who has no intention of settling here for the long term. Please feel free to ignore it. I just wish someone had explained it this way to me ten years ago and saved me the hassle of retroactively tagging something like 30k posts... especially now that using the mass tag replacer is the fastest way to get your entire blog deleted... oops? so yeah, don’t use the mass tag replacer either >.>)

7. Tags on Tumblr DO NOT WORK LIKE TAGS ON TWITTER. If you @ someone in the body of the post, it will show up in their notifications (if they’re the sort of person who even checks their notifications... not all of us do. For the record, I generally don’t...), but putting actor or ship names in the tags on a tumblr post does absolutely nothing. It’s not the same as tagging the actor’s twitter account in a tweet. Nobody’s getting notifications about you tagging a post about Jensen here as “Jensen Ackles.” There is a difference. Please learn it. (and don’t take headcanons and ESPECIALLY RPF or otherwise explicit art or fic from tumblr to twitter and tag the actors in it. That’s just... not okay.)

(I have seen the pearl clutchers getting all in a huff about the mere existence of RPF or even explicit content of fictional characters if it doesn’t meet their purity standards, but tagging those things allows people who don’t want to see it to actively avoid that content here. Nobody has a right to tell people their fictional content shouldn’t exist at all, or that creators of that fictional content somehow deserve harassment or threats for having dared to create such “immoral” content, won’t somebody PLEASE think of the children... and no... you do not do that here. Don’t be the problematic behavior you wish to ban from the world. Learn to use tags to protect yourself from, as i have attempted to emphasize here, fictional content you are personally upset by. That’s a you problem, not a problem for the creators of potentially upsetting content that they tag appropriately for.)

8. General formatting stuff: If you’re writing long text posts, visually break them up so people aren’t faced with one long wall of text. The enter key is your friend. Also, if you put long text posts under a Read More break and send people to your blog to finish reading, please ensure that your blog is actually visually accessible (tiny text, or light grey text on a dark grey background, or a visually busy background might be aesthetically pleasing to you but nobody can actually read it. Loads of folks won’t even try. Which is great if you don’t actually care whether people are able to appreciate your content or not, but something to at least consider if you *do* actively want to encourage engagement with your work. Confirm how your blog looks on both mobile and desktop and make sure it’s actually functional in both, too).

And since I mentioned that most of my experience on fandom tumblr has been in the SPN fandom, here’s a bit of a reminder for folks who are new around here. With the reminder that I have been here more than a decade and still feel like a newbie myself sometimes...

This is an OLD FANDOM. There are many, many people who have been at this longer than some of you have been alive. The average age for creators in this fandom is older than you think (I think of my friends in their 30′s as young’ins okay? okay). With that understood, you are responsible for the content you consume and are exposed to. Curate your experience. Ship and let ship. YKINMKATOK. Don’t deliberately expose yourself to content you find upsetting for whatever reason. Tags and warnings are your friends, not targets for you to attack in some sort of purity war. People will ship things you do not like (or in specific ways you do not like), will say things you do not agree with, and will find their happiness in things you abhor. That is not your concern. Find what you do like, and support and engage with it, and ignore (or block, or unfollow) the rest. Tumblr has a feature that lets you blacklist tags so the content you’re trying to avoid won’t appear on your dash.

Remember the paradox of tolerance.

It is not your job in fandom to police how other people enjoy the fandom. It’s not *my* job to police how *you* enjoy the fandom, UNLESS your enjoyment is in actively harming other real human beings in the fandom. If you don’t like their take on the character or the show or the plotlines or their ships or anything else, you don’t need to engage with their posts at all! The necessary corollary to this is that clarifying misunderstandings or correcting factual misinformation is not “policing.” 

(this is where the peanut gallery reminds me it ain’t that deep, and I plead with them to put down the social media and find just one (1) thing to actually believe in in this godforsaken life, find something other than disdain and cynicism and spite to live for. If those things motivate you to find a larger cause for yourself, then great, use them to your advantage, but use them to find something that makes you a better person or brings you a modicum of joy and connection to your fellow human beings despite living in a dystopian hellscape of a world)

I have seen a lot of posts lately that are founded on the sort of authority that comes with “I watched through tumblr for a few months and then watched the last three episodes of the series” and as such are just... missing the larger context of the entire show, and are unfounded entirely in canon. I 100% appreciate the new enthusiasm for the fandom that we’ve been living in here for years, and it’s wonderful to see new people enjoying the thing we love. Your headcanons are valid, you are valid, but recognize that your headcanons aren’t canon. All of us finale denialists have accepted this in some measure, so we feel you. We truly, truly feel you. But regarding actual canon, we have a resource for that: the Superwiki. Learn it, live it, love it, as Metatron would say.

(which you could discover he said in 10.17 Inside Man, thanks to the superwiki! accept no substitutes!)

(and again, there have been people who have been involved in fandom for years who haven’t engaged with canon in years, either! You can play in this universe however you choose, BUT FOR PEOPLE WHO ACTUALLY CARE ABOUT CANON AT ALL, WHICH I AM AGAIN POINTEDLY SAYING MIGHT NOT BE YOU, READER, AND I’M NOT SUGGESTING YOU ARE WRONG FOR NOT WANTING TO ACTUALLY ENGAGE WITH CANON, but if you DO want to engage with canon, please have some useful resources. Why do people feel personally attacked by being presented a list of helpful resources? Absolutely baffling.)

(also: words have definitions. “Canon” is a specific thing, meaning in this case “the finished media product that aired on television.” Anything beyond those limits is secondary canon (think: john’s journal, which is not canon but canon adjacent at best...), word of god (i.e stuff said by the writers and showrunners), or headcanon (which includes actor commentary-- they may have helped create the show with their acting choices and whatever, but they are not in control of the story overall). If there’s something you dislike about actual canon, you can reject it and supplement it with your own theories or preferred outcomes-- that’s basically what fanfic is-- but that doesn’t make your theories canon (much to all our dismay, that’s just not how any of this works. This is not to invalidate how anyone engages with the show or the fandom, just trying to clarify what seems to have been a source of unintentional misunderstandings. Your theories do not have to be “canon” to be legitimate interpretations.)

***I am setting this section apart, and did make a separate post of just this following information, because this is where we go from being relatively chill about different parts of fandom choosing to interact in different ways and you do you and blog however you want, to “hey can everybody please understand that the way you are interacting with this specific material might be harmful for specific legal reasons, and stating that you do not care about the consequences of your actions does actively make you the asshole here...” Okay, now that we have that understood:

The spnscripthunt collective has been steadily acquiring new scripts (which are posted in full on the superwiki for everyone to enjoy, for free). The language around how some folks are talking about these scripts is... concerning. For very real legal reasons, actually, and not because we’re feeling precious about the collection and don’t wike it when meanies use them in shitposts.

-First off, these scripts are not “leaks.” They are all verified and legally purchased (or gifted, in some cases, but still acquired entirely above board. we didn’t whack anyone over the head in a back alley for these scripts, or swipe them out of someone’s trailer on set).

(in case anyone was unaware, these scripts are the copywritten protected property of Warner Brothers. So yes, how we use them and share them with the fandom could have legal repercussions. We present them as a collected resource of fandom history which SHOULD fall under Fair Use doctrine, but this is untested legal water. Insinuating that the scripts are somehow not entirely legally obtained, or that posting them for public access involved less than 100% transparent and entirely legal transactions is incredibly concerning.

Once again for the peanut gallery, if you don’t care about any of that and are just having a good time with it, at least be mindful of the work and expense a large group of people have gone through to acquire and present the content you’re all too eager to exploit for cheap thrills. Some of us do actually care and are not exactly comfortable with the fact that others don’t seem to care about burning it all to the ground. We can’t force you to listen or behave as we’d hope you might, but at least be aware of the potential consequences of your actions. All we’re asking is for you to not be the douchebag who sets the whole neighborhood on fire with your illegal fireworks display. Is that too much to ask for? more on that in a second, first... a psa)

-If you see a script for sale and are unsure if it’s legit (or believe it might already be freely available in our collection), please feel free to ask us for advice. Our goal is to make as much of our fandom history available to the entire fandom, and we absolutely do not want anyone shelling out money for stuff you can already find for free.

(seriously, we’ve seen a bunch of resellers cropping up selling printed versions of the scripts we bought and uploaded for everyone to enjoy free of charge, or scripts that are otherwise of dubious origin. We’ve been at this for years now and know what’s actually out there. We don’t want anyone to fall for a scam if we can help it)

-Also, the usual reminder that the scripts we acquire ARE NOT NECESSARILY THE FINAL SHOOTING DRAFTS. In fact, the majority of scripts in our collection are NOT. Changes are made daily to scripts, even during filming. Comparing a Production Draft (white pages, effectively the first “final draft” of what usually becomes a series of drafts before filming wraps) to a much later revision (say... green or goldenrod revisions, several of which we DO have in our collection for comparison) and how those earlier drafts often differ wildly from the aired version versus how similar a much later green draft is to the aired version, for example, can teach you a lot about the television writing process. The link above to the superwiki scripts page has a nice little explainer about how this process works.

Differences between our posted scripts (many of which are white drafts, aka FIRST complete drafts, which will likely go through multiple rounds of revisions before filming even begins) and the aired version of the show are not all “acting choices” or a director or editor just cutting whole scenes on a whim. It’s insulting to everyone involved in production to suggest that’s the case.

(and yeah, fine... whatever, make any sort of posts you like regarding how those changes came about, but at the very least understand that it’s not actually the truth about how any of this works. Don’t care that that’s not the truth and want to make the posts anyway because shitposting is fun and that’s the extent of your sense of humor? FINE! You’re entitled to do that! But at least you DO know the truth now, and hopefully so do the people who engage with your posts. Deliberate ignorance isn’t cute, smooth lions notwithstanding)

There’s probably a whole other post to be made on fandom tagging etiquette, but again I don’t really use the tags enough to know what’s going on with that whole situation. I’ve also probably left a lot of stuff out, so please feel free to add things I’ve overlooked.

Thanks also to @trisscar368 and @thayerkerbasy for help compiling this, too. They were kind enough to escort me through the park to feed these pigeons. Now I need to take them out for ice cream. :’D

So I guess welcome to the neighborhood. Make yourself at home, but like... try not to trash the place while you’re here. Some of us live here by choice, lol.