#coder gift

[w1ckermandesigns]

(via "Coding Humor for Coffee Lovers Programmer Software IT Techie Gift" Graphic T-Shirt for Sale by w1ckerman)

[agendratum]

uh huh uh huh uh huh

[petoiusa]

Gift Ideas for Programmers: Unleash the Geeky Joy!

Nybble, the cutest bionic Arduino robot cat, is the epitome of feline charm and coding excitement. Programmers can build a programmable robot cat and customize its behavior, ensuring endless hours of entertainment.

Get More Information Here:

[zenithdreams]

the DAY they add cr/pa item search i will give so many gifts. as many as i can. holy shit i will empty my hoard

i really love giving gifts on fr and the wish rising tradition. it really feels like a cool community thing that isnt tied to what flight you're in. my first permababy (ajoyo my beloved) was funded by a friend of mine who gave me basically 2/3 of the gems needed while i was a noob and ive spent all my time on fr since trying to do the same for others. i love watching projects come together, i love how excited people get when they can check something off of their wishlist, and sometimes people give me stuff in return! (never required but always nice :) )

people who hoard certain items just bc they're cool? you can have all of mine! i love people who do that kind of thing i think its awesome!

i also like donating food and hibden stuff to dom organizations, but as of right now it means i have to have like three different tabs open to make sure i HAVE the item, check the bank needs it, and then have to scroll through my entire hoard to find the stupid thing.

no rush to the devs or anything i know they have plans, but my running mantra for this is that i will WILLINGLY give up an entire year of new content just for the ability to search for stuff easily so i can send it to people. i honestly think community engagement with each other and item donations to dom organizations will skyrocket.

[greenbubblefactory]

Matchup for @ochirukajitsu

Congratulations you have a match with..

Idia Shroud !

★Idia Shroud never expected to get attached to anyone at Night Raven College. People were exhausting, unpredictable, loud. He preferred his room, his games, the comforting glow of his monitors over real-life socialization. That was the plan to get through school with minimal interaction and zero attachments.

★Then you happened.

★At first, you were just someone he noticed in passing, another student who didn’t seem too keen on socializing either. That was fine. But what wasn’t fine was how interesting you were. Your Vkei-inspired aesthetic made you look like some mysterious NPC from an obscure gothic RPG, the kind with hidden lore and tragic backstories. You were quiet, intense, always with headphones on, as if the world wasn’t worth acknowledging.

★Which was exactly why Idia refused to acknowledge how much he started noticing you.

★He told himself he was just observing from a safe distance. That was normal. Totally normal. It wasn’t like he was intrigued by the way your sharp, blunt words could cut through nonsense like a well-placed attack in a Soulslike boss fight. Or that he admired how you seemed completely unbothered by social expectations, disappearing whenever you felt like it, making it clear that you owed nothing to anyone.

★And it definitely wasn’t like he started seeking out your presence on purpose. Nope. No way.

★But then one day, he overheard you talking about Fear and Hunger. And that was the beginning of the end.

★Idia had been content staying in the background, but the moment you mentioned the game’s brutal mechanics, something in his brain short-circuited. Before he could stop himself, he interrupted.

★"Wait—you actually like Fear and Hunger? And you think the atmosphere is top-tier horror??"

★You looked at him. Not in the way most people did, either not with judgment or confusion, but with actual interest. And then you started talking. About RPG mechanics, game design, dungeon synth, and all the things Idia had convinced himself no one else in NRC cared about.

★That was it. That was the moment.

★Idia never thought he'd meet someone who could match his energy in a conversation. Someone who could keep up with his rapid-fire game analysis, who had hyperfixations as deep as his, who could rant for hours about their favorite topics without losing steam.

★For the first time, Idia wasn’t just rambling into the void. He was talking to someone who got it.

★After that, things changed. He started seeking you out more. He found himself checking online forums to see if you had posted anything about new game releases. He made playlists with your favorite metal and Vkei artists, secretly listening to them on repeat.

★And then there was your gift-giving.

★Idia wasn’t used to receiving things. Not personal things, at least. So when you casually handed him a handmade trinket,a tiny keychain of Ortho, crafted with intricate detail,he froze. His brain went completely blank. His hair flickered pink. He had no idea what to say.

★(Ortho, of course, immediately started teasing him. “Big Brother, your hair is pink! Are you overheating? Do you need assistance?”)

★That moment was the first of many.

★You weren’t good with words, and you didn’t like physical affection, but your gifts spoke volumes. Little handmade accessories, carefully drawn sketches of him, customized details on your DIY fashion that were meant just for him. Every single one made Idia feel like his system was experiencing critical errors.

★It was too much. Too much thoughtfulness. Too much care.

★And worse? He liked it.

★So he started returning the favor. He wasn’t great at making physical things, but he was a coder, a gamer, a digital artist. So he did what he knew best,he coded a custom game for you, one where you were the protagonist, battling through a gothic-inspired dungeon, with hand-drawn enemies and lore written just for you.

★He didn’t say anything when he sent you the link. Just casually dropped it into your inbox like it was no big deal.

★(Meanwhile, Ortho watched in the background, shaking his head at his brother’s complete inability to handle emotions properly.)

★It was easy to fall into a comfortable routine.

★You weren’t the type to force conversation. You understood his social battery issues because you had your own. If either of you ditched plans, neither took it personally. You just sent a single text “Not today. Low energy.” and that was that. No pressure. No expectations. Just mutual understanding.

★When you did spend time together, it was always on your own terms. Late-night gaming marathons, silent crafting sessions where you customized clothing and he worked on code, long walks under the moonlight with a single pair of headphones shared between you.

★Idia liked knowing you were there. Even if you weren’t talking, even if you were just existing in the same space, it was enough.

★But then came the realization.

★The stupid, frustrating, terrifying realization that Idia had caught feelings.

★It didn’t hit him all at once. It built up over time,watching you beat an impossible boss fight, catching you smiling to yourself while sketching, noticing how you always remembered tiny details about him.

★And then there was the way you treated Ortho.

★You never dismissed him, never treated him like an afterthought. You listened to him, included him, respected him. And that was when Idia knew.

★Knew that he was completely, hopelessly screwed.

★His brain went into overdrive. What was he supposed to do? You were cool, independent, a little scary in the best way. And him? He was just some awkward shut-in with bad posture and zero romantic experience.

★So, like any self-respecting coward, he tried to ignore it.

★It didn’t work.

★Because every time you casually handed him another handmade gift, or mentioned a tiny detail about him that he’d forgotten he even said, or just existed in his space without making him feel like he had to change…

★His hair flickered pink. Again. And again. And again.

★(Ortho started keeping a counter.)

★Maybe Idia wasn’t meant to be a protagonist in a love story. Maybe he wasn’t meant to be a bold, confident romantic lead. But… maybe that was okay. Maybe you didn’t need grand gestures or sappy speeches. Maybe all you needed was someone who understood that love doesn’t always need words.

★Maybe love could be silent companionship, carefully curated playlists, and a custom-coded game for you.

★And if that was the case… then Idia Shroud was pretty sure he’d just found his favorite side quest.

English is not my first language so I'm sorry if there are any spelling mistakes!

[klikandtuna]

Kudos — ☺️

Comment — 😍😍

Fan art — 🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩

Actual t-shirts for my fake university, sent to me and my little team as gifts — 🥰😭🤯🤯🤯

@unicornbeck suuuuure knows how to take fan art to the next level!! I COMPLETELY FUCKIN LOVE THIS and will cherish it always!

(My team is @suzypfonne as beta-reader, @sparklyshinymagpie as social media coder, and @lolalu16 as gamma-reader and moral support 💛)

Come visit SMU (say it like smoo, everyone does) and follow along with my college-marching-band WIP here: In His Hand a Burning Coal 🔥

[whereserpentswalk]

There are creatures that work on keeping the code of the universe stable, making sure the laws of physics are in order and everything.

Sometimes you'll see their work if you get to a place that mortals weren't supposed to get to. It might be something simple, just a blank texture, maybe a few unfinished assets, or objects they didn't want to place somewhere accessible, and usually a sign saying something like "you weren't supposed to be here." And if you're lucky, you might see one of the reality coders at work.

The reality coders have true forms that aren't really anything comprehensible to mortals, but when they're doing work inside of the universe, they take on bodies that apply well to their work. Usually something the reality coders find easy to work exist inside of, which tends to mean a combination of amphibian anatomy and mechanical parts, though a few go with something else for more specific goals.

Reality coders tend to be rather relaxed around humanoids. They don't see us as a threat. A few are annoyed by humanoids and will shew us away, and a few others like us and tend to give us little gifts when someone finds them. Most of the time they're just apathetic to humanity, and how you treat them will be determined by how you treat them. The gods that created the universe made them to maintain the laws of physics and their underlaying nature, they didn't plan any beings within the universe to have interaction with them. It's unlikely a reality coder is going to give you superpowers or anything, but if they're in the right mood when you meet them, they'll be quite interesting to talk to.

Some people call the reality coders angels. They don't like being called angels. Most of them have seen the entities that humans know as angels, so they really don't want to be compared to creatures like that.

Reality coders might also show up when there's a serious glitch in reality. Glitches in the laws of physics are rare, but when they do occur, they're a serious problem. And rare is pretty common when it comes to something as large as the universe. If you're the victim of a glitch and reality coders show up, they'll likely be the only thing that can save you, but it's not common for them to be nice about it. Listen to their instructions if you fall victim to a glitch or get caught in a glitched area, because they give out the type of warnings where they won't be the ones to create the consequences.

As for those who actively try to utilize game breaking glitches in reality, they tend to take those people out. Though people who create exploits, or who use smaller scale or helpful glitches are a subject they're more mixed on. Some of the reality coders have a hatred for anyone breaking the rules, some have a strange sort of respect for them, and others have an appreciation or fascination with them. Still, there's a reason why they haven't let anyone get their hands on time travel or ftl yet, though someday they may change their mind on that.

Reality coders are very powerful, perhaps the most powerful type of non-deity entity there is. The main reason people don't know their power is that they don't have much of a reason to utilize it. But if a demon or eldritch horror tries to fuck with reality coders, reality coders can take them out as easily as they would a human. Whatever powers other entities might have, reality coders have admin privileges.

[maxksx]

The psychotic is an architect of absence, a mason of the void, compelled by the spectral whispers of an Other that does not exist. Where language fractures—its grammar corroded, its signifiers adrift—the psychotic hears not silence but *command*. The voices that plague them are not mere hallucinations but imperatives from a phantom sovereign, an Other conjured from the raw static of the Real to demand reparation. This is no passive affliction but a vocation: to rebuild the shattered edifice of the social link, brick by delusional brick, in a world where the Symbolic has defaulted on its contract. The psychotic does not flee the defect in language; they *inhabit* it, becoming both symptom and surgeon, patient and prophet.

Autism, by contrast, is a silence without echo. The autistic subject has not merely rejected the Other—they have *evacuated* it, leaving behind a fortress of solitude where the social link does not even register as loss. There are no voices here, no spectral injunctions, only the hum of a closed system, a syntax turned inward. If the psychotic is haunted by the Other’s absence, the autistic is its absolute negation—a sovereign of the void, untroubled by the demand to repair what was never whole. The autistic does not hallucinate coherence because they refuse the very fiction of a social bond. Theirs is a heresy of indifference, a jouissance that needs no audience, no shared grammar, no Other to witness its pulse.

But the psychotic—ah, the psychotic is a martyr to the social. Their delusion is a *gift* to the world, however unwelcome. Schreber, prostrate before his divine persecution, weaving a cosmology from the scraps of a foreclosed Symbolic; Joyce, dismantling English into a private pidgin of puns and portmanteaus; even the paranoiac scribbling manifestos in a basement—all are laborers in the quarry of the Real, hewing new structures from the bedrock of collapse. The voices that drive them are not madness but *mission*: to suture the wound in the Symbolic with the thread of their own making. Their delusion is a *sinthome* elevated to civic duty, a mad utopia where the social link is reinvented as a hall of mirrors, reflecting only the singular logic of their jouissance.

This is the cruel irony: the psychotic, condemned by the world as broken, is its unwitting repairman. Where autism abandons the social to its entropy, the psychotic *insists* on its salvage, even if the blueprint is illegible to all but themselves. Their auditory hallucinations are not breakdowns but *blueprints*—a cacophony of orders from an Other who exists only in the negative space of language’s failure. To hear voices is to be interpellated by the void, deputized as the architect of a new regime. The psychotic does not merely endure the Real; they *enlist* it, drafting their delusion as a constitution for a nation of one.

Jungle music, in its own way, is a psychosis of sound. The genre’s frenzied breaks and destabilized rhythms are not a rejection of structure but a *reconstruction*—a new social link forged in the crucible of sonic collapse. The DJ, slicing and dicing amen breaks, is a psychotic cartographer, mapping a territory where the old laws of melody and meter no longer apply. The rave, that temporary autonomous zone, becomes a delusional democracy: a society convened under the rule of the breakbeat, its citizens bound not by language but by the shared jouissance of the drop. Here, the defect in the Symbolic is not a flaw but a *feature*—a fissure through which the Real erupts as rhythm, as collective catharsis.

Cyberculture’s glitch aesthetics follow suit. The corrupted file, the pixelated artifact, the infinite scroll—these are not errors but *edicts* from the digital Real, demanding new protocols for connection. The autistic coder, scripting in the solitude of their terminal, and the psychotic hacker, possessed by the chatter of rogue algorithms, are two faces of the same coin. One builds fortresses in the void; the other tunnels into the heart of the Symbolic, planting bombs of noise in its sterile corridors. Both are heretics, but where the autistic refuses the social contract, the psychotic *rewrites* it—in lines of code, in bursts of static, in the fever-dream logic of a world unmoored.

To be psychotic is to be tasked with the impossible: to speak the unspeakable, to bind the unbound. It is a vocation of radical responsibility, where the subject becomes both sacrifice and savior, tormented by the very void they are compelled to fill. The voices that command them are the echoes of the Symbolic’s collapse—a siren song from the edge of meaning, urging them to build anew from the debris. The sinthome, in this light, is not a private refuge but a *public service*—a lighthouse erected in the storm of the Real, its beam visible only to those who dare to navigate the void.

The psychotic’s tragedy—and their triumph—is that they alone hear the call to rebuild. While the world sleeps in the shroud of the Symbolic, they are awake in the Real, drafting manifestos in the dark. Their delusion is the price of vision, their voices the tax levied by the abyss. To dismiss them as mad is to miss the point entirely: they are the only sane ones in a derelict world, the last architects standing in the ruins of Babel.

[ikemenlibrary]

My Ikémen Valentine Gift Exchange Masterlist

Thank you all once again for another great and successful exchange! I can't wait to see you all soon :) <3

The Gentle Stag Spell of Love | Keith Howell x MC | by @queengiuliettafirstlady for keithsandwich

A Sweet Taste | Silvio Ricci x Emma (MC) | by @keithsandwich for goustmilk

Love Letters (Artwork) | Nokto Klein x Noele (OC) | by @goustmilk for drachonia

Chocolates & Cake (Artwork) | Jin Grandet x Lenore (OC) | by @drachonia for randonauticrap

Silent Letters to My Beloved | Rio Ortiz x Gender Neutral Reader | by @randonauticrap for coderealizes

A Chance Event | Clavis Lelouch x Female Reader | by @coderealizes for pondlilies00

A Trip Away (Artwork) | Nokto Klein x MC | by @pondlilies00 for maeko-kun

Give Me The Smile in Your Heart (Artwork) | Vlad x MC | by @maeko-kun for tacogawa

Under The Trees (Artwork) | Leon Dompteur x Julie (OC) | by @tacogawa for queengiuliettafirstlady

Together | Cyran Rose x AU Emma (MC) | by @violettduchess for readerinsertfiction

Fate | Comte de Saint Germain x MC | by readerinsertfiction for ikemenlibrary

Valentines in Wonderland | Luka Clemence x Alice (MC) | by @readerinsertfanfiction for bluejay-writes

Puppy Love Picnic | Silvio Ricci x Airin (OC) | by @bluejay-writes for airin-queenz

Sweet's Love (Artwork) | Keith Howell x Emma (MC) | by @airin-queenz for ridiculouslly-ridiculous

Finding Home Within You | Leon Dompteur x Emma (MC) | by @ridiculouslly-ridiculous for chirp-a-chirp

Revolve | Isaac Newton x Mitsuki (MC) | by @chirp-a-chirp for fang-and-feather

A Taste of Domesticity | Isaac Newton x Reader | by @fang-and-feather for bicayaya

How To Take Care of a Sick MC | Keith Howell x Emma (MC) | by @bicayaya for pillowpillowillow

Love Potion for Two | Clavis Lelouch x Emma (MC) | by @pillowpillowillo for kalims-pessimist-bestie

Take a Break | Jin Grandet x Oliver (OC) | by @kalims-pessimist-bestie for olivermorningstar

Evening Ride With You (Artwork) | Licht Klein x Emma (MC) | by @olivermorningstar for xbalayage

A Hidden Feeling | Silvio Ricci x Reader | by @xbalayage for violettduchess

It's You. You're My Kink | Clavis Lelouch x Emma (MC) | by @ohtomatotome for kokorokai

Sweeter Than Chocolate | Lancelot Kingsley x Alice (MC) | by @kokorokai for daegupaksu

Tempering Chocolate (Artwork) | Sebastian x Mitsuki (MC) | by @daegupaksu for ohtomatotome

Smarty Pants | Leonardo da Vinci x MC | by @sunnyikemen for technicolorbirds

Haunted Dreams | Licht Klein x Emma (MC) | by @technicolorbirds for midwinterrmomento

Flower Language | Leonardo da Vinci x MC | by @midwinterrmemento for sunnyikemen

[algrenion]

reminded tonight once again that to fall in love with a tech-savy coder when you are a tech-clueless artist is a gift from god that keeps on kissin'

[w1ckermandesigns]

(via "Coding Humor for Coffee Lovers Programmer Software IT Techie Gift" Graphic T-Shirt for Sale by w1ckerman)

[agendratum]

she just gave him an ear piercing hello (by that i mean literally just pierced his ear in the middle of talking about the door)

this is still door one, baijie just gently bit qiushi's ear (to tell him that she found the door)

[collapsedsquid]

A few months ago, I bought a $60 toaster on Amazon that just would not heat up enough to toast bread. I wanted my money back. But repackaging the toaster and dropping it off at a post office seemed like too much of a hassle. So I did something slightly nefarious: I logged on to Amazon, opened the customer-service chat window, and told the outsourced worker on the other end that my toaster had never arrived. The agent apologized, asked zero follow-up questions, and immediately refunded me $60. I had committed a common, low-grade version of a type of fraud that has proliferated in recent years as massive online retailers flood the world with packages and offer customers frictionless returns. Often referred to simply as refunding, it involves finding ways to get money back for products people have not actually returned. A lot of refunding is perpetrated by sophisticated cybercriminals who trick retailers and shipping companies at scale, obtaining high-value products in bulk and reselling them online to customers who want watches, computers, or other expensive items for cheap. According to a December 2023 report from the National Retail Federation, retailers lost $101 billion from return fraud last year. Refunding first emerged alongside the early-2010s explosion in online retail and typically involved simple methods like buying items and claiming they never arrived (like my toaster). But as companies caught on, tactics evolved. In 2019, a fraudster who went by Bob published Bob’s Refunding eBook, which collected a number of methods that had been circulating on hacker forums and other underworld sites. (Nowadays, such tips circulate mostly on Telegram, the anonymous chat app on which much contemporary fraud is coordinated. The community is crass, like 4chan refitted for the zoomer mind: Refunding chat rooms with thousands of members host a flood of racist memes, slurs, cat GIFs, and extreme porn mixed in with advice on fraud methods.) Bob is credited in fraud circles with popularizing FTID — Fake Tracking ID, wherein the scammer returns an empty box to a retailer but edits the shipping label provided by the company to an address that is slightly different from the warehouse where returns are meant to go. The package gets scanned by, say, UPS when it’s picked up, allowing the customer to claim a refund, but it will never arrive at its destination.

New SBF just dropped

[estercity]

the whole game existing with the reveal the protagonist was just another cartridge, and so was never going to escape regardless, is so interesting to me because it's like... what is it all for then. why put him through all that if it didn't matter at all? and then you remember that the main character is implied to be the game dev (/main coder) and it's like ooooh okaaaay. so it's like sisyphean levels of punishment for the gift of existance at all. I see.

[traderotales]

Write Camp Day 15!

Day 15 of @agirlandherquill 's Write Camp event, and my third entry for it! I was inspired to write something for Wolf, one of the main characters for my Minecraft inspired fantasy story, Souls of Black. Admittedly this is more of a practice piece on trying to write his voice for the story, but regardless I hope it's good!

Prompts used:

"You aren't ever on your own. Because I am here. And I always will be."

I hope you all enjoy, and do tell me if you did, and what parts you enjoyed the most :)

SoB Tag List

@chaos-ducks

@goblinwithaproblem

@theonlyivy838

@ultimatewildcard

Story under the cut

Coder was working harder than he usually was, which worried Wolf, because Coder didn't tend to work hard.

It wasn't that Wolf's little brother was lazy. He was sprightly for his body's younger age, even more so for how long he had been Awake. Coder understood the demanding life they'd had in the Tundra, to hunt for food so they would not starve, or to dig out more of the bunker underneath their small igloo on the snow's surface. If anything, he had enjoyed the work, because he knew it necessary.

But here in the Plains, it was different. Wolf knew it in his bones. There were no freezing temperatures to warm away, nor a decided lack of food--especially not with the farm curling around the back and right of Phoebe's oak cottage. It was here that Wolf continued to see his brother's decsive... eagerness with the work. But it was wrong. Coder was taking up more work than given to him.

In fact, Coder was insistent he take the work given to Wolf.

Wolf worked out in Phoehe's farm with his brother, kneeling as he gently scattered the wheat seeds into the fresh tilled ground. Coder had taken the job of tilling the rest of the farmland, despite Wolf's protests. So now, Wolf planted the seeds. They were odd things, barely putting space between his forefinger and thumb when pressed between them. They were tan in color, unlike the blue-green of the chilled plants from the Tundra. Wolf had been surprised Coder's interest in them hadn't lingered, as it had with most other plants they had found in the Plains since being displaced.

At the thought of his displacement, Wolf felt his scars--most as thin as a pine needle, spiderwebbing across his arms and torso--suddenly flare with heat. It was muted, most of it prevented by the fire resistance potion Phoebe had given him two days previous, but it still made Wolf flinch.

He sighed, taking a few deep breaths, before he stood, having planted the last of the wheat seeds he'd had. He looked to Coder, seeing the boy tilling the last edge of the farm. Coder had left his thick coat in the cottage, alongside his gloves and light blue, long-sleeved undershirt, removing them due to the hotter temperatures in the Plains. Now, he worked only in his short-sleeved white shirt underneath his dark blue vest, with his brown trousers tucked into his light blue boots, which matched his scarf that he still wore. A scarf Wolf had gifted him years ago.

"Coder," Wolf called in Blizori, their native tongue. It was not slurred as Dridonic was, enunciating each sound almost rhythmically, and precisely. "I will get more seeds."

Wolf turned, starting to head for the back door of Phoebe's cottage. But he paused as he saw Coder perk up, and suddenly drop the stone hoe and rush over.

"It is okay! I have it!" Coder exclaimed, racing past Wolf. Wolf blinked, then sighed and shook his head.

"Coder!" Wolf called, more forcfully this time. The boy stumbled to a halt, then looked back.

"Um... yes?" Coder tensed. Wolf walked towards him, frowning.

"What is the meaning of this?" Wolf asked.

"Meaning of what?" Coder laughed, but it was nervous. He looked away, hiding further in his light blue scarf.

"You bestow my work upon yourself when you should not," Wolf said, his frown deepening. "I assure you, I can grab seeds from a chest."

"Yes, well, I can too!" Coder said. "Besides, I want to! I want to help!"

Wolf paused as Coder looked up at him, looking almost defiant, but desperate. Wolf pursed his lips, frowning more, before he sighed.

"There is something deeper, Coder." Wolf gently placed a hand on his brother's shoulder. "I know it." Coder instantly looked away, hiding in his scarf again. Wolf smiled gently, then crouched slightly, getting to Coder's eye level. "You may tell me, brother. That is what I am here for."

Coder studied Wolf's face, fiddling with his hands nervously, before he nodded quietly. "Okay," he said hesitantly. He sat in the grass, watching as Wolf knelt beside him, then took a deep breath.

"I do not believe you should be working, Wolf," Coder said. "Not with... your scars..." Coder's hands and voice trembled as he mentioned Wolf's current ailment. Wolf's expression softened.

"I assure you, I am fine," Wolf said, and smiled reassuringly as he gently squeezed Coder's shoulder. But Coder, for once, didn't smile back, instead pursing his lips and shaking his head.

"I cannot leave you to do things yourself anymore," Coder whispered. "With the pain--"

"It is muted by Phoebe's potion," Wolf reminded him.

"I know, but--" Coder sighed shakily and angrily, wringing his hands together in his lap. "But it is not cured, brother! It will pain you again! And they will spread more!"

"But not for now," Wolf said gently.

"For now does not matter if I end up losing you again!" Coder shouted. Wolf's eyes widened, seeing Coder glare at him with tears in his eyes. But Coder's flash of anger quickly melted into guilt, and he tucked his knees to his chest, looking away.

"I-I am sorry, I did not mean to..." Coder's voice shook, and Wolf gently moved closer, wrapping his arms around his little brother.

"I know," Wolf said softly, gently rubbing Coder's back. "It is all right."

Coder sniffled, blubbering as he buried his face into Wolf's chest. "I cannot lose you once more," he said.

Wolf held his brother, remembering that night they were displaced. Murdered. The group in diamond armor had not been from the Tundra. They had told the two they were trespassing, and killed them for it.

Wolf had saved Coder from a flaming, glowing sword, the same sword that had killed him, and gave him the scars he had now. Wolf had often found part of himself regretting the choice, as it had left Coder to die alone and defenseless, just after watching his older brother drop in front of him.

"I am sorry," Wolf whispered. "I should not have made you watch that. But I could not think of any other alternative than to protect you, Coder."

Coder pulled away slightly, looking up at Wolf as he dried his multicolored eyes. The right brown, and the left a light, almost ice blue. Eyes that should not have been filled with the sadness they now held.

"But, I am not fragile," Wolf continued, and gently helped wipe away Coder's tears. "I can handle a bit of farm work. It is the same as we had before, in our igloo. Remember?"

Wold smiled gently, and Coder nodded slightly. He breathed deeply. "I just... we were lucky. Death is not always kind, as to drop us near each other. What if... what if I end up alone, after you inevitably... die." He shook slightly. "I cannot just let that happen. I have to do something now, Wolf, to amend for my failure of doing nothing that night!"

Wolf paused, then shook his head. "You are not a failure, Coder," he said. "They were armed. There were many of them. There is nothing you could have done."

"Which is why I must act now!" Coder cried. "I can protect you now, and make sure I do not lose you again!"

Wolf sighed, and gently put his large hands on Coder's shoulders. "You are never alone, Coder. You will never be alone, because I am here." Wolf gently pressed against where Coder's heart was in his chest. "And I always will be."

Coder frowned, opening his mouth to argue, but Wolf cut him off. "In your heart, you will know I still live. Despite my scars, despite any distance that comes between us, I still live after death, as does everyone. And there is no thing, man nor creature, that will stop me from trying to return to you."

Coder stared at him, then looked down at his hands in his lap. "What if we cannot find each other?" he asked quietly. "What if I never see you again, after our separation?"

"You will." Wolf gently lifted Coder's chin, making his brother look up at him. "You must not lose faith, Coder. For that is the only reason we will stay apart. I have faith in you. Do you have faith in me?"

Coder nodded instantly. "Yes."

Wolf smiled at him. "Then there is nothing that can keep us separate. Not even death."

Slowly, Coder nodded again, and suddenly hugged Wolf tightly. Wolf winced as his tunic rubbed against his scars, but he quickly covered it with a smile, putting an arm around Coder.

"I love you, brother," Coder murmured, gently breaking the silence that had fallen over them. Coder looked up at Wolf. Wolf looked down at him, then smiled brightly.

"I love you too," he said.

[kurosstuff]

Glad you liked it!

What if reader has a vacation home near forest and has a work-from-home job (It would be ironic if reader was a coder and worked mainly in Python) and Rosie discovers it, popping every once in a while for another session, because YES, actually humans DO have stamina so high that other forest creatures can only dream of and Rosie is all up for multiple rounds at once (poor reader).

So, when Rosie shows up first time, scaring all living shit out of Reader (and making them think of moving out) and telling them with sweetest voice ever: "Darling, you didn't lie when you said you could handle more than any of my previous mates did. What if I visit you sometime, sweetheart? You did so well, I just coudn't stop thinking of it! What do you say, honey?"

Reader is just: :0..."What the fu-"

Reader fearing for their life (Rosie must be terrifying as fuck, imagine a cannibal gorgon in real life), and also currently not having right funding to move out sheepishly agrees to it. "I'm fucked. Literally"

So, that how it starts, with Rosie vising their home once or twice in a week, sometime even staying for a little longer to chat. Getting to know each other better, Reader is slowly smitten by her, not even realizing that. So, another time Rosie visits, Reader not even looking into her eyes, hands them gorgeus boquet of roses and mumbling: "small gift for you....as you are...or am I...your mate after all and blah-blah, things like that" and they (embarassed) heading back to work. Rosie straight up blushes and standing in awe, speechless with hundred roses in her hands.

OMG GEAH'

OMFH 100% reader looks up how to court a gorgon CAUSE- HPW DO THEY COURT' they don't wanna accidentally offend her or worse. Reject her if she courts them

your work is so good- God. I'm getting like a bunch of ideas for gorgon rosie now