#got me feeling things again

[capriciouswriter207]

The Crown sat uneasy on his head.

It’s an artefact, a voice in the back of his mind reminded him. It belongs in the museum. Any other day, with any other item, he would’ve agreed with that voice.

Not today. Not with this item.

Maybe he wanted to secure it. Thieves are not above stealing form the museum – his chase for the emerald ore has proven as much – and maybe it would deter them that they would have to kill him to obtain it. Still, only his colleagues and leaders from the nations he had friendly and less-than-friendly relations with may dare to take it all out on him.

Some might call it reckless that he openly walks around with a priceless, ancient artefact. He would call it reckless, were it not for the fact that it brought him some sort of sense of comfort he hadn’t noticed he craved.

This was not the first piece he felt a genuine connection with. The honor of the first lay with the emerald ore, and that felt more personal than this crown. Still, this hummed with a history he hadn’t encountered yet, but felt quite familiar nonetheless.

Perhaps a little too familiar.

Maybe that’s why he dug around in the dirt. Maybe that’s why he looked into restoring the castle on the hill. Maybe that’s why he opened the museum. The past lingered and if it was only tangible enough…

Maybe that’s why he ought to leave the safety of these ruins every once in a while and come into contact with actual people. Winchester was a great listener, but not the best conversationalist.

Still, the Crown sat uneasy on his head. It would never get any more comfortable than it already was.

[gibbearish]

love when ppl defend the aggressive monetization of the internet with "what, do you just expect it to be free and them not make a profit???" like. yeah that would be really nice actually i would love that:)! thanks for asking

[bacchuschucklefuck]

truly this one's just for me. I can do what I want foreverrr

[14dayswithyou]

💖 Day 3.5 is now available! 💖

For the last couple of months, only Server Boosters had access to the 3.5 update... Buuuuut now it's available for everyone to play in the 14DWY Discord — and soon itch.io once I'm happy with the QA and state of the game — so please don't feel pressured to join unless you want to!!

The full devlog + even more screenshots are under the cut ^^

What's been added to the 3.5 version?

📺 Streamer Mode!

I've been told that it's difficult to stream and monetise age-restricted videos on YouTube and Twitch, so I added an option to remove the sexual content and strong language used in the demo.

Now y'all can invite Ren into your bed for cuddles without putting your streamer career on the line /silly /lh

This won't affect the 18+ rating or dark themes/elements of the game, however! Although Streamer Mode will prevent you from seeing any "gruesome" CGs in the future, most of the core elements of the game will still be tied to the choices and decisions you make. So you won't miss out on the overall experience by using streamer mode!!

⚙️ Custom Pronouns!

It only took me one entire year to get around to it, but you can finally choose your own preferred pronouns (or use a set of pronouns instead)... At the cost of being able to change them mid-game ^^;

Since the original pronoun screen wouldn't update until a new scene was displayed, I temporarily disabled the feature. But once I find a workaround, I'll bring it back!

💗 Choose how others perceive you!

You can now choose how the cast and narration perceive you! Originally, the narration was kept strictly gender-neutral (outside of pronouns and genitalia picked by the player), but this will soon change in future updates.

For more clarity: you don't get to choose the words specifically, but you can choose between masculine, feminine, and androgynous terms!

📋 Separate top and bottom genitalia!

You can now choose your tatas and pps separately! >:3

Alongside that, you can also choose your preferred body type!

I removed the "both" genitalia option because a few players still assumed it was an obscure version of "intersex". That wasn't my intention and I don't want to mislead anyone, so I took it out for now ^^;

I also didn't want to include a screenshot of the new genitalia choices in action (because it's NSFW), so y'all get the same character menu screen for the nth time instead lmao

📱 Relationship Screen Overhaul!

You can now change your own status for more immersion, and long-term Server Boosters will eventually be able to submit and use their own icon within the game as well!

Stalking finding your friends has now become easier by using "Buddy Maps"; a new app that allows you to see the location of all the cast members!

I want to offer players more incentive to check the relationship screen since they tend to miss the status updates, so hopefully this might help ;v;

It also says it "updates every few hours" so folks don't go overboard and check every 5 seconds to see where Ren is gdsghf (also keep in mind that he's a hacker lol)

🖤 Additional Scenes Update!

Day 2 received a brand new CG!!!!! Originally, I planned on only adding a few CGs sporadically throughout the game, but it didn't feel right to leave Day 2 so... empty... so I added a brand new CG to (hopefully) make things feel more balanced and natural!

If you decline Teo's offer on Day 3, Leon will now call and try to convince you to reconsider. However, players are still allowed to decline, and if they do, they'll reach a dead end.

After listening to feedback on itch, I changed some of the dialogue during Days 1-3 to make it seem more consistent! They're only small changes though, so it's honestly not worth looking for sdgjssga

🎶 Updated BGM and SFX!

I wanted to try out a different style of music to see if it fits the vibe of 14DWY more! The BGM features more acoustics to suit the "beachy" theme of Corland Bay, though I made a conscious effort to include piano elements as well to stay true to the original!!

I figured it'd be better to give players a live example before I make a poll (to see if they prefer the change or not) and publish it to Itch.

Some new SFX have also been added, though it's very minimal and honestly not that noticeable.

How to download and play the update?

(warning: clicking on the following links will open Discord!!) To download the Day 3.5 update, simply join the 14DWY Discord server, verify your age, and visit the "14dwy-updates" channel!

Alternatively, you can also wait until the update is publicly released on Itch to play it as well!! (It normally gets released shortly after a round of QA testing/getting feedback from the server, though I may release it earlier if I feel like it hehe ^^)

Enjoy!!

[suntails]

toot toot!

[napping-sapphic]

I just want to fall in love with someone who makes me feel safe like even when we’re angry or sad or upset i just want to know that both of us are still going to be okay

[ahhrenata]

for @hamartia-grander ‘s fic Another Time 🧡

this scene in the epilogue got me 🙃 i love them.

[blue-mood-blue]

I’ve grown to appreciate the aus where Shen Yuan enters the story as “Shen Yuan” - same name, probably similar face, generally able to interact with PIDW as himself and change the story through his added presence. I like the sense of “if only you’d been here, things might have been better the first time around” of it all.

And I was thinking, it’s a funny coincidence in that scenario that someone named Shen Yuan gets put into… another Shen Yuan. What are the chances? What a weird twist of fate that Airplane would pick out the name that his most dedicated critic could slip into seamlessly.

What about a version where it’s not coincidence at all?

Airplane goes to school with a kid named Shen Yuan. He’s prickly and hard to approach and a little intense, but Airplane is persistent. In fairness, Airplane is relentless - and maybe it’s a good thing that they end up being friends, because they’re a little too much for anyone else to handle. They balance each other out. They’re the “weird kids” in class and they’re okay with that, because even when they don’t have any words for it, they know they’re not like their classmates, not really. That’s okay; they don’t want to be.

Recesses and breaks are consumed with the elaborate stories that Airplane wants to tell, and all the holes Shen Yuan pokes into them. It’s not mean-spirited, though, even though Shen Yuan isn’t the kind to temper his words. It’s passionate. He cares about those stories the way Airplane cares about them, and it can’t be mistaken for anything else when they lean together conspiratorially across the lunchroom table. They’ve both got notebooks filled with details and characters and monsters. Shen Yuan’s practically got a whole bestiary sketched out in wobbly childhood attempts at art, entries fervently scrawled beside them. Airplane prattles out plots nonstop, always with the promise of shining eyes and being asked “what happens next?”

They come up with a whole world together. Airplane’s going to write about it someday. Shen Yuan is going to read every word.

Shen Yuan misses school. Shen Yuan starts missing school a lot.

Airplane goes to the hospital room instead. He doesn’t think to worry, because Shen Yuan is okay - that’s what he says. He looks okay, and he’s a kid, and it doesn’t feel real that anything bad should happen to a kid. He doesn’t think to worry. He doesn’t think to say goodbye.

It’s one of the older Shen brothers who catches him on the way up to the room one day, in the hallway just outside - snaps at him to go the fuck home, and when Airplane hesitates, pushes him into the elevator and tells him not to come back. “Tells” is a generous way to describe the way the words come out - a growl, a hiss, the sound an animal would make when a hand got too close to a wound.

(It’s not fair to name a villain after him, even if the name never really comes up in the story. He wasn’t trying to be mean. He’d lost a brother minutes before, and he was getting his brother’s friend out of the way so he didn’t have to… see. It isn’t fair, but then, none of it is fair.)

Death feels very real after that.

The notebooks get shoved into a closet, and it’s not until Airplane’s moving out and one falls on him from a high shelf that he thinks about it again. He’s written things, lots of things, but nothing as ambitious as this - nothing as important. It could be good, he considers. He’d promised. Shen Yuan wanted to read it.

The problem was that no one else does, not for a long time, not until Airplane has whittled himself and his art into a corner and into such an unfamiliar shape that he has to wonder how it’s still his own face he sees in the mirror. He has to eat. He has to pay rent. Shen Yuan would yell at him, but Shen Yuan isn’t there to yell at him, and who cares. Who cares if it could have been better? The people who actually are here love it, and it’s paying his bills, and sometimes stories don’t go the way they’re supposed to and the world is fucking unfair. It doesn’t matter.

(It does. But he shoves that thought away along with styrofoam cups and soda bottles to the bottom of a garbage bag.)

Authors are not gods and their power is limited, but Airplane exercises just a sliver of what he’s been granted and gifts an inconsequential sort of immortality. He thinks about making him a rogue cultivator, maybe the kind that goes around documenting beasts and compiling his findings. He thinks about making him someone too powerful for death to touch, or too important to threaten, but when Airplane looks at the world he crafted and everything that’s become of it, it feels like the kindest thing he can do for Shen Yuan is a childhood where he’s loved, and a death that’s peaceful. What does it say about that world, that he’d kill off his best friend too early again instead of making him live there?

(The best writing he ever does is the only, shining moment of humanity that his scum villain ever displays: a lament about death that comes too early, about a brother gone too soon. The commenters praise him. The commenters flatter over how real the emotions feel. The commenters don’t get any response from Airplane on that chapter.)

Death is incredibly real when it comes for him too early, too, still hovering over his keyboard with the story technically finished and incredibly incomplete. Airplane could tell himself that’s because the written version can never be the version in the writer’s head, always shifting and with every possibility still on the table, but he knows better than that. The System knows better than that, with its condescending message about “improving” his writing and “closing plot holes” and “achieving his original vision”...

…and he’s a child again. He’s a child in his own story, he’s Shang Qinghua now without the benefit yet of a peak or cultivation or anything, and maybe he’s a little bitter, and a little scared, and…

And Shen Yuan - with longer hair, with robes, with a couple of older kids watching him from across the street, but undeniably the prickly little boy who used to sit down imperiously across from him and tell him everything that was wrong with the chuck of writing that had been handed to him last period, but with that smile that said he was only invested because he knew it could be better and they were going to make it better - marches up to him with a fire in his eyes and a frown that warns of a coming tirade.

“You told it wrong,” is the first thing he says.

Shang Qinghua wants to ask how him how he’s here, how this is possible, or maybe laugh because, yeah - yeah, Shen Yuan has no goddamn idea how wrong he got absolutely everything.

(Shang Qinghua wants to say “I missed you” and “why did you leave so soon” but he’s here now. He’s right here.)

“I know,” he says instead. “I’m sorry. It all kind of… spiraled out of control.”

Shen Yuan frowns, but then it dissipates the way it always does, and his eyes shine with ideas the way they always used to. “That’s okay,” he relents, grabbing for his hand. “We’ll fix it. We’ll make it what it was supposed to be.”

[the-force-awakens]

Still not used to this life or death situation stuff. That's good, 'cause I'm not either. You never get used to it.

[aromantic-diaries]

Idk if I've said this before but I feel like the bi to aro/ace pipeline wouldn't be half as common as it is if asexuality and aromanticism weren't forgotten all the time when it comes to discussing sexuality. I think it's funny to joke about it and seeing how it's something that so many people experience has definetly been helpful in making me feel less alone but sometimes I think about how I would have known I was aro and ace much sooner if I knew more about these identities like I did about bisexuality

[cracklewink]

redrawing my sunny starscout redesign again? its more likely than you think

[flowercrowngods]

based on this concept of steve and mike coming out to each other

🤍 also on ao3

The sun is setting in beautiful hues of pink and purple, tinging the town of Hawkins, Indiana, in a light of serenity and beauty it doesn’t really deserve. Steve’s hands are gripped tight around the steering wheel as he carefully scans the road and the houses he passes.

He almost misses the bike where it’s lying on the curb, carelessly discarded by the looks of it, and a tinge of worry shadows his frown. Worry that doesn’t quite dissipate when he spots the figure sitting on the roof, almost black against the lilac colour of the sky, but he breathes a sigh of relief. He considers grabbing the radio to let the others know he found Mike, but decides against it. Something tells him that maybe they’ll take a while. Something tells him there’s more to Will’s stunned silence and Mike’s sudden departure from where they were all hanging out at Steve’s after another successful Hellfire session. 

With a sigh, Steve cuts the engine and gets out of the car, keeping his eyes on Mike the whole time — ready for him to take off again, ready to go sit a while and wait for him to come back. But Mike doesn’t move, even after he shuts the door and approaches the Wheelers’ house. He doesn’t acknowledge Steve when he pulls himself up to the roof, easier this time than the first time he did this. 

There’s a snide comment in the air between them, a version of Mike that would have lashed out at him, made fun of and insulted him. But this one just sits there, hands in his lap, frown on his face, and stares ahead. 

“What do you want,” he asks eventually, though it doesn’t have the kind of heat that Steve expects. He barely even sounds like a teenager. Just sort of… dejected. Steve aches for him; just a little bit. 

“Just making sure you’re alright,” Steve says, shrugging, looking ahead as well so Mike doesn’t feel watched. Or seen, maybe. 

Because the thing is, Steve does see him. He sees the way he looks at Will sometimes, and the way his eyes fill with something that can only be described as yearning, or aching, followed by regret and fear. Which always, always turn into anger. Into frustration. Into snide comments and rolled eyes and walls that keep getting an inch added to them each day. It’s never directed at Will, that anger, and rarely at the rest of the Party, but Steve still sees it. Gets the worst of it and takes it, because he knows something about how that feels. 

He knows something about looking at someone like that, about feeling that fear, that regret, that worry that come with it. He knows something about never really daring to meet someone’s eyes for fear of what they would see. 

“I’m alright,” Mike says, sounding anything but. There’s a bitterness in his voice. Frustration in the way his thumb is picking at the skin of his fingers. Confusion in the tension of his shoulders, and Steve feels like he only needs to make one wrong move, say one wrong word, make a single sound that’s off key to the melody of this moment, and Mike will jump off the roof and take off again with his bike. 

So all he says, after a moment’s consideration, is, “Cool.” Like he believes him. Giving Mike room to breathe, room to pretend. He knows something about that, too. 

He knows and he sees and he feels. 

And suddenly he wants to say something he’s never said before, something he didn’t even get to tell Robin because she knew and saw and felt, too, taking something from him that he hasn’t yet been ready to reclaim for himself. 

And maybe it’s because he sees something of himself in the way Mike holds himself, in the way he snaps at anyone willing to listen, in the way he frowns in regret and barely meets anyone’s eyes except when it’s in challenge — and, most of all, in the way he never, never meets Will’s eyes. In the way he looks away when the other boy turns to him, and in the way his eyes will snap back and take in everything about his best friend when he’s not aware of it. 

Maybe it’s because the sky is pink and lilac and purple above them, allowing for a certain magic to happen, allowing for a bravery that doesn’t come easy to him; but as he sits on the roof next to Mike Wheeler, the only one of the Party he never really connected with, he closes his eyes against the breeze that catches in his hair and opens his jacket a little further, slithering beneath the fabric as if in a brief embrace, a nudge, a sign to take this leap, and takes a deep breath. 

His heart is picking up its pace inside his chest, taking this leap along wit him, and pulls up one of his legs to wrap his hands around it — just to have something to hold onto. 

He opens his mouth once, twice, three times, but the words never really come out. They don’t know how, and he’s beginning to tremble a little with it, tension building in his chest where the words are still locked away, hidden among layers of truth. 

Mike looks over with a frown and eyes him warily. It makes Steve want to laugh, this sudden change of pace, but he just keeps staring ahead; even when Mike asks, “Are you alright?” 

“Yeah,” Steve says. And then then dam is broken and breaking further, and with another deep breath, still not meeting Mike’s eyes, instead focusing on the tree tops in the distance that shine in hues of purple, he finally says, “I’m kind of dating Eddie Munson.” 

And just like that, it’s out. He’s out. 

He doesn’t know if the world still spins, if time still passes, if he still breathes, because for a moment there is only silence. Mike stops picking at the skin of his fingers, Steve stops trembling, and neither of them moves. 

It’s both anticlimactic and momentous, this silence between them when their eyes meet. When the words unfold and grow wings, when Mike understands, his eyes growing big with something that Steve can’t quite read with how tense he is despite his best efforts. 

The silence stretches between them, surpassing comfort and overstaying its welcome, and suddenly it’s Steve who feels like he’s about to take off if Mike so much as twitches his brows. 

“You… What?” 

Forget it, Steve wants to say. Nothing. 

But also, I’m in love with Eddie Munson. And I used to be in love with Nancy. And that’s okay. Both of that, it’s okay. 

He ends up repeating his words, though, because they know what it’s like to be spoken now. “Eddie. I’m kind of dating Eddie.” 

“But…” It’s Mike now whose mouth is opening and closing without saying anything. Mike who’s blinking, trembling a little, twitching, picking at his skin again, moving further along his hand this time to pinch the skin between his thumb and pointer finger. Steve almost reaches out to stop him, but he doesn’t really dare to. 

“But?” he prompts after a while, not quite comfortable with this loaded kind of silence. 

“Eddie’s a boy.” 

But Tammy Thompson is a girl. 

“I know,” Steve says, his tone carefully neutral, wanting to see, to wait where Mike takes this, to hear what’s on his mind, to watch the wheels turn and the gears shift. He feels awfully raw and open, vulnerable with someone who hasn’t been treating that with care yet. But there’s something about this moment that feels bigger than his own fears, bigger than the light nausea settling in his gut; far more important than the way he wants to run and hide, away from the scrutiny. 

“And…” Mike continues, still battling the words inside his head. Steve wonders if there are too many or none at all. “But you… You loved Nancy.” 

Ah. Smart boy. “I did,” Steve says with a small smile. “And it was never a lie. But I found that… Yeah, I can kinda like boys, too, y’know? And that’s, like, okay.”

A beat. A frown. A confused, hopeful, small, “It is?” 

Steve just nods, smiling in reassurance and relief at equal measures. Silence settles once more, now that the sky has darkened into a deeper, darker blue; but it’s not as loaded this time, not as tense. It’s an invitation. An offering. A promise of I’m here, I’m with you, you can take as long as you need. To get down from the roof, to come back, to come out of wherever you think you need to hide from the world. 

Mike takes it. He stays, pulling up his leg, too, mirroring Steve’s pose and staring ahead, but not as far away. He seems alert, seems to be thinking rather than dwelling, seems to be gearing up for something. Steve watches and sees and knows, remaining patient beside him, his chin resting on his knee as Mike learns to deal with this new world that has been presented to him. This new world that comes with opportunities and chances and possibilities that are scary and big and difficult to make. 

“Y’know,” Mike starts at last, interrupting the silence, playing with it, his voice hushed and quiet to keep it from disappearing completely. “Lucas, when he had that championship game? He told us, Dustin and me, that we didn’t have to be the losers this time. The nerds. The outcasts. Different. And all I wanted was to scream at him, because…” 

Mike swallows his words, keeping them from tumbling out of his mouth, and Steve aches for him again. He wants to reach out, wants to say it’s okay, tell him it’s alright, to take his time. But he waits in silence, lets Mike find the bravery he needs on his own, and waits. 

“Because how could he say that, you know? How could he, when… Will wasn’t there. And all I did, all I ever did anymore, was miss him. And I loved El, I knew I did. And she was gone, too, but…” 

He trails off again, and this time Steve picks it up. To let him know he’s not alone. To let Mike know he understands what he’s saying. He understands. “But she’s not Will. You needed Will.” 

“But I shouldn’t!” Mike explodes suddenly, riled up because Steve adds fuel to the fire, because Steve has that same fire, too; and because they are so, so similar when they want to be. “And now he’s back and it should be fine, I shouldn’t be feeling like this, it doesn’t even make sense! How can I…” 

Steve looks at him, at his expression that is nothing but lost — completely and utterly. He’s seen it on the bathroom floor at the mall; high out of his mind as he was, he’ll never forget the way Robin looked at him, the sheer crestfallen expression. All that confusion, all that fear and frustration and, in the end, resignation. He’s seen it in the mirror, and he’s seen it in those pretty brown eyes that he just can’t get out of his head anymore. 

He offers, gently, “How can you need him when he’s right there? How can you love him when a year ago you loved El?”

And Mike just looks at him before he deflates completely, his shoulders falling along with his face. He nods. Shrugs. Looks away and hides his face behind his leg. 

Steve sighs softly, watching the boy and speaking the words he wants to say the sixteen year-old version of himself. “I don’t know,” he says truthfully. “I really don’t, and it sucks sometimes, having this need to, like, decide. Or understand. Or stop and be like the rest of them.” Like Robin and Eddie, or like the rest of the world. “But I like to think, sometimes, that maybe it’s a good thing. That there’s just… I don’t know, it sounds corny as hell, but like, there’s just so much love to give, we can’t even stick to only boys or girls, y’know.” 

“That does sound real corny as fuck, man,” Mike says, and back is that long suffering tone of his, back is that eye roll and the twitching elbow, ready to nudge Steve in the side. It’s still tinged with that vulnerability, not quite Mike yet, but it’s an offering.

One of many tonight, it seems.

Steve grins, a bit lopsided and raw, shoving Mike gently as he remembers something he overheard once. “Sorry, mister Heart of our group, but I don’t think you have any leg to stand on here.”

That makes Mike freeze, though, and he stares at Steve wide-eyed; caught. Exposed. Reminded.

“What did you say?”

“Uh,” Steve falters, not sure where he went wrong — or if he went wrong at all. “I overheard Will calling you that, talking about you to, uhm. Someone. I don’t know. Why, what’s— What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Mike says, way too quickly, pulling away again with everything he has, hiding behind those walls once more, and Steve feels whiplash from it.

“Mike,” he says, his voice quiet and gentle as he turns to face him completely.

“No.”

“It’s okay,” Steve says. Promises, as much as he can.

“Shut up!”

“You’re not wrong or bad or broken. It’s okay, you’re okay.”

“I said, shut up, Steve.”

“You should see the way he looks at you, too. You should go talk to him. You—“

Mike lashes out, finally coming out from behind those walls again, only to shove at Steve, to push him away — hard enough for him to lose his balance and almost fall off the roof, clenching one hand on the edge, the other in the rainwater gutter with a bitten-off curse.

“Shit, I’m sorry!” Mike reaches for him immediately, snapping out of whatever anger Steve caused, and pulling him back until he’s safe again, apologising over and over, dead to Steve’s promises that it’s alright. “Fuck, I’m so sorry, Steve, I’m so—“

He pulls Mike against his chest, finally reaching out to hold the boy who always pushes people away when they get too close — quite literally, too.

But he doesn’t shove this time, doesn’t move out of Steve’s grasp as the mumbled apologies become heaving sobs.

“It’s okay, you’re okay, you’re so okay, Mike,” Steve tells him over and over as he holds him. The sky above is almost black now and Steve lets Mike cry into his chest.

It takes a while for Mike to calm down, but Steve just holds him through it, ready to let go whenever Mike wants to pull back and snap out of it again — but he never does, and Steve feels a certain kind of affection for the boy that is usually reserved for Lucas or Dustin.

At last, when he’s calmed down, Mike pulls back a little. “Do you really… Does it… Is it really okay?”

Can it be okay? Can I really like both? Is that not just me, being broken and wrong and bad? Will I get the chance to not be alone?

Steve swallows hard, and his voice is hoarse when he says, “Yeah. It’s really okay. ‘N’ I’m with you, yeah? If someone gives you shit for it. Or if you need a reminder.”

And Mike — puffy eyed, snotty nosed, so, so young — looks at him with those trusting eyes and nods, like he believes Steve. Like he trusts him. Like he hopes.

“Just don’t fucking shove me off your roof again.”

Ans just like that, the spell is broken, the tension is lifted, and silence has left them, as Mike almost chokes on a laugh and shoves at him again, lightly this time, before jumping off the roof so Steve can’t retaliate.

“Asshole,” he mutters, shaking his head as he, too, jumps off the roof, dusting off his pants as he watches Mike grabbing his bike. “Hey, Micycle,” he calls, cackling when Mike flips him the bird. “You want a ride back?”

Mike stops, considering as Steve casually flicks his keys into the air and catches them expertly. “What kinda music do you got?”

“The Clash, ‘cause Eddie hates them.”

“Yeah, that’s because they suck!”

Steve snorts, opening the driver’s side door. “Y’know, they’re one of Will’s favourites, actually.”

He watches Mike freeze with a grin on his face, knowing there’s no way the boy would take the bike.

“You’re so annoying,” Mike sighs as he brings his bike close to the garage and carefully lays it on the grass this time before hurrying over to Steve, getting in on the front, rolling his eyes when Steve cackles. “I don’t know why Eddie would date you—“

His words are drowned out when Steve turns up Train in Vain, drumming along on the steering wheel with a shit eating grin. Though the atmosphere is wildly different now, the spell broken and the bubble burst, it’s undeniable that something happened between them. Something big, something important.

Something that makes Mike’s annoyed, long-suffering expression be broken by the smile he’s trying to hide. It makes Steve laugh, elated and feeling something that’s much, much bigger than he himself ever could be.

It’s going to be okay. So, so okay.

Before they know it, they’re pulling up to Steve’s and he turns off the car, is about to get out when Mike makes him still again.

“Hey, Steve?”

“Hm?”

“I think it’s cool. You and Eddie.”

He smiles, relief and fondness washing over him. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Thanks.” He reaches over and ruffles Mike’s hair — a wild mane these days, but they could make it work with some care and some products. “Now go get your man, lover boy.”

“God, you suck so much, you’re so annoying!”

Steve’s cackling again when the passenger door slams shut and Mike lets himself into his house.

He spots a figure in the dark, their face lighting up when they take a drag of a cigarette — and Steve’s heart stumbles in his chest. He scrambles to get out, attempting to look calm and collected, even though Eddie always manages to see right through him.

“Hello, stranger,” he says, leaning against the wall beside Eddie, hiding away in the dark, where the world won’t see their shoulders touch, or their fingers tentatively playing with each other before they can’t take it no longer and lace their hands, holding on tight.

“Hi,” Eddie breathes. “How’d it go?”

“Fine, I think. But, uhm… I told him. About me. About us. That, uh. That okay?”

Even in the dark, Steve can feel eyes on him, but he just stares ahead, opting instead to give his warm hand a squeeze. He smiles when Eddie’s thumb begins to draw patterns on his palm.

“Hmm. Very. You think they’ll be okay?”

“Yeah,” Steve breathes, stealing Eddie’s cigarette from his mouth and pulling it between his own lips. “Yeah, I think they will be.”

[nixoon-again]

i have so many thought about tails growing up. like sonic gets more like tails, tails gets more like sonic in a way but worse.

sonic learns how to show more affection through words and actions, where he didn't know what how to deal with his emotions and buried them deep for no one to see, he learns to be more open and grows as a person who wants to be here with his friends and family, and learns to share his worries with his family too.

while tails — raised by an 11 year old who didn't talk much, didn't stick around for long, didn't like long hugs, felt trapped in too many people, hated being stuck in one place, wanted nothing but the fresh air in his quills away and alone yet so selflessly helping everyone he can — grows into a person who doesn't really know if his emotions even matter or what he should do with them. he doesn't want to cry, he doesn't want to be seen crying, he doesn't want anyone near him in his more vulnerable moments. he loathes the idea. he questions himself every night whether he actually loves his friends and family or whether they love him or are they just being nice for the sake of an unlovable kid. it's drifting them apart, it snowballs from the solo adventure tails was so excited to go on. he doesn't know how long that adventure is going to be or should it even be called an adventure because really its just him running away from the people whose presence is starting to suffocate him, he doesn't know if its the idea of hugs and "I missed you"s and celebrations that makes him want to run or his inability to handle his own emotions anymore. he's not fond of physical contact, he would rather not use his voice, he doesn't want to stay here anymore, there's an itch within him to get away, get away, get away.

but he can't. that's not who he is. so he returns and suffocates.

sonic tries to surprise him one night after a successful project by making dinner. he welcomes the fox, now taller than him, with open arms and a warm smile. tails looks at him, knows sonic is offering the hug this time for no reason but simply because he can — and where a certain 8 year old would've been ecstatic at the sight and would've ran into his brother's arms and wouldn't have let go, now is a different story. tails doesn't know what to do. he looks lost, none of his seemingly infinite knowledge helps him in that moment.

sonic notices the distress and asks if everything is okay but tails, having heard it so many times in his life, simply says "nothing. you worry too much."

tails barely touches the food, neither of them talk, he doesn't sleep. its 1:34 am. he gets the tornado and leaves.

sonic waits because regardless of everything, tails always comes back.

[skeletoninthemelonland]

"The Exocannis Ressurection"

[neproxrezi]

someone else could write it better than me but i love how the fucked up nasty shit you can make harry do/say/be in disco elysium isn't just like, random stuff caused simply by the player having free will and control over him but they're parts of who he is and who he has been

you're not a tabula rasa. you're a sudden shock of blank pages in a big, aged, damaged book and sometimes the paper you're trying to write a better man on is torn and you see something through the gaps nobody needed to see ever again. and it's just there now again, back to the surface

[to-be-a-dreamer]

Hello Newsies fandom, for your casual viewing pleasure (and because apparently some people think headcanoning the Jacobs family as Jewish is antisemitic), here is the exact passage from the official Newsies novel that states Davey is Jewish and Jack is Irish :D

It's not a headcanon, it's literally written in the source material and, even if it wasn't, this fandom has been headcanoning characters' ethnicities based on their names since 1992. They're street kids living in New York City in 1899, they're going to be a diverse group and the best thing we have to go on is their names. I know my group of mutuals headcanon at least two other characters as Jewish, somewhat if not entirely based on their names.

Like, I don't know how else to explain that headcanoning a character with a traditionally Jewish name isn't "stereotyping" it's literally just being like "oh hey, this whole family has really common Jewish names, it would be fun if they're Jewish" and then we all move on with our lives because it's also literally canon. Like, it would be bad if we were headcanoning a character as Jewish purely because they exhibit behaviors that are also associated with negative Jewish stereotypes but that's literally not what's happening here. Also I'm pretty sure it's mentioned in the non-dialogue parts of the script somewhere but I don't have access to that.

In conclusion, don't be weird about people headcanoning characters as minorities, it's not stereotyping it's literally just people existing.

(Also, I am not Jewish, so I do not at all claim to be any kind of authority on representation. If any Jewish bloggers want to weigh in I will happily read and be open to learning!)