#healing can only do so much with what it's got especially again the horrors

[fuzziemutt]

The fact that Fritz's hand shakes with the gun when he comes out of the casket lives in my mind

A side effect of diazepam are tremors

But they're also a symptom of withdrawal.... Alongside sweating (pale skin), insomnia, and nausea...

And sometimes numbness

[shooting-love-arrows]

𝐘𝐀𝐍𝐃𝐄𝐑𝐄! 𝐌𝐄𝐑𝐌𝐀𝐍

PAIRING: 𝐘𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐞! 𝐌𝐞𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐧 x [human] reader (gender not implied/specified/mentioned) SYNOPSIS: 𝐘𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐞! 𝐌𝐞𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐧 is determianted to court you (even when in his opinion it's just a formality). TW. delusional thinking, biting, mention of blood A/N: I am fighting writer's block to the best of my abilities but man, fighting Thanos would be easier than that.

𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭

𝐘𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐞! 𝐌𝐞𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐧 who courts you after the very first meeting. It starts small to see if you're interested in him in the first place (in his option it's only formality but he wants to be gentlemerman). But he wants you to know he's taking the whole matter seriously. He brings you the most beautiful trinkets, pieces of coral, pearls of various sizes and colors and shells each different from another but all in perfect condition. Sometimes he even creates jewelry from an ocean plant, pearls and shells. You are often surprised to see him eagerly swimming towards you, with a bag made out of abodemen fishnet filled to the brim with various things taken straight out of the deep sea. You're even more taken aback when it turns out those things are for you. His face absolutely lights up when you accept each and every token. 𝐘𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐞! 𝐌𝐞𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐧 also can't help but to chirp loudly, boldly showing you how happy he is to see you accepting his (courting) gifts. You have to admit, his reaction is adorable.

"Oh...look at this one!" 𝐘𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐞! 𝐌𝐞𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐧 eagerly picked up another shell who has caught his attention. It was big and only needed a little cleaning to make it shine. "It's perfect for the necklace! Oh, oh! And look at that!"

𝐘𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐞! 𝐌𝐞𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐧 who affectionately bites you whenever he gets a chance. That's the next stage of courting where an interested merfolk is supposed to nib the one he's interested in to show them they want to take courting to the next level. It's that stage where a courting couple starts to show the public that they're into each other. It served as both letting others know it's a serious matter and leaving a mark/scent on each other for the public to back off. He's got sharp canines and premolars so it's easy for him to leave a mark on your smooth skin. Marking you quickly becomes his favorite thing. Especially when he draws some blood that leaves a wonderful smell. You don't understand why 𝐘𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐞! 𝐌𝐞𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐧 does that, especially when you scold him or tell him not to do that. But he doesn't stop, nibbing at whatever part of your body he can. It's part of the courting rituals after all!

"Oh no, my marks are healing." 𝐘𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐞! 𝐌𝐞𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐧 deflated when he noticed the puncures began to fade. Only to quickly perk up when he realized he's got to mark you again and more.

𝐘𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐞! 𝐌𝐞𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐧 who takes care of his scales like never before. This is a vital part of courting since merfolk want to look their best for their mate. He was taught that as courtier, he should look his best. And that's what 𝐘𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐞! 𝐌𝐞𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐧 does. Suddenly turning from a crude merman whose only interest was hunting for food and playing around, into the beauty guru. He began to thoughtfully groom his tail, until his scales reflected and sparkled under the mere streams of sunlight. He also changed his hairstyle by braiding his hair differently to symbolize that he is now taken (even when you're unaware of that). 𝐘𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐞! 𝐌𝐞𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐧 was never more beautiful.

"This just won't do." 𝐘𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐞! 𝐌𝐞𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐧 tutted when he noticed his tail was becoming dull. He needed to look his absolute best for you!

𝐘𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐞! 𝐌𝐞𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐧 who decorates his abode for you. After you accept his first courting gift, he happily swims back to where he lives. It's a cave hidden from the plain sight that, much to his horror, appears to be extremely empty and bland. Something that just won't do, especially for his precious mate. Without a moment of hesitation, he starts the preparation. Inside his cave he plants: seaweed, kelp, red sea whips and various colorful corals. Those are only various of many but soon enough the inside of his abode is filled with soft plants, floating lazily around and glistening with colors. On the outside though, he planted a few poisonous plants that he's immune to, since 𝐘𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐞! 𝐌𝐞𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐧 doesn't want intruders to meddle somewhere where they shouldn't be. This part of the courting ritual should be done before the mating season takes place and both parties are in agreement to spend this time with each other. But as we can see, 𝐘𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐞! 𝐌𝐞𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐧 just couldn't wait and decided to be prepared. After all, he believes that this whole courting matter is only formality for you to surely return his feelings and has already accepted him as your mate. Just like he did you.

"Is it colorful enough? Should I add something more? Hm, I'll better plant more of those..."

All of the published posts on this account/blog belongs to @shooting-love-arrows. I do not consent to my works being: translated, stolen, published or reposted on this and other sites. Likes, reblogs, comments are highly appreaciated. Thank you.

[nunalastor]

I figure it’s about time I start to shout in the void(your ask box)

So here’s some HC I have:

Alastor has high pain tolerance. He’s good at knowing when to heal but he tends not to because he doesn’t notice it, so surely it’s not that bad. Vox, Husk and Rosie usually have an immediate reaction if he says he’s in any sort of pain. Rosie because they’re friends and she knows how Alastor is, Husk because he cares for Alastor on the down low(he still hates the guy but he’s a little fond of him) and Vox because he’s used to it from when he and Alastor were friends. They all know that if Al’s “sore” he’s actually dying. (Cue immediate bells for Husk when Al says he’s too tired to do something for Charlie after the Adam situation).

Alastor actually came to hell with white hair(deer genes). Hated it so he dyed it red. He accidentally set his hair on fire while trying to style it immediately after dying it so he had to emergency cut it hence the bob. Seems like the type to become fond of things quickly, so the bob stuck to the horror of literally everyone around him.

Husk can only speak the 7 languages fluently when he’s drunk. When he’s sober he can only speak 2 fluently; English and French. Ties in with my hc that Husk grew up in Louisiana before his family moved to Las Vegas. (purely so I can have him sing Friends on the Other Side to the hotel crew in my head).

Husk sneaks in more modern music into Alastor’s radio playlists that sound older than they are. This includes Tom Lehrer and medieval versions of modern music; Alastor knows all the lyrics to Montero but only the medieval version.

Charlie and Lucifer get weirdly territorial of the junk food in the house. It’s a remnant from when they would fight over the cereal when Charlie was younger, which was a fun game then but slowly got more serious as Charlie got older. It’s especially bad when they’re tired and/or hungry. Angel and Vaggie are the only ones allowed to take the food away when they’re fighting, Vaggie for obvious reasons and Angel because he can run fast. Husk can too technically, since he can just fly, but he doesn’t really want to(lazy). Same goes for Alastor(enjoys the show).

Vaggie gets really embarrassed when someone points out something nice she did or when her outfit is cute. Heaven expects everyone to always do good and look good no matter what so it’s only noticed when you aren’t. She doesn’t know how to respond to compliments or thanks so just freezes.

Niffty likes helping cook food, though she isn’t actually allowed to come close to the stove(she knocked a pot of soup over once, never again). She’s always happy to cut vegetables or deconstruct poultry.

Angel “anonymously” gives the hotel residents gifts as thanks for letting him hang around. They’re usually hand made and he tends to throw them at the person saying that “someone gave it to him and he doesn’t want it”. He thinks he’s slick but he’s not.

And of course, a cursed one: Alastor had a serving cunt era when he first arrived, where he kept with the times for like 1 year and wore scandalous clothes(like idk a backless blouse or, god forbid, an ankle length skirt) and a corset for his back problems. He got immediately embarrassed after he got over it and killed everyone who ever saw him, hence the overlord killing spree. He doesn’t wear a corset anymore, instead opting for a more discreet ensemble involving silk lines(like rope but flat?) that doesn’t impede his movements as much as a corset. His 7 year break was because he found an old photo of himself online and hid himself in shame. He eventually made a deal with someone to erase any trace of his phase from everything but his own memory. It’d be funny if that person was Velvette lol

👀👀

[shini--chan]

Hey, could I request yandere Allies punishing dear reader, only to realize afterwards that the Allies themselves misplased the knife ect? And thank you for the amazing writing you do!

The pleasure is mine, dear. And please people, don’t read this during, or after eating - this especially refers to the France part of this post. Rated mature for reasons. 

Trigger warnings: Attempted murder, temporary death, body horror, gore, domestic violence, animal death

Yandere Allies - Oversight

America

Now that had been unexpected, it occured to Alfred while he was in limbo. Limbo generally was a weird place, and it was best to focus on the internal going ons, than the external happenings. The alien geometries and starburst fractals and the unliving creatures haunting the semi-shadows would only make the aroma of his own death linger longer in his mouth should he inspect them. No need to pass over to the other side yet, either - he wasn't at the end of his life either. 

You were going to be in so much trouble when he got back. All that blood on his desk, it really wouldn't do. Perhaps he should force you to clean it up. Couldn't you have opted for a less bloody option, than slitting his throat? For all that you claimed to be kinder and fairer than him, with your modus operandi you had demonstrated that you were anything but that. And you called him a hypocrite. 

All of this because of your damn attitude problems and a misplaced knife. Hormone imbalance, mayhaps? He should have you take a blood test, just to make sure that a thyroid dysfunction wasn't on the table. 

Slowly the connection to his physical body started to reestablish itself and he felt the chill of death creep in his bones. Thankfully, due to his superpower status, his time in the limbo was relatively short and his body was therefore not too cold when he returned to it. Though, the dead time had been increasing as of late, and that was worrying all on its own. Something he would have to look at another time, though. 

Air entered his lungs and his heart gradually started pumping again. His throat felt like shit, but thankfully was closed. By the feel of it, you had covered it after you had murdered him. Speaking of you, he felt your hands rummaging in his jacket pockets. Rude. 

With some effort, he cracked his eyes open and observed you through his half-closed eyelids. He was on the floor, spread-eagle. Even through the postmortem blurr, he could recognise that you were pale beyond belief and you were shaking. The hands searching his person were frantic and your breathing was erratic. As his sense of smell kicked in, he caught the sharp sting of bile floating from his waste paper basket. 

Double Rude. If you had to kill someone, best not be a pussy about it and not vomit after doing the deed. Blazes, what was wrong with you that you couldn't even murder somebody probably? Maybe he'd have you kill one of those rats that once had vyed for your attention. Good riddance and a lesson all in one, that would be fantastic. 

Now, just to get your attention.

A hand wrapped around one of your ankles, and with his sight becoming clearer, he could see how your eyes went wide. Hands froze, and you turned your head to look down in that slow, comical fashion that was so typical of horror movie protagonists. When you screamed, he yanked your leg out from underneath you, causing the scream to morph into a yelp. 

Now this was funny

Given how distracted Alfred can get, he'll probably overlook where he placed the knife and will only realise what happened when it is too late. The best course of action would be to book it. If you want further time then you'd have to put Alfred even further out of commision, so that more time is spent healing.

When he does get you again, he'll be borderline manic and you can be assured that whatever punishment shall commence will be worse than the one that allowed you to obtain the knife in the first place.

Canada

"I do hope you just have the knife 'cause you wanna cook something", he remarked. Matthew didn't even look up from where he was plucking his eyebrows, just kept staring intently in the small beautician mirror he had before him. There were more important things than you waving a knife around as if you knew how to use it. You couldn't even chop vegetables properly.

"And what if I don't?", you asked snidely. Slippers scraped against the floorboards as you approached him. Turning the mirror just so, he saw you over his shoulder, with a knife held high. Was your pallor and trembling due to the blood loss, fear, or both?

"You wouldn't dare to kill me. We both know that."

"How can you be so sure? After everything you've done to me, why shouldn't I?", you asked in return. Your voice wasn't even - it cracked and faltered at the end of some words and he had to strain his hearing to make out the others.

The personification turned around slowly, intent on being dramatic. He jad seen Alfred and his Lord Father do so often enough for him to be able to imitate them perfectly. 

There you were standing, holding the never some knife he had used to cut paper fine cuts in your back, a tally of all the spanks he had inflicted on you. You had been so upset, the humiliation and pain forcing tears from your eyes. Not surprising that you were having a tantrum, therefore.

Matthew was taller than you and therefore it was so easy to look down on you. 

"You've never hurt somebody. You wouldn't even dare cut a bunny's throat and then skin it, even if your life depends on it. Everytime somebody talks about organs and blood for more than five minutes, you become green. Do you really think it is believable when you say you want to injure me? Or even go further than that and kill me? 

So stop lying to yourself. You don't have the guts to kill me, 'cause that would mean staining your ledger with red", he explained, and with each other word, took a step closer to you. Eventually, you had to tilt your head back to look him in the eye.

 Trembling like a frightened rabbit, you clutched the blade even tighter to make sure it didn't fall out of your hand. No further words were said, but there was no need, for when he met no resistance when he pried the implement out of your grasp, he knew his words had hit home. 

It would come as no surprise to Canada should you approach him with a knife and malicious intent. Judging from your past reactions to punishments, it would be a given that you would act out more than usual, should you get your hands on a weapon

He would be willing to let it slide, as a way of showing just how inconsequential you arming yourself is to him. It is not like you can gain the upper hand over him or something of the sort, so why should he punish you for that? Besides, he is more angry with himself for making such a mistake. He is supposed to set a standard, to have a certain image in your mind. How can he have that if he is constantly slipping up?

China

The steel felt cold against your skin. This whole thing was rather silly, even petty. It wasn't like that you didn't have unrestricted access to a whole assortment of knives. Heavens, it would take little convincing for Yao to let you take up fencing, and with historical swords for that. With a little work, you could then turn a blunted long sword into a sharp blade. This was more about the principal than the outcome.

Yao was enjoying a book on the couch, as was typical for a workday evening. There was even a cup of tea … no, herbal infusion on the table beside him and every now and then he would reach over and take a few sips. 

You just had to get your timing correct. 

After a few minutes of waiting, he finally reached over again and that was the moment you chose to strike. Quickly, you lunged in order to cross the space in the blink of an eye and rammed the knife downward.

The ugly screech of metal being embedded in wood filled the room, and the steel glinted crimson with droplets of blood. Yao hadn't even let go of the tea cup, now lifted slightly off the table surface. What he had done was spill some tea. 

There wasn't even a change in expression when he fixed his eyes on you. The cup exchanged hands and your partner lifted his hand to his mouth and sucked the blood away that was seeping out of the shallow cut in his hand.

"That was planned?", he finally inquired, his hand falling down to the table. He pushed himself upright and set the cup back down. 

It was kind of strange, now. You were kneeling at his feet and he was sitting above you, like you were some child begging for leniency from the patriarch of the family. 

"Yes."

"Don't tell me you are still upset about me eating the last of your chocolates."

"That is what you think this is about. No, it is about the dress."

"Really? That is even worse than the chocolate argument."

"Excuse you, but not everybody takes it well when you cut a dress from their body and burn it in the fireplace. It was new!"

Thin eyebrows shot up and he gave you a nasty sneer as he recalled the incident that had occured last weekend. Oh, he had made it so apparent that he hated seeing that piece on you. 

"Why would you insist on clothing your body with that filth gifted to you by that mutt? He wasn't doing it to be a friend, he was doing it because he wanted you in his bed."

Scoffing, you rose to your feet and brushed the dirt of the trousers you were wearing. 

"Don't you think I noticed? He was being rather obvious about it. And before you accuse me of wanting to sleep with him - no, just no. But I wasn't going to say no to that expensive dress.

Since China wouldn't use the knife itself to directly harm you, he'll quickly brush this all off as an overreaction. Due to such an incident occurring rather early in the relationship, it would be easy to make you see your own actions as being unreasonable. Will do his best to make you feel guilty about the whole thing.

Would treat you like a brat afterwards. You better think of something good to make up to him. This treatment would go on for a while until you "prove" to him that you are mature. Yao will use this incident to his advantage in the future - such as making you turn two blind eyes to his red flags so that you can't be accused of overreacting. 

England

Arthur had his features drawn together in a pinched expression. Muscles in his cheeks jumped as he visibly kept his anger in check. Stretch a hand out to you. 

"Now, now darling. Be good and give me the knife", he said, with that soft, light tone that was more fitting when talking to a child than with you. It made your skin crawl. It made you grip the knife in your hand ever tighter. 

"No."

"Don't draw this out longer than it has to be. Give me the knife, and then you can go curl up on the couch 'till I'm finished tending to the fire.”

He was trying so hard to reason with you, to persuade you into complying with his will. But you know, that if you do, he’ll be no more lenient with you, than if you hadn’t. That is the part of the inherent cruelty of Arthur Kirkland. He is a callous and selfish man, who parades his supposed virtues not out of the pureness of his heart, but because they are fashionable. With you, there are enough times when he forgoes keeping up appearances, because it is not like you can leave him. 

And so the sheathed blades are unsheathed, and if you step out of line, a world of pain awaits you, both in the metaphorical and the literal sense. Arthur has an ideal that he wants you to live up to, and he doesn’t take it well when you break the mould. 

He took a step forward, and you one back. This couldn’t go on. Constantly he goaded you on being weak-willed and therefore needing him to make major decisions in your life - this was the opportunity to make him eat his words. 

All factors weren’t considered when you charged forwards, blade thrusted forward and aimed at the heart. The next few seconds passed in a blur, but afterwards, looking back on it, you knew what happened: 

The fire poker was pointed downwards and used to push the kitchen knife to the side. With the momentum you had put in the move, you weren’t able to take a step back and redeploy. His right arm wound itself around your outstretched one, fastening you to his side. The poker moved swiftly, swinging over the outer side of your elbow and the tip found its home at your jugular. 

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you wanted to be subdued by me. You know how aroused I get when I get to tame you. So tell me, did you want this all along?”, he asked coyly. 

A wild spark danced in his eyes, not akin to one that you had ever seen before. A hunter that only went after the biggest, most dangerous quarry and delighted in the fight itself. The scent of blood and sweat, the screams of the dying - you had feared Arthur before, but this was a different story. There had been to much ease with how simply he turned the tables. Perhaps fears of him being a berserker at heart were well founded. 

You tried to wind out of the lock, and subsequently bent your arm. Thankfully, the poker was no longer a few milimetres from penetrating your neck, but now it was pressing you down by the elbow. The strength behind the move forced you to give in and follow the course that Arthur was directing you to. Being led around like that, you were forced to make an arc around him. The fire poker pressed your elbow towards him, giving you no choice but to flop down on your back. 

Hand and metal implement vanished and you breathed deeply. Arthur was still standing in front of the fireplace, the fire shining behind him. That, and with him standing over you, made him look like some angel about to punish you for your sins. 

“If you have to attack, then never do so half heartedly or when full of rage. I can tell you this, because either way, you never stand a chance of winning against me.”

Arthur would be very irritated in this whole matter. But if you are so insistent, then he’ll gladly play teacher to his new, so willing pupil and give you a lesson that you wouldn’t forget so fast. With all the years of combat experience and practice in swordsmanship under his belt, his victory would be a given. He would even go so far as to say he would be able to defeat you with a cooking spoon. 

Would make a whole game out of it. It has been so long since he has had a decent sparring partner that he might as well train you up to par. That way, he could easily demonstrate his superiority on a regular basis, he would have the perfect conditions to bully you, and you would get to release all those pesky emotions of yours that otherwise make you so disagreeable. Win-win, right?

France

You glowered at France. The bastard was sitting across from you, arms crossed in front of him and with a disgustingly smug grin on his obnoxious face. It was sickening really, the whole thing was sickening, and he was acting as if justice had been served. 

So far, you had managed to avoid eating the meat part of the dish, and had wasted a lot of time pushing around the chips and carrots before consuming them. The piece of meat was covered with cheese, something that you had decided on so that you wouldn't have to see it, that you wouldn't have to smell it.

Cooking your beloved pet had been bad enough as it was. The scent of blood still lingered in your nose, and even now that last panicked scream echoed in your ears. 

Now it would be time to start eating it; there was nothing else left on your plate.

You wanted to puke. 

Grabbing sideways, you managed to get the knife in your grasp. You didn't even look as to where the offending thing went exactly. Eyes were just focused on his face, and the time went in that general direction. He even had to duck.

The next moments didn't register by you, as you buried your face in your hands and sobbed loudly. All of this just because of one man's jealousy. With a sweeping motion, you sent the plate crashing to the floor, not caring that the results of you resisting your punishment. 

You just wanted this whole nightmare to be over. 

France wouldn't really be the sort to resort to physical violence, except if very specific circumstances apply, like war, colonialism or dealing with treason to the nation. Since that can't really be expected, the knife would be an instrument in your psycological torture. In the case described above, that would take the form of forcing you to kill, process and eat a pet that he is jealous of. 

In his eyes, you should be his lover and not share your love with somebody or something that isn't him or his. If you would not let him bask in your love and attention, then drastic measures shall be needed. And what is more valuable than a life? 

Russia

With a nauseating squelch, the knife buried itself in the meat of his shoulder. Blood sprayed upwards and some of it immediately seeped out of the wound. A loud grunt broke the silence as your victim was torn from his sleep through the violence. 

You wanted to wrench the blade out while you still had the chance, but it was harder to pull out than you thought. Perhaps the force behind the blow had been enough to lodge the knife in the bone. It apparently wasn't sharp enough to effortlessly slide out of it. 

On top of that, Ivan scooted out of the bed before you could dislodge the blade, fast despite the injury and the sleep weariness. Your captor stood a good few metres away, the twilight of the room making him look like some giant beast. The heavy panting and the knife handle sticking out of his shoulder only added to that image. 

"Are you insane?", he hissed. 

One large hand reached up and pulled. Now the blade came out in a fluid motion, and drops of blood sprayed forward. Due to the very loose nightshirt that he was wearing, you hadn't managed to emesh the fabric with the wound - the metal had only penetrated human tissue. 

Ivan hadn't even let out a single grunt of pain. Even now, when blood was running down his chest, then disappearing down the hemline of the shirt, staining it red, he seemed unfazed.

"You're one to talk", you snapped back. "Did it never occur to you that I might get fed up with the way you treat me and decide to retaliate?" 

He scoffed and stepped closer to you. The knife was tossed to the side, and he glowered. 

"And did it ever occur to you that I don't punish you because I find it fun, but because you need to learn that your actions have consequences? You are not some child, so you should know better than to think I'll simply let you do as you please. Though, from the stunt you've pulled now, I'm actually inclined to reassess my thoughts about your maturity", he stated. 

With each word, he took a step closer until his toes were touching yours. A strange crawling motion could be seen in the area of the wound, like it didn't want to accept the parting. 

"Oh, and weren't you of that same opinion when you put me over your knee and gave me a hiding with the flat side of that blade?", you challenged him. Oh the terror had quickly morphed into humiliation once you had realised what was going on. 

"Perhaps you should stop behaving like a sugar-addled brat then."

The skin and meat knitted itself together, a grotesk acceleration and bastardisation of the natural heal process. Ivan signed in relief and took his attention off of you and inspected the scarless skin, rolling his shoulder and flexing his muscles. 

Your heart dropped and your thoughts slowed to a standstill in shock. You had severely underestimated him.

"And also not turn to being a traitor. You know very well what I do with those."

Ivan would take your actions against him as treason and if there is something that he can't tolerate, it is a traitor. Gone are all the privileges and outings and affection. If you aren't quick to make up to him and express your remorse and see the error of your ways, you're going to have a long road ahead of you. You'll have to work hard to get back into his good graces; even just getting him to treat you with human decency would take a while. 

In his eyes, if you choose such disproportionate retaliation in response to his actions, then you either have an attitude problem or something went wrong in your upbringing. He'll be happy to correct that. It'll range from what you are allowed to eat, to the media you consume, to your bedtime. Imagine a strict headmistress or matron. 

A/N: The move I described is actually a real technique used with one handed sword. It was a cool day learning that one. 

France was hard to write, so I decided to keep it short. 

[trigunsbbygirl]

Human Things that Confuse Knives Part 2

Made a second one since I had more ideas lol

content warnings: teeth, use bomb in an analogy, mention bruises. this one gets more into the body/anatomy idk what all people are comfy with so just in case

•Knives already thinks dreams are kinda weird, but those surreal ones and the utterly weird ones that just make no sense or seemed so real you wonder if it actually happened? he wants to know what's going on in your brain. Knives will listen to you as you recount your dream, he won't say much or make any facial reactions, but part of him is kinda amazed that your can brain come up with the weirdest, coolest and/or creepiest things ever.

•the concept of having baby teeth and adult teeth weirds Knives out. when Knives learns that you do lose your teeth as a kid he's staring at you like you've just grown a second head. don't tell him that you have wisdom teeth that usually need to be taken out via surgery as a teenager. (Vash is kinda grossed out by it. found out when a kid he was playing with ran up to him and was like 'look! my tooth fell out!:D' he panicked, thinking they got hurt, but it's replaced with horror, disbelief, slight disgust and concern when he finds out every human looses a set of teeth. he hates it a little. has no idea what to do when a kid tells him that a tooth fell out. help him)

•also. imagine Knives surprise when he learns about the appendix. you had been talking with a friend when you mentioned appendicitis and that you had to have surgery. it peaked his interest and when you're done talking, Knives asks about it. he stares at you in uncertainty and disbelief the further you explain. what do you mean there's a small pouch in your stomach that serves little to no function that can essentially become a bomb? Knives doesn't actually believe you until he looks it up. he wonders how humans have survived with bodies like that.

•same wonder when it comes to you having to take vitamins and other supplements because sometimes a body won't produce enough of something or too much.

•the fact the humans shed/lose hair. Knives knows that, but it kinda grosses him out a bit. he hates seeing your hair strands, makes you clean them up. (I hc that the twins just have little to no body hair and they don't actually lose hair strands.)

•double jointed people also weirds Knives out. what do you mean you can twist or bend a joint further than normal? it doesn't exactly creep or gross him out, but he doesn't like it. he'll never admit that, but he won't look/talk to you for a bit after you show off that flexibility.

•Knives is fascinated by the way your skin can change colors. (don't mention that he can turn a lovely shade of red, he gets all huffy.) but, anyways, he loves examining your face, watching as your face gets darker with certain things he does. (also likes seeing your facial expressions. humans are so expressive..) he also likes seeing your bruises and watching as the bruise changes colors over time as it heals. you joked one day that you could give him a bruise of his own that he can watch. he didn't like the joke (he prefers to give you (consensual) bruises.)

•now let's get into reverse Isekai for a bit.

•Knives does not fucking understand social media lmao. why the hell do you have to tell people you've never met what you did or thought that day and why are so many people interested? why do people do stupid things for views??

•he hates online discourse and always tunes you out when you try to talk about something that happened online. he doesn't care and thinks it's stupid.

•do NOT let him find out about stan culture or chronically online people. he's gonna lose any faith he had in humanity again. I wouldn't worry about that too much though. he has zero online presence, never uses social media outside of YouTube and even then he only uses it to watch documentaries or how to videos.

•memes confuse him a lot, especially how fast they come and go. you don't even know how to explain them to him. "why is this picture of a man just standing so funny?" "it just is? I don't know either." how do you even explain memes and internet culture to someone who's never been on the internet lol

•Knives thinks you're really weird if you've got a skewed sense of humor where something dramatically falling over makes you laugh(thinking of that waffle video.) he watches those types of videos with a straight face and when the video ends he just stares at you, wondering if you seriously think that's funny.

•he hates those youtube poop and deepfried videos. not only does he find them stupid and doesn't understand them, but they just bother his ears.

•bonus: Vash thinks the circadian rythym is pretty neat and that some people just know when to wake up. it took Vash a while to develop one, or at least, something like that since he doesn't technically need sleep. it'll never quite be the same though since he doesn't exactly get tired like humans do. it took decades for that type of tiredness to become present, but even still, he doesn't need it to survive.

[qdbs-writes]

Mortal kombat kabal, fujin, hasashi, and kuai liang react to y/n who can’t die and things like wounds just immidiatly heal, so like y/n (while dating them) just jumps of the roof and lands in front of them and the boys are having a panic attack til there bones start snapping back in place and her neck snaps in place and she just looks up after her jaw pops back into place and just goes “hi :)” not even bothered as the blood goes back into them and wounds close back up, just ignore this if you don’t wanna do it, that’s fine too! have a good day!

MK Lads x Unkillable!Reader Experiencing Bodily Harm

Kabal

Now Kabal has seen some shit in his time, he's fucked around and found out so to speak. But nothing could prepare him for how you casually mangle your own body for no particular reason other than that you can.

The most egregious incident of your abilities was when Kabal accidentally exploded the kitchen microwave. This would've been bad enough by itself except that the explosion lodged a large piece of metal shrapnel directly into your face, embedding itself several inches into your skull.

You lie there, motionless, bleeding profusely, and all Kabal can do is stare in horror. He's seen you come back from shattered bones, torn limbs, but never something like this. Tears pour silently from his eyes, crumbling to the floor to weep before you jolt into a sitting position, arms moving about animatedly until your hands reach the chunk of metal and slide it delicately from its crevice in your head.

You turn and beam at Kabal, the bleeding canyon in your face reaching from your mouth to your forehead. His tears don't stop even as the vast gash begins to knit itself back together again. Overwhelmed with relief, Kabal could only manage the words: "Babe, what the fuck?".

Fujin

You would imagine that after living for several thousand millennia, that the gods see a lot of death, in all its many forms. Fujin had been warned away from befriending mortals because one day they would go and leave only grief in their place.

In dating you, Fujin had convinced himself that the eventual grief would be worth the relatively brief time he got to spend with you in his life. But despite all his efforts, he feared that death would take you from him too soon.

Because of your abilities, Fujin can never fully let go of this fear, as you have literally no sense of self-preservation. You'll dunk your bare hands in boiling water, merrily stroll into oncoming traffic, and even jump off high ledges to save the time of taking the stairs. Regularly your antics have left your body mangled, limp, and twisted, like a ragdoll filled with blood.

No matter how much Fujin cries, pleas, begs for you to be more careful, your wounds heal themselves and once more everything is fine. Seeing you defy death and Darwinism on such a regular basis never quite eases the pain Fujin feels when he sees you get hurt, but he is comforted that death will have to work a lot harder to take you from him.

Hanzo Hasashi (Scorpion)

I dare say going through Netherrealm and back does a number on someone, emotionally, mentally, spiritually. So Hanzo isn't coming from the best place in terms of dealing with loss or grief. Especially considering the whole dead wife and kid situation.

So I would suggest that despite your powers, don't use them in front of Hanzo, just... Don't. He's seen enough and watching you suffer isn't good for his healing.

It's mostly because he still carries a lot of regret over his actions as Scorpion and even after all his hard work still struggles to leave that part of himself behind. So you can imagine that seeing you take any kind of damage can send him back into an angry vengeful fire demon.

This isn't to say that you can never use your powers, as Hanzo is capable of channeling his rage, particularly in kombat. In those situations, you are at liberty to get your ass kicked as much as you like. But outside of that? Please remember to be mindful of how much Hanzo loves you and that he just wants you to be safe and happy.

Kuai Liang (Sub Zero)

From a psychological perspective, it would be fair to say that Kuai Liang is a man well-acquainted with pain. With this in mind, you'd assume your abilities would be disturbing for Liang, but instead, he finds a strange sense of peace. He's seen you take deadly hits again and again and you just keep getting back up!

This isn't to say that there haven't been close calls. Liang still has nightmares about the day you asked him to remove the insanely large icicles from the roof of your Arctika home. Liang was busy at the time and didn't go to remove them until after you came back. When he met you outside, he closed the door behind him, sending enough shockwaves through the building to dislodge the largest icicle, which proceeded to plunge directly into the back of your neck and out through your chest, popping your head clean off.

The icicle shatters, your body crumbles, and your severed head rolls lazily toward Liang. He stands frozen, unable to comprehend how the love of his life has just been decapitated in front of him. When he drops to his knees to cradle your head, he almost doesn't see your headless body rise unsteadily before stumbling towards him. In a fit of alarm, he launches your head into the air where your body catches it, holding it over the shoulders when the neck vertebrae snap back into place, your throat and flesh regrowing as well. As the nerves reattach your face lights up and moves again, you smile meaningfully at Liang, who now cowers in front of the door. Needless to say, any hazards you ask Liang to take care of are now immediately dealt with.

[normal-thoughts-official]

Wyll's ideal reclassing is as a bard and God herself couldn't change my mind.

Listen. I do like that Wyll is a ranger if he gets out of the pact but rangers are a lonely class by nature and fuck that. And while I also get the people who reclass him as paladin, I think the last thing he needs after getting out of Mizora's pact is to immediately be bound by a new and different set of rules to another otherwordly being he's sworn his soul to.

And while I understand why the devs didn't do this, since bards are sort of a support class and there are many possible endings for Wyll where he is on his own, I am bound by no such rules because i know that the only real canon ending is that he is with Karlach.

So, bard Wyll.

For starters, the man loves drama. Look no further than his introduction, but I would also like to present to the jury the conversation where he tries to find Gale a Cool Wizard Name. Pretty much the only thing he ever has fun with anymore is his theatrics. He'd love every second of being a bard and using said theatrics to defeat his foes. Especially because Wyll is a sweetheart but when he's angry he is angry, and as a bard he gets to let his mean streak out with spells like vicious mockery and such. "Oh he already has vicious mockery as a warlock if you have the pact of the tome" thank you for further supporting my argument. He was made for this

But there is more! Wyll is a folk hero and his whole thing is that he wants to help the weak and in need, and if that isn't supporter class material, then I seriously don't know what is. Yes, defeating monsters is important; but healing people, restoring balance by weakening those who abuse their strength, entertaining and making them happy are all just as important ways of supporting the weak, if not more important.

And those ways allow him to be closer to people, which he is so desperately starved of.

As a warlock he sort of had to keep his distance because Mizora would make sure he never got close to anyone, either intentionally or just by the fact that the nature of his pact put people off (even more so after the horns). Unbound by Mizora, he has no such problems and can find a community, even if temporary, with the people he saves. "Oh but you just said you want him to be with Karlach and then he's in Hell". Yes, and there are people there. Show me a single place with more people who are weak and unfortunate in need of rescuing and respite. I'm not the first person to say this, but they actually have the chance to turn the House of Hope into an actual house of hope where people can rest and escape the horrors of the Hells. And those people would need respite and happiness, and Wyll "Drama Boy" Ravengard would be delighted to provide and find himself among them.

Also, if no one else, he has Karlach, and there is nothing he wants more than to see her happy and alright. I don't need to justify this one, it's text. So, again, supporter class makes a lot of sense in that context. Warlock/ranger is good for when he's on his own, but he's sworn to help and protect Karlach now, and while fighting side by side obviously qualifies, being able to heal her - make sure she's alright - support her in battle more than just fighting with her, gives them a deeper bond and puts him more at ease, I believe. Plus, they both deserve and desperately need some playfulness in their lives, so, at the very least, he can make her laugh with his insane Vicious Mockery casts. He kind of overcasts that one because 1- he has fun with it, and 2- it makes Karlach smile, but they're both op as fuck so it doesn't matter anyway. It's the closest they can get to lightness and fun while they don't find a definitive cure for Karlach's heart.

And once they do find it and get the fuck out of there, listen. They both deserve some downtime, okay. We're talking about two people who have been thrown into fighting nonstop since they were barely on the cusp of adulthood, and who have more trauma to unpack than years of life. So fuck going straight back to adventures and oaths and nonstop seriousness. Sure, Wyll would want to, but he also wanted to go to fucking Hell for no reason. Even with his father back, even free of Mizora, that's the only thing he can think to do with himself if you let him choose. And he deserves better than that. He deserves to rest and unpack what's happened and find value in himself beyond the Blade of Frontiers, to enjoy the youth that was stolen from him; and the man craves to settle down more than anything, even if he won't admit it even to himself other than the marriage aspect of things. But need I remind everyone that when Wyll had been given a death sentence - the tadpole - what he did was stop at a grove and teach kids how to fight? He thought he would do one last mission and then die, and what he did was that for once he allowed himself to stay and get to know people and be part of a community for a while. Sure, they needed him, but so many people did. And he was supposed to be hunting Karlach, yet he put that aside in order to have a place to belong, just for a little while, before he became a monster and lost his soul (which is fine, really. One way or the other, he knew that would be his fate. It's just coming sooner than expected, that's all) (this is me laying down Wyll's logic. None of this is fine and I'm screaming and crying).

As for Karlach, she never even wanted to be thrown into any of this anyway. Once they're out of Avernus, they will both need to rest and breathe, and that is final. And as a bard, Wyll can settle down. He can find a home and a community, have a place to come back to, have vacations when he needs to, have fun when he wants to. He will never fully give up being a hero - it's who he is, it's who he's always been even before he was the Blade. Someone who cares, someone who wants to be there for others - but he can and should find balance between that and being himself. And what better class to do that than the artsy, dramatic, drawing-strength-from-your-own-self-expression class?

Plus, as a bard, he gets to sing absolutely off the shits songs about the Blade of Frontiers/Avernus while being the Blade of Frontiers/Avernus. The comedy potential is unlimited. You want to see that. You agree. Don't lie to me.

Also, bards' spellcasting modifier is also charisma, so that's just convenient. I know that when you get reclassed in bg3 you can simply change your stats but uhhhhh. Fuck that? And yes, yes, he already has high wisdom because if anyone has a will of iron it's him, but I also feel like Wyll's off the shits charisma is a part of who he is. He is charming, both in the romantic and non-romantic sense. He enjoys being around people, he loves culture more than anything (I am once again thinking about his idle dialogue with Gale at the tollhouse when Gale says that they must have been very rich with all the trade from the Chiontar and Wyll replies, "And they wouldn't have brought just trade goods, but song, dance, and custom. Riches of the mind and the spirit". If that doesn't summarize Wyll's values and love of life I don't know what the fuck does), he likes being social and charming others. And people are drawn to him, people trust him, because he's a goddamn folk hero through and through, and not just because he's the Blade of Frontiers. So keeping his stats and using his charisma to draw his magical strength just makes sense for him

There's no other class that Wyll would enjoy as much, that would allow him to keep his favorite parts of being the Blade while also allowing room to be himself, or that would fit his current stats as well. Wyll was made to be a bard and I'll go to war over this

[mysteriouslybluepirate]

OFMD S2 EP 4-5: Izzy Hands (from a S1 Izzy fan)

I'll admit. I teared up at the Izzy shit in ep 1-3. Not a full-blown cry. But close. I was stressed, and tired, and hurt more than anything. I only cried in my car driving home. It hit, but it was more prolonged.

Do you know what got me crying? Izzy opened that letter, revealing 'For The New Unicorn'. He looks up and smiles. I went from 0-100 dry eyes to crying in seconds. I had to rewatch it because HELL.

The entire episode, hell, debatably from (S1ep4) we see Izzy go through it. Socially isolated and losing his identity. Leading up to S2ep4. Drunk and sad and heartbroken. He tries his best to stay afloat without a lifejacket as his self crumbles around him. He doesn't care anymore. He thinks his life is over. He lashes out because there's no one there to help him.

BUT THEN THE LEG. He cried and I cried during both scenes.

BECAUSE HE IS CARED ABOUT AND HE CAN HEAL!

GOD, and the way that leads into EPISODE 5. Izzy slicked his hair back and regaining some of his own personal identity. Izzy genuinely bantering with Stede, and gently helping him to be a better Captain. The way he desperately asks Stede if Ed said anything else nice about him? Showing that. Yeah, he's not all the way there yet, but he's working on it. The training scene where Izzy just looks on in fascinated horror at Stede's skills? THE LITTE OKAY HANDSIGNAL AT THE END WHEN STEDE USED HIS GRUFF VOICE? He smiles, and jokes, and TRIES. Izzy is pissed, obviously, but he's getting there.

He is kind and caring, all WHILE STILL BEING A PRICK? Him being a total nerd during the curse monologue? Izzy mutters 'rude' and pointedly crosses his legs as Stede ruins the vibe. I laughed harder at Izzy sitting at that desk than I did at most of the jokes in the show. THAT'S MY FUCKING BASTARD!! I'm so happy I saw a character and have been rewarded by showing, yes. He is kind, and trying, but he needs to learn to let himself become new.

I fucking love him. I can tell from the teaser that Izzy is just going to grow closer with the crew (and with himself) and I can't wait. (Even if it means his imminent capture, whoops).

I do think they'll do something with Izzy/Lucius, at least a single happy (Izzy no longer holding himself back from wanting) consensual kiss or genuine discussion about life(post-wedding) to show their growth as characters because I had to pause with the cig and shark interaction. Jesus Christ. I didn't really ship it before, but they are so snarky and it's great.

I'm a bit sad as Izzy's current arc likely means he might not get the big 'fuck you' moment of anger to Ed that Lucius got. Mainly because Con would make me cry, but If Izzy is genuinely just shoving this shit down, ignoring the years that Ed ignored his existence, then...idk.

They purposefully gave Izzy and Ed no scenes and thank god we get a TINY break. Because Ed will try to patch things up, and I don't think it works like that with Izzy. He needs proof that Ed is trying. Add to that Ed ACTUALLY saying sorry to him, and not expecting Izzy to immediately accept it(my theory as to why Lucius pointed it out: Ed will ACTUALLY say sorry to Izzy and mean it. This will heal something for Izzy, and hell). I can't wait for Ed to come back and see him. See him for who he is, a silly prick who is loyal to a fault, who is loved.

This is likely the happiest two episodes we'll get, and fuck, I loved them both SO MUCH. After a rewatch I'll write about the crew. Ed/Stede is actually working for me as we watch them both learn, and Fuck, Lucius/Pete...my darlings.

NOW FOR THE TEASER:

THE IDEA OF SEEING CON IN DRAG AGAIN MAKES ME SO HAPPY! Especially what it means for Izzy. Izzy lets his hair down and has fun with Wee John as he explores what actually makes him happy. Hell, him opening up to being a bit of a masochist as a joke while tied up is...actually my favorite thing (while obvious, given his propensity to put Ed before him in all matters, Izzy casually mentioning 'I like to be roughed a bit up' in front of the crew is the type of openness about himself that I crave). Izzy "cocksuckers" Hands letting himself joke about SEX-GAY SEX(probably)- Kill me now.

(To clarify: I don't think he or Ed ever got off to the abuse, hell, we see Ed flinch away when Anne/Mary do it. That's not the face of someone who knows what that's like as the Sadist).

I just love the way Izzy has so obviously relaxed into a person that he'd never let exist. Hell. I hope Izzy gets to rub this happier version of himself RIGHT in Edward's sad face. I need a 'he was never like this with me' moment of Ed watching Izzy SMILE to parallel Izzy's jealousy in S1.

Con obviously loves this character, you can see it in the performance. He fills the role perfectly, from his ups to his downs. Con smiles and hell, that's not Con, that's Izzy fucking Hands. Striding along proudly pretending his world isn't changing, because it is, and he is healing and I LOVE IT.

I am so proud of our growing Izzy loving community. For some, we've been through a lot of shit. Probably in life, and hell, maybe even in this fandom. Even if you haven't been harassed, you loved Izzy, you saw yourself in him, and I hope you felt the show giving us a big fucking hug.

We grow, we recover, and hell. We get a happy fucking ending (with a few yet-to-be-seen bumps in the road).

[s6onder]

ranting about miguel o’hara :)

miguel is a misunderstood character. a lot of people see him as a villain because of his displays of aggression, but i feel like they only focus on that part while forgetting that he's literally spider-man. miguel blames himself for his mistake and is taking responsibility for it while spot caused his own demise yet blames everyone else but himself. although miguel's not completely innocent, he's not the bad guy either. spot is the villain, miguel is the antagonist.

miguel taking the risk of replacing his deceased variant shows how important the role of a father/caretaker is to him. he must have been going through something like wanting to make better his trauma of having abusive parents. it makes sense for him to do such a thing because he could finally live the life he’s always wanted, and that was by being a good parental figure to gabriella as a way to heal himself. also, in this post, issue eight states that with the amount that miguel has been genetically altered, the possibility of him having children with someone isn't likely. this could be another reason as to why he wanted to raise gabriella as his own daughter.

when miguel was explaining how canon events worked to miles, he was completely calm. he wasn’t threatening miles nor showing any signs of hurting him. he explained everything while also understanding and comforting miles. this can tell us that he’s not prone to lashing out and is normally not an aggressive type of person.

claws in claws out

peter says that miguel has no bite and allows him to hold his daughter. the reason why? because peter knows that miguel wouldn't do anything to harm anyone. miguel retracts his claws when he gets his hands on miles, which shows that he doesn’t intend to hurt miles. however, when miguel attacks the go home machine, he does use his claws, though not on miles. in addition, peter and everyone else stand back to watch in shock because something like this has never happened. if this was a regular occurrence, they wouldn't seem so surprised and in horror as they do. they've never seen miguel so frustrated and angry before.

miles has gone through a lot by losing someone important to him and now knowing that his father is going to die. but at the same time, miguel had to watch his daughter die because he broke the canon. so, miguel got angry because miles took off running, which in his mind means that miles's condemning a universe. miguel wants to prevent miles's universe from collapsing so that miles doesn't have to go through what he went through.

i agree that his methods were extreme, but the culpability he feels as a result of his daughter’s death pushes him to take those measures. when he captures miles, he projects all of his pent-up emotions onto him. especially when he says, “and i have been the only one holding it all together.” the only one who can prevent the multiverse from complete doom is miguel, which is mentioned in the atsv art book. he pushes all of that responsibility onto himself, believing that he’s the only one in charge of protecting every single universe. this causes him an immense amount of stress, tension, etc. miguel didn't mean to go that far with miles, but the amount of pressure on his hands, someone going against his advice, experiences, and what he thinks is right is what made him snap. he doesn't want to live with the guilt of another universe being destroyed because if that did happen, it'll be his fault and i think that would completely break him all over again. he’s already lost so much, compelling him to maintain what he has at any cost.

when gwen says, “we’re supposed to be the good guys.” before she's sent away, you can see the uncertainty in miguel's expression after he replies, “we are.” he looks like he’s trying to reassure himself that what he’s doing is for the best, that what he's doing is right.

having an ai as his only source of company and pushing everyone away makes him lonely. most likely, he doesn't risk getting close to anyone because he doesn't want to lose anyone again. he doesn't want to carry the burden of losing someone and feel guilty if something like what happened to his daughter happened once again. he’s just a broken man who's been through a lot and let his emotions get the best of him.

i'd like to end this really long post by saying that i love miguel and everything about him. i want to give him a huge hug and comfort him. i'd do anything for him. he deserves everything. i love him. he's so beautiful. he’s such a cool spiderman. i love him. i can never stop thinking about him. he lives in my head rent free. i can't wait to see him in the next movie. i love him. i hope he redeems himself and is happy. i need to see him smile again. i could talk about him forever. did i mention that i love him? i love him so much. <3

[deathmetalunicorn1]

Part 9 They finally enter Skypeia (Though she either stayed inside to stay safe or because of her height Amazon didn’t get her picture)

They meet the Sky Knight and Pierre (And when Pierre transformed only Reader was sparkly eyed at the ‘Pegasus’) then meet Conis and Pagaya, with Reader joining Nami on the Waver (Nami wanted to give her a fun ride)

When they went to Upper Yard, Reader used her power to heal that man that was struck, gaining the attention of the Priests, but she escaped from their sight, and the Priests find it hard to believe a mortal can cancel Enel’s ‘Divine Action’… unless she’s a God like Enel, and tell him about her)

When they come back to meet the White Berets, labeling them as ‘Criminals’, though Luffy, Sanji, Usopp and Reader (They refuse to leave Reader alone) must save Nami, Zoro, Robin and Chopper by going to Upper Yard (Battling the Priest Satori, when he tried to kidnap Reader, that was game over for him), meeting up with the others to look for the City of Gold, with Reader on the Escape Team (None of the Straw Hats want Reader in danger)

However, Enel appears and attacks Sanji and Usopp, but before she could heal them, Enel takes her with him (Enel could sense Reader’s power and believes she’s a God, like him) and begins to slaughter a bunch of the ‘players’ with her in his arms (Enel reminds Reader of ‘That Man’, but the only difference is Enel’s oddly ‘caring’ to her, calling her ‘Little Goddess’) as she’s trembling and silently crying, as Enel meets the remaining players, Reader in his arms, which angers the Straw Hats, especially since they can see the horror and fear in her eyes

This made Luffy even more pissed off and have a bigger reason to kick Enel’s ass after he got out of the snake, however, after the battle, Reader cries tears of joy as she’s hugging Luffy, before passing out from healing him and bringing Kalgura and Mont Blanc to life, fulfilling their promise to meet each other again, and everyone begins to party (When it’s time to leave the island, they all turn pale and their eyes pop out of sockets once they realize they’re about to drop 10,000 feet)

Or you can do whatever you want with this (This arc is a lot)

This arc is very long, so I will be abridging it just a bit.

-Chopper made you stay inside his clinic after he found out that you had bumped your head, wanting you to rest until the ship was docked.

-However, on the way as Usopp carried you, the ship was attacked by a masked man, scaring you and Luffy had difficulties fighting back, due to the clouds being similar to the ocean and due to the thin air.

-Your eyes went huge when a knight in shiny armor came to the rescue, riding on a Pegasus! Despite that it was just a bird, and the knight introduced himself as Gan Fall and gave Nami a whistle to call for help if you ever needed it.

-Since you were inside, Amazon didn’t see your face, not even realizing that you were there, as she demanded the toll for each person on the ship, but not knowing the currency, they couldn’t pay it. Amazon didn’t care, saying that you all could enter, but you would be labeled as criminals, something you didn’t realize as you were trying hard not to fall asleep.

-You ended up falling asleep and when you came outside you met two new people, angels, Pagaya and his daughter Conis. Your eyes were huge and sparkly as you peeked out from behind Luffy’s leg, “Angels?”

-Conis thought you were adorable, immediately cuddling you close, “You’re so cute Y/N!!” and you couldn’t help but grin, finding her embrace so warm.

-Pagaya fixed up the waver and Nami, who asked to try it out, beamed down at you, “Wanna go on an adventure?” your eyes were sparkly and instantly agreed.

-At first it was scary, holding onto Nami’s leg, feeling the wind rushing by before you were laughing and squealing in delight, having so much fun.

-You saw something in the distance, “Nami look- there’s a forest over there!” she followed your gaze and pointed finger and saw what you saw and headed over there.

-Nami and you explored a bit of the island, finding it full of vegetation until you heard shouts and you both ducked behind a tree, seeing a man being chased by priests. Nami clutched you close when a bolt of lightning shot down and struck down the man.

-You gasped, running out, slipping out of Nami’s arms and you ran to the man, your horn immediately flaring, healing him. He was still unconscious, but healed before you heard the shouts of the priests who had seen what you had done, only seeing that you were a little girl as you ran back to Nami who grabbed you, trying to run away.

-The priests were in awe of what you had done, many of them thinking you were a god as well, as you had reversed Enel’s own divine actions and one ran off to tell Enel of the other god while the others went to find you.

-Nami glared as she saw the White Berets, learning that they were here to arrest all of you, except for you as they didn’t know about you, having the faces of the rest of your crew, and she spoke, “Hang on Y/N!!” she rammed the waver into the leader, McKinley, shouting at him that the toll that needed to be paid was too damn high!!

-The Straw Hats became Class 2 Criminals, which were criminals to be dealt with by the priests and Nami told everyone, after the White Berets were gone, that the priests saw you use your ability to heal someone who had been struck by lightning. Conis and Pagaya’s jaws fell open in shock, hearing that you had a divine ability as well.

-You all learned that Skypeia was ruled by a god, Enel, who used his powers over lightning to invoke his rule and power over them all, and all were expected to abide by his rules.

-You stayed on the ship with Nami, Chopper, Robin, and Zoro while Luffy went to get supplies with the others, led by Conis.

-You nearly fell when the ship suddenly jerked and your eyes widened, seeing giant shrimp pulling the ship towards the Upper Yard, the forest where you and Nami were at earlier.

-You heard Luffy shouting out your name and you cried out, tears spilling over, “Big brother!!”

-You were scared, being held by Robin as you trembled in her arms, not knowing where you were all being taken. Robin hid you inside after Nami asked her to, remembering that the priests were after you and you nodded, hiding away in the gally, eating an apple Robin had cut up for you, hiding under the table again.

-When Nami came to get out after the ship jerked a few times before going completely still, you were scared to find the ship on something like an altar, clinging to her leg again.

-Not knowing where you all were, Robin, Zoro, and Nami decided to explore the area, leaving you with Chopper on the ship, with Nami leaving Gan Fall’s whistle with him, just in case.

-It was a lucky thing too when a priest, Shura arrived, finding only you and a reindeer and his eyes instantly widened, seeing you, the child goddess they were hunting for and he immediately went on the attack when Chopper stood in his way, setting the ship on fire.

-You were scared, holding onto Chopper who blew the whistle, both of you crying loudly for help. Shura was about to kill Chopper when Gan Fall arrived, saving you both at the last moment.

-Gan Fall was extremely strong, fighting Shura almost evenly but you gasped when he, Chopper, and Pierre fell into the clouds after Chopper rushed to help the knight.

-You heard the sound of South Birds, and a huge flock rescued the three of them, making you smile brightly as they brought them up to the altar besides the damaged ship before flying up to you, a few cuddling with you before they helped you off the ship, as you couldn’t climb down by yourself without risk of hurting yourself.

-When the others all arrived just as the sun was going down, you leapt into Luffy’s arms after he shouted out your name glad to see that you were all right. Between Zoro’s group, Luffy’s group, and your own group, information was exchanged about this area, Upper Yard, was part of Jaya, the island of pirates, and that it looked like a skull so many years ago and this part was shot into the sky due to the Knock Up Steam.

-Your eyes were huge and sparkly, hearing that you were all going to look for the City of Gold in the morning which made you smile brightly before you all heard a voice, “I don’t think so.”

-Floating above you all was Enel and his priests, who confirmed your location, thanks to Shura, and Enel came himself to collect the little goddess.

-Some were blown away by the priests while Luffy charged to defend you, only to be knocked out into the ocean of clouds with Nami leaping in after him to save him.

-You cried out for Usopp and Sanji, who both got hit with lightning, falling to your rear as your arms came to your head, shielding yourself.

-Your breath hitched in fear as Enel approached you, seeing your horn as you had tried to rush to your big brothers to heal them and he picked you up, holding you gently, so carefully, “Little Goddess- let us return together.” You tried to get out, calling out for your family as Enel took off, kidnapping you.

-Enel was ruthless, easily striking down various guerrilla warriors led by Wyper, making you covering your ears with your hands, trembling in fear, crying so hard that you actually made yourself faint.

-It was quiet when you woke up, you were laying in something soft that felt nice, but your head hurt from crying so hard. Enel was there and you immediately pulled back, pulling the blanket over you to hide.

-He chuckled softly, seeing you hide, thinking you were adorable as he sat beside you, putting a hand on your back, he wasn’t hurting you, which confused you as he was so much like Over- That Man, as he had been so scary and cruel, but he was being so gentle with you, “Little Goddess how are you feeling?”

-You were confused, sitting up just slightly and he could see your little nose peeking out, “I’m not a goddess?” oh dear- it seems like you were unaware that you were a goddess, those humans must have taught you that you were just a normal human with amazing abilities to take advantage of you. No matter now, he was there now, he would take care of you and keep you safe.

-When his priests ran in, telling him that the Shandia Warriors and the Straw Hats were in route along with Gan Fall, to take over and to take you back, before they could even speak you flinched hard at their loud voices, something Enel noticed, that you were scared of them, seeing Shura there, remembering him as the man who attacked the ship, Gan Fall, Pierre, and Chopper.

-Enel stood, angry that you were scared of these priests who were yelling, telling Enel of the incoming threat, and he instantly spoke, “You’re scaring my little goddess.” Before he instantly struck them all down, scaring you even more.

-Enel quickly realized that you were innocent, not used to seeing death, and you flinched away from him, now scared and he bowed his head to you, “I’m sorry for scaring you little goddess, that was not my intent, I was merely getting rid of those you were scared of.”

-You couldn’t answer, your throat felt tight as you tried to remain calm. However, Enel couldn’t ignore the threat of those who were coming to steal you away from him, to steal his throne away from him.

-Seeing you in Enel’s arms, silent tears streaming down your face, biting your bottom lip so hard you were almost bleeding, unable to speak or even react to your family instantly had them all furious.

-Wyper, seeing a child being held by Enel, became enraged, and learned that these human warriors were your family, your true family, and Enel had taken you away, swearing that he would help the Straw Hats take you back since they were helping him and his warriors take on Enel.

-Luffy was furious, seeing you so scared, and Enel summoned his warriors, the 50 Divine Soldiers, to fight against those who were trying to oppose him, and everyone else in the crew made an opening for Luffy to go straight to Enel, straight to you.

-Enel had no choice but to put you down so he could fight seriously, seeing the rage in Luffy’s eyes, as your big brother was fueled by your tears, not wanting to see you cry ever again.

-Enel tried to hit Luffy with his powers and you, Enel, and Luffy were all incredibly confused, seeing that it wasn’t working, all of you tilting your head to the side in unison. That’s when you all realized that Luffy was a rubber man! Lightning didn’t affect him!!

-Your tears fell when you saw Luffy and the others all hurt, beginning to panic as your eyes clenched tightly shut, your hands covering your ears as you hunched over, your voice barely a whisper, “Help!”

-A bright aura surrounded you, your horn flaring, as your tears fell, two figures slowly rose out of the cloud ocean, rising to be beside you, both of them hunched over you, like they were guarding you as everyone was gawking in awe.

-This was nothing like when you brought Bell-Mere back to life, as there were nothing around you to bring anyone back, no hair, nothing. You were bringing two people back into existence on sheer will alone.

-The ruins around you seemed to be rebuilding all around you, returning them to their former glory, stunning everyone around you. A gentle hand came to your back, touching you gently, “Well now- this is unexpected.”

-Wyper’s mouth was open, his cigarette falling from his lips, seeing his ancestor, Kalgara himself standing there, with Mont Blanc Nolan as well, the two realizing they had been brought back to life by you.

-Enel took the distraction to run, heading to his own ship to escape to the Fairy Vearth, the moon, he wanted to bring you with him, looking back after you, but he knew he couldn’t steal you away.

-Luffy ran for you, “Y/N!!!” you were so dizzy, your face flushed as he hugged you and you felt a smile lifting your lips, “Big brother…” before you passed out.

-Chopper and the doctors of Skypiea worked together once they arrived back to Conis’ house, stunning everyone that you had brought back two heroes from history, and you were quickly labeled a goddess, despite your family telling them all otherwise, they wouldn’t listen.

-The ship was brought back and repaired to handle the trip back down to the ocean you all knew, and Luffy remembers seeing someone repairing the ship back in the Upper Yard, but he didn’t know who it was.

-It was almost a week before you woke up, feeling very weak, almost like you had a fever, and you were quickly buried in hugs, your family all taking turns hugging you while sobbing loudly that you were okay, except for Zoro who just hugged you and Robin who only had a few tears slip out.

-Nami flicked your forehead, scolding you for overdoing it again, but her punishment didn’t hurt too much, just for a moment or two.

-When you met Mont Blanc and Kalgara, your eyes were huge as you were in Sanji’s lap, letting him feed you, holding onto Mont Blanc’s hand as he was smiling, “I did that? How?” unfortunately nobody had an answer as Nami spoke, “This isn’t like when you brought Bell-Mere back, with a lock of her hair, these two manifested on their owns, as well as you bringing the ruins back to what they looked like when they first arrived in the clouds.

-The citizens of Skypiea all hailed you as a goddess, one who brought their saviors back to them, which confused you and you touched all of their hearts, “I’m not a goddess, I’m just Y/N.”

-Your eyes sparkled seeing all of the gold on the ship, as it was so shiny and pretty, making you beam as Luffy said goodbye to everyone, with Gan Fall, Kalgara, and Mont Blanc becoming the rulers of Skypiea, the three of them swearing to work together.

-The Balloon Octopus slowed the descent back into the ocean and your eyes were so wide and huge, seeing it in action, having fun floating back down into the ocean.

-The Going Merry was pretty banged up, and after some discussion, the decision was made to find not only someone to repair the ship, but to find a shipwright as well to join the crew, vetoing Luffy’s decision on getting a musician…again.

[extreme-unorthodox-cuddles]

An encounter

So because me and some frens have started a thing about silly horror/analog horror stuff on discord I wrote this silly thing with my sona (who I don't think I've really said anything about on here will do that once I feel confident enough to draw him) doing a silly spooky thing

Content warning for unwilling prey, some horror elements and mild(?) body horror

Also @mysticcomfort because you told me to post this here

Wandering is risky, especially when alone. The sightings of unknown phenomena and disappearances and subsequent reappearances of those who do so are exemplary of this. Yet that can end up not deterring some, and even encouraging others, wanting to be the first to record what has been causing the strange happenings. But still, it is best to know the area, lest you get lost.

As one poor soul found out the hard way.

They pushed past branches and gazed up at the sky, void of any stars, trying to find some sense of direction. Every tree seemed identical, and no indicative light could be seen. They trekked through the foliage, hoping that if they continued in a straight line, they would come across something. But at the same time, they questioned if that would really be better than encountering nothing. Quiet shuffling could be heard all around them, and they could swear that branches and roots of trees seemed to appear and disappear. Sometimes, in the dark, the rings on a birch tree’s bark almost seemed like real eyes staring right at them, but a blink got rid of the feeling.

A sudden loud noise startled them, and they walked backwards from it, until they bumped into something. They yelped, starting to panic as they twirled around to face what they bumped into, and saw a strange person wearing a tall hat turn around as well, though notably calmer.

“Woah, woah, you ok? You look like you just saw a ghost.” He said to them, trying to ease them. “You seem lost, are ya lost?”

They explained their plight to the stranger, having let their guard down now that they have another human to talk to. He held his hand up to his face in a thoughtful pose while he listened.

“Hmm. Well, I know the area here quite well, I can help you if you want, just follow me, I’ll take you somewhere safe.”

He began walking off, and they followed suit. They had an uneasy feeling in them, but it was overcome by their relief at finally having someone else to talk to. Besides, of the recent disappearances, everyone had returned and the most damage they were aware of happening to them was nothing more than a few cuts and bruises, the kind that would heal in a week at most.

Their unease grew, however, when the stranger walked down into a bunker of some kind. 

“I know this seems like a bad idea, but I promise you you’ll be safe.” He gave them a smile, though something about it seemed… off, slightly. But despite their uneasy feelings, they followed in.

There was very little light in the bunker, aside from a ceiling light that only illuminated a small spot in the center of the room. They couldn’t see the person they followed in, and it didn’t help they could swear they saw something slip out from the light as they approached. They called out with a low voice. And shortly after doing so, they heard the door shut behind them, and they swiveled around to look, not that they could see much.

“Sorry to have tricked you like that.” A familiar voice echoed from the side of the room opposite the door, making them swivel around again. As he spoke, some other quieter voices spoke the same words at the same time, but all around them. “I think we can both agree that you would have found it a bit harder to trust me like this.” He approached them, and as he stepped into the light, it was clear he was different. His legs were preceded by black tendrils, swiftly growing on the ground before him in very general directions. His arms seemed to have grown, becoming a material not unlike that of the tendrils on the ground, which they had noticed were on the walls and ceiling as well. And his mouth had grown wider, and was filled with jagged, teal, crystalline teeth, with a couple more of those tendrils flowing out like long tongues, and a similar mouth had formed on the exposed patch of his stomach.

They couldn’t move, couldn’t even speak, paralyzed with fear, while he continued his approach. He lifted his arms and wrapped them around them, meaning they couldn’t move now even if they wanted to.

“I do keep my word, though. I will keep you somewhere safe. Though you… might not like where exactly that is.” As he said that, he began opening his mouth wide, and elongating the tendrils in his mouth, wrapping them around them. They struggled against him, but it proved completely ineffective as they were pulled into the void of this… thing’s mouth. They felt the pull of what might be considered throat muscles pulling them deeper. They couldn’t believe what was happening to them. It had to be a nightmare. They kept being pulled in further and further, until they were curled up in a tight space, unable to escape. They soon eventually passed out from everything that had just happened to them.

…

They jolted up in bed, gasping for breath. In bed… It was a nightmare. They caught their breath and calmed themself down, briefly nervously laughing. They checked themself just in case they were hurt, but nothing was wrong, they were perfectly fine. They breathed a sigh of sheer relief and turned on their bedside lamp. Their paranoia must still be high, as they thought they saw some black tendrils quickly recede into the cracks of their doorframe the moment the room was flooded with light.

[themightyhumanbroom]

Come As You Are Chapter 2 Preview

“Marvelous work really.”

Just ignore him

“Why, she almost had 5 different kinds of whiplash when you got there.”

He's not real

“In fact it's a miracle she's not dead.

It's just your imagination

“It's pathetic how you can't even carry somebody correctly.”

An hallucination 

“It's something even a dribbling idiot can do.”

A mirage 

“I mean if Sonic can do it, what does that make you?”

“SHUT THE FUCK UP!” she finally snapped. 

She froze in horror then quickly looked around. Her sigh of relief was spoiled when a malicious chuckle reminded her that she was only ‘technically’ alone.

“It's good to see your volume hasn't changed one bit,” Starline snarked. 

Surge growled in rage before turning away and continued walking aimlessly around HQ, his mocking laughter following her.

Ever since waking up from her four day coma she had been enduring hallucinations of the late Dr. Starline. Surge knew it wasn't actually him but it was such a perfect recreation of him and- 

“So what are you going to louse up this time?” 

-he wouldn't shut up!

Luckily he only showed up when she was angry or frustrated. Unfortunately these were common emotions for her, especially now after being put on light duty. One would think this would mean she would be feeling these emotions less but considering this meant not being allowed doing something she enjoyed and was great at, it very much achieved the opposite. 

She hasn't told anyone about this. She didn't want to worry Kit, she didn't want her therapist Wicklow to potentially report her to Jewel, and she definitely didn't want Lanolin to think she was a psychotic freak. 

“You mean more than you already are?” Starline needled

Surge ignored this jab and kept walking until she started seeing people bustling about. Her mood immediately improved a little at this, finding that she was slowly actually starting to like being around random people for a change. This used to be because she was actually healing and learning to trust again, but now it's more so because she was being haunted by her mental personification of her trauma and being alone made it a lot worse.

Friendly smiles and waves greeted her as she wandered about. Surge was sure she had blown any goodwill she earned after destroying the machine shop during her fight with Captain Test-tube but when people found out she was put in a coma and why exactly she flipped her shit they were quick to forgive her. This still unfamiliar grace she was given is why she was hellbent on making sure no one found out she was seeing things that weren't there, not wanting to stress test it.

Turning a corner, Surge’s mood improved further upon seeing one of if not her absolute favorite people, Lanolin. Surge wondered why the sheep looked so happy for all of two seconds until she noticed she wasn't alone. 

WHO THE ACTUAL HELL IS THAT MITTEN WEARING RED FUCK MAKING HER SMILE LIKE THAT?!?!? 

[factorialsotherfandoms]

xcom tallulah? what horrors has my girl been through?

(also her hybrid traits if you have ideas for them, because ooo glowy chayanne i want to draw more eggs)

@becauseplot I am very amused the both of you are asking the same. And absolutely no you are not being too much it's just getting to dinner time here (please feel free to keep sending me eggs or even characters I love this)

Also by living target practice I mean living target practice.

And yes, glowy Chayanne!!! Tallulah's I'm still working out :/ She does however have little non-functional allay wings, however. And bits of her skin have dark purpley-blue, insect-shell like "armour". It is tougher than natural skin, but not by a lot, and it doesn't heal quite the same - there's a piece on her shoulder which clearly has crack-shatter from being shot with a bullet, looking a bit like if you shoot glass. Also very bright yellow eyes. it's not all her skin with the insectoid plating - not even most of it - but she has it. Whereas for Chayanne just all his skin is purple and his hair white (though he absolutely is with A1 on team steal hair dye. Unfortunately the ship has a lot of pink and not much yellow or black. Makes sad faces at his godfather until Tubbo makes him some, once he learns that's a thing he can do)

Right now Tallulah... Hopefully shorter than Chayanne, but we'll see...

TW once again for child abuse, injured child, child sickness, and child murder! Also Tilín and Flippa are here a bit.

Tallulah is one of the younger eggs. She's from the same batch as Pomme, but problems with her... let's call it incubation mean that while she was supposed to be finished before Pomme, she was actually released after.

Which. Was only the start of the problems. Having clearly had problems developing, she was immediately subjected to a great many tests. Her hearing problems were therefore detected within hours of her 'birth', and should have been sufficient to have her immediately glooped down back into raw parts - just like what happens to kidnapped humans. When they tried to drag her to the reprocessor, however, it became apparent that she had full communication telepathy with one of the other eggs - narrowed down over the next few days to Chayanne. As she realised what was happening she screamed along the psionic bonds between the eggs, and it was very obvious to the psionically sensitive aliens handling her that she also got a reply. This... made her much more useful. If at creation she had full telepathy with one egg, then maybe she could be trained for more. She was for one of the lower Elders, anyway, if she could get short-range telepathy then what need had she of ears?

Training was hard. Psionic training involves heavy mental discipline and is incredibly physically taxing. Lots of meditation and fasting, but for periods longer than a child should be meditating messing her up somewhat - especially with punishments for not sitting still or asking for food. She developed some abilities, but not the ones they wanted from her.

It also made her asthma, missed during the initial checks, suddenly much more obvious with the increase in physical stuff. This was... more of a problem. Already imperfect with her hearing, the asthma was a step too far.

But she was also older, now, more expensive to melt down and, well, the Hunter got through his targets quickly. And once he'd killed an egg, he'd give them the corpse and then they could melt them down anyway! The Hunter, one of the Elder's darling Chosen Children, would be happier, and they'd get the corpse to melt down soon enough. This way, everyone is happy! Except Tallulah and all the eggs connected to her, but they aren't real people to the Feds so who cares.

So Tallulah is given to him.

Now. There are 10 eggs which are considered full successes - Dapper, Ramón, Leo, A1, and 6 who are not canon eggs and are dead-because-of-possession. Trump could also be considered successful, but because his Elder died before he was old enough to be possessed, he's treated as a corpse. For every successful egg, there are 10-20 failures. A lot of these are noticed as defective early, and turned back into gloop. Some are cut open and used to determine what went wrong - especially when a whole batch fails, or most of one. The majority, though... The majority are given to the Hunter.

See, the Hunter isn't like the Warlock or the Assassin. He isn't training Eggs, he's using them to train himself. He does not consider non-living targets suitable practice, as even a good robot just does not react like a person.

See, the Hunter is, well, a hunter. He releases the eggs are released into a carefully managed environment, and every so often he goes and hunts them down. Stalks them, snipes them, scares them and makes them run to practice hitting moving targets from absurd ranges. Snipes them in their sleep, and so forth. Some sneaky eggs survive a little while, but he finds them eventually.

So, Tallulah is thrown into the next delivery for him. There's a couple of other eggs there. None of them last very long.

When they are released, Tallulah has the sense to run. She immediately hides herself, and waits to find out what is going on.

She discovers pretty quickly when she sees some of her nearby siblings die.

Her asthma does not let her run much, but she is very good at hiding - much better than most. There's bugs in the environment - a little bit of forest blocked off on all sides by thick glass - which she learns to eat. There's a stream for water, though going to it is dangerous - the Hunter when he hunts knows to find them there, and he does not give warnings when he is about.

Somehow, she lasts a week.

And then two weeks.

And then she finds more eggs. These two have been there longer than her, carved out hidey holes well hidden all over the map. They are the best of friends, and each other's only friends - Tilín, and Juanaflippa. Those two had been sent together, and managed to evade him for months. Flippa wants to steal his gun and shoot him back; Tilín would rather use it to shoot the glass and escape. While nervous around a new egg they take a liking to Tallulah, and the three team up.

It's hard - it's so hard - now Tallulah is watching not only for herself, but for all three of them. Chayanne does his best to help, but he isn't there, and he only knows what Tallulah tells him and very strong emotions - he talks her through panic attacks, encourages her to keep running, lets her know if the Hunter is visiting the Assassin and so she and hers have a little bit safe.

Flippa is their ringleader, the loudest and brashest of the three. Tilín is a little snarky, but extremely anxious. Tallulah... she isn't sure where she fits in. But she is there.

Food is both harder and easier with three - the other two have worked out which berries are edible, and Tallulah knows all about the bugs. Flippa won't eat bugs, says they are her friends, but the three manage. They just about manage.

Starved of psionic energy none of them grow, and all of them are sick, but they survive.

They nearly don't.

One night, Flippa and Tallulah go down to the river to get water. It's usually safer, usually better to go at night. Sometimes the Hunter goes hunting in the dark, but he tends to stick to the light - night vision is not his problem.

Not that night, though - that night he hunts in the dark.

There's a trap set at the river. Flippa triggers it. With Chayanne talking her through it Tallulah gets Flippa out, but by then the Hunter is coming for them.

Both girls run. They run and keep running, doing their very best to escape. It's not possible, not usually and not with Flippa's injuries from the trap, but they try. They run and they run, and then the Hunter shoots at them. It's dark, and it's late, and their buckets are abandoned and they have no water, but they're small and it's dark and the Hunter is a long way away.

He shoots, and misses, and misses, and misses and-

And Tallulah never knows why she moves like she does, only that she has a terrible fear, and throws herself behind Flippa.

A bullet, aimed right at the shorter Flippa's head, hits Tallulah in the shoulder. She screams as it hits the carapace she has in place of skin there, cracks shattering outwards across the whole of it. It is agony, it is horror, she hears Flippa and Chayanne overlap - Chayanne inside her head and so louder - both screaming. She's grabbed, and pulled and somehow, somehow they get away.

They get back to Tilín, hidden away deep and dark in their current cave. He heard shots and hid himself even more than usual, tucked far away and barely visible.

None of them get much sleep after that. Tilín does his best to patch them back together, digging the bullet out of Tallulah's shoulder - it was a just bullet, thankfully, not weird tech, but it still goes deep enough to damage the muscle beneath. They don't have water, and bandages are only a concept they know about because of Chayanne. Flippa's ankle has giant metal teeth marks in it from the bear trap, the bone beneath broken. It's still easier to treat, however, than shattered carapace. It does clot, but Tallulah does not molt, not like a real bug. Instead it grows more like bone than true insect carapace, alongside her.

It doesn't heal like it, though - just clots, and the waxy layer extends over that clotting. It remains an obvious weak point, but also proof of survival; once with adults who care she makes sure to pad it, protect it from further damage, and then covers the entire area with long sleeves and high necklines.

But that is not yet - not even Chayanne has been rescued at that point. It is another year or so before help comes - Chayanne wanted to ask his parents to go for her sooner, but he didn't know where she was either, and once they did find the Hunter's base... he knew it was already top priority, they just couldn't do it.

And he apologised to Tallulah every night for failing to ask, promising that she's strong, and she'll be okay.

By that point the bushes have mostly been destroyed, the Hunter back to trying to bait them out. The bugs are also sleeping - Flippa takes the hit hardest, but both Tilín and Tallulah are also sick.

And then, one day, the glass breaks.

Sick and in pain and terrified the trio still sneak out. Tallulah watches their backs while Flippa steals weapons and Tilín pretends to know the way.

Flippa has a gun, and she intends to use it.

From Chayanne they know about how the Chosen respawn, and even how to get into their chambers; the three put their sneaking skills to use, breaking in.

Flippa tries to set up a shot, Tallulah and Tilín pretend they have confidence in her - she's seen the Hunter do this a lot, after all.

And then there are adults, one grabbing Flippa and taking the gun away. The three are terrified, expect trouble, but Tallulah recognises one - Philza - from Chayanne. She calms the others down a bit, already sick herself.

The after she doesn't remember, just waking up in a strange place, with a man playing a guitar at her bedside. He says his name is Wilbur, Philza - his dad - asked him to watch her while he works. Flippa and Tilín are already up, about and causing trouble, and Chayanne has been forced to get some sleep. He tells her she was very sick, but that she's safe and she's okay now.

And Tallulah... She wants to believe him.

She looks at his guitar, and thinks of Chayanne's happiness with his parents, and with bad hands writes if he will be her papa. Wilbur... Hesitates, says he wouldn't be good at this, that he's not reliable and she deserves better than him.

But he's gentle, and he's kind, and Tallulah is starving for something she does not know, but knows he can give her.

Her dejection seems to convince him, but he makes her promise to wait a few days before bonding to him.

She does, and finds she still wants him, and Wilbur relents.

She is haunted, but she is loved, and is that not what matters in the end?

Much later, when they are sure it is safe for one person to have multiple eggs - proven by Cellbit and Memory - she will also take Philza as a parent. But not until after the war, when Wilbur returns to traveling. It's not safe to take her with, but she'll get sick without a parent, and Philza is looking after her anyway, so... It makes sense, in the end.

[secretgamergirl]

The Trouble With Dying in Horror Games

So as you could probably guess after posting a week ago that I'd just played most of the way through SOMA and planned to finish it today, I just did so. It's an excellent game, I'd highly recommend it, and I'd particularly like to sing its praises for mostly delivering on the horror end by throwing a lot of heady philosophical questions at you while forcing you to actually pay attention to everything going on, because you absolutely are not given any sort of map, compass, or current objective tracker. The one aspect of it that didn't so much click for me though was the monsters, and I'd like to share some thoughts on why, and how this is honestly one of the trickiest needles to thread in game design.

So the thing about horror games is that you want the player to feel, if not actually scared, a certain amount of tension, unease, disquiet, dread, etc. You don't want to keep that feeling mounting for the entirety of the game of course, you want to build build build build but then and release now and then, give a breather, and start building it up again. And while there ARE other ways of doing that (and again, the game that got me thinking about this is pretty good at making you stress over, frankly, roleplaying decisions), the most obvious and probably the most effective is making the player stress out over some sort of fail state, or as we call it in game design circles, death.

Problem is, dying releases tension.

This applies to any game really. When things are getting rough and it seems like you're about to die, yeah that's some great heart pounding high tension stuff, but then you miss that timer or take that hit or flub that dropped block or whatever and you're snapped back to the reality that oh right, this is just a game, and now you just have to try what you were doing again. And that's nice in a lot of situations, but in a horror game it's pretty much always going to throw things off because there is, again, this very particular sort of timing you want in the building and release and that early release can really screw with it. And generally, because really this is just how games work, you need to decide how far you want to roll the player's progress back to get back into that right rhythm.

Now personally, I'm a big fan of the golden age of horror games. Stuff from the earliest disc based systems, where not only are save points few and far between, but there's limitations on how many times you can save your game at all. Death had a hell of a lot more sting to it as a threat with games like that, and it also played super well with the first couple Resident Evil games and the way they make you sweat over all your resources in the long term by slow-drip-feeding you ammo and healing items into your very limited inventory. Now the downside to this of course is that you WILL, in all likelihood, die at some point where you have gone Some Time without saving, and while that leaves a good runway to reestablish the tension it's also, you know, super frustrating and you'll maybe want to step away from the game for a while to cool off.

Modern games though, with few exceptions, do not do save points anymore. They have fallen completely out of fashion, and the modern expectation is that every game will constantly be autosaving at very closely packed checkpoints, which is generally considered an evolution of the kindness of letting you save anywhere at any time, probably with zippy quick-save and quick-load buttons, which have kind of been back-ported to older games thanks to emulation and... honestly personally I hate this and that's a rant for another time, but I acknowledge that I am in the minority there. HOWEVER, this still really sucks for horror because we now have the tension break of death, with little to no sting following it, and we're then right back where we were, with no time for the tension to remount at all, and then whatever you died to is just an annoyance, especially if it happens again.

Now, SOMA is as much of a modern horror game as you can get. Like, you tell me something is a "modern horror" game, I'm immediately going to picture something with more or less this gameplay and frankly, something from this developer or someone trying to be like them, and sure enough, if you die you lose absolutely no progress at all. The checkpointing is so generous I swear I've actually MADE progress when dying, and it really hurts the ability for deadly things (by which I pretty much just mean monsters) to have the sort of impact they need. Which is a shame, because these are some pretty neat monsters! Every new one you encounter has a very distinct look and, in theory, a different rule you need to work out in order to avoid being killed. Here's one you need to keep from seeing you, one you need to avoid looking at, one you can't break eye contact with, one that won't kill you if you're perfectly still, etc. And that's neat.

But... I say "in theory" because I absolutely DID get through the game without figuring out the deal with half of them. Either I just booked it before they could reach me (which is great, actually, that keeps the tension if it feels like you're just barely staying ahead) or I just... ate the deaths which didn't even change my position but kicked the monster further down the hall. Which... yeah, nobody's happy with that.

Now, here I should point out that in this particular game this really isn't much of a problem at all because SOMA has like... 8 monsters total, give or take? It has much more cerebral ways to get under your skin, to the point where a lot of people say it'd be better not having monsters at all (and there's even an option to play it that way). I disagree though. They're fun designs, they have interesting patterns, and from both a perspective of story pacing and world building, it's quite important that we at least occasionally have some twisted monstrosities that may once have been human shuffling about in a menacing fashion. We just don't want the tension totally destroyed when they succeed in that menacing.

So how could we fix that? Well my go-to answer is "quit doing constant checkpointing, make me lose real progress so the stakes feel high and I'm really incentivized to work out the safe way past," and for a LOT of games, yeah, just do that. Here though, it's tricky, because a big part of why this game works as well as it does is that it's a bit mazey in its design with zero handholding, it doesn't have you collecting stuff, and aside from some chasey bits which are, again, great, there's no combat or action scenes really. You spend a lot of time stumbling around clueless and confused, picking up cool bits of world-building lore and familiarizing yourself with your surroundings enough to properly orient yourself and work out the path forward. If you die in the middle of that and get sent way back to the start of the area, you're not going to retrace those steps. You've seen those files you've worked out that mental map, you're going to get right back to where you were now, but now that monster is an annoyance not a threat.

So OK, if we can't restore tension after a death without sacrificing good stuff, what if we just avoid dying in the first place? I mean, that IS the ideal, really. You want to constantly be worried you're about to die, and then never have it happen. Tension builds constantly and only gets released when the designers want it released. This is tricky to accomplish though. You can literally just not put anything in that's actually going to lead to a death. Monsters that come charging and screaming up corridors but never reach you because a door slams shut or a walkway collapses or whatever, but that's a huge gamble because if the player notices even once that they weren't really in any danger, they now know death isn't a thing in this game, and the threat of it can no longer establish tension. The more fake-outs you do, the more likely they are to see behind that curtain.

OK, so, how about the monsters DO have the ability to kill you, but they rarely if ever will if you approach them smartly? This could work. Again, in our case in point, there's some trick to every monster, and if you know the trick, and can execute it, you're safe from that monster. It's still tense if there's some chance you might not use the survival strategy properly, we can still ratchet things up in a hurry by taking away the means to do what you need to at the climax of a given monster encounter, so things are still plenty tense, but the player has to be fairly incompetent to get killed, and hopefully they'll learn from it for the next attempt but be iffy on that. I do feel like this would work for SOMA and going in with outside knowledge of what does/doesn't cause each given thing in the game to come charging at you so that death is possible but rare would be ideal, BUT again the whole nature of this particular game not holding your hand and rewarding thorough exploration only with more details about exactly what the heck is going on and really pushing for isolation eliminates the easiest ways to clue that in-game. Unless of course it was dropping hints with the whole corpse black box recording deal and I was just too personally distracted to pick up on it. Again though, I'm just using this game as an example to discuss this in the abstract.

How about this though? What if we took dying to the same thing twice out of the equation? If this particular monster in this particular hallway kills you, you return to the last checkpoint, but when you get back to that hallway, the monster isn't there anymore. There's a risk of players treating this as an alternate solution to the problem of dealing with monsters and just face-tanking through the whole game, but you could mess with people's heads with it. If that monster isn't here, then where is it? Why isn't it here? Do we have diegetic respawns? Is the monster not here because it's off eating the corpse of the previous version of me? This feels like it's worth exploring.

Here's another one for you. Have softer fail states. SOMA actually does a bit of this in fact. When you die, sure, you get back up pretty much where you were standing, and it almost or literally does feel like monsters aren't so much trying to kill you as just giving you a big ol' bonk on the head as they pass, but it screws with your vision, and sometimes your ability to walk straight. I'm not going to lose progress from a death, but I am going to have a bad time if I get caught. That can work really well, and hell, in SOMA I took a lot of hits where I'm actually unclear if I just screwed up and got knocked out, or if we were just punctuating the end of a scene with me getting taken off guard and cold-cocked in cinematic fashion. There's a lot of ways you can play with this design space too. Maybe you get dragged off somewhere if you get jumped and have to work out where you even are when you wake up. Maybe you drop plot items when you get taken down like this, and have to track those back down when you're back on your feet (just, if you do this, be sure to make it a fail-forward sort of thing where you're just on a different path for a bit and people don't have to just do repetitive runs fishing keycards out of the sewer every time they get smacked by the monster they're stuck on or something).

How about some more variations on this? Every time something should kill you, fate gets altered by the weird artifact you're carrying. Maybe this is just fancy fluff for HP, or it's like the Gamecube Resident Evil Remake's survival items. Maybe sidekicks take the hits for you but then die forever, like Hellnight. Maybe you live but with a permanent injury (this is an idea I personally plan on taking somewhere when I get the time). So long as the player keeps moving forward after, these can all be really impactful partial fail states that don't break tension.

Anyway, this is all just stuff to consider if you ever end up designing a horror game... or just a game in general. But anyway, SOMA's great, definitely worth checking out.

Anyway if you'd like to seem me keep rambling about things, I honestly quite desperately need money to live, my patreon donations fell off a damn cliff this month. And if you want to see me stream more, OK, I'm going to try to make that a regular thing, monday nights, 8 PM.

[feelinkeeli]

Cal Kestis and why people say he's a "flat" character

Alright so.... months? ago I mentioned to @ironhoshi I had thoughts on Cal's character development in Fallen Order and I meant to share then in an original post instead of response.

So a lot of people, gamers in particular, tend to comment that they did not care for Cal as a protagonist because he came across as "flat" to them. A sentiment I don't agree with but I can kind of see how other people got there being a long time gamer myself.

I think this "Flat Cal" feeling is a result of expectations vs. reality people had for Jedi Fallen Order. Particularly when it comes to Power Fantasies and Survivor Fantasies.

Videogames often play into the Power Fantasy trope, especially Dark Souls- like games as JFO was marketed. The appeal of starting off weak and vulnerable and through time, effort, and skill turning into a powerful badass. Cal certainly does start off weak and grows into more power but the game's narrative as well as Cal's character development only briefly play into it.

When you consider it, Cal beats very few of the narrative Big Bads by himself. Merrin helps him with Malicos, the Shyyyo Bird with Ninth Sister, Cere initially rescues him Second Sister | Trilla, Vader kills Trilla, and Cere and Cal work together in the end to escape Vader. Aside from Ninth Sister, there aren't many narrative beats highlighting Cal's rising power in a way that leans into the Power Fantasy trope.

Notably, even the Ninth Sister scene gets dismantled from the Power Fantasy trope. Cal brags about how he defeated the Ninth Sister. Yet instead of praise for taking down a difficult opponent, Cere cautions Cal. She's happy he is growing stronger and more confident in himself but she cautions him against arrogance. A warning Cal later acknowledges as right of Cere to make. Cal learns to embrace humility instead of arrogance or overconfidence. His swagger is tempered. He defeats the illusion of Master Tapal not by fighting but by accepting the past.

Honestly, JFO pretty much dismantles the Power Fantasy trope.

Another trope people expected of JFO was a Survivor Fantasy (which I find very ironic now that the JFO sequel has been titled Survivor). In particular, a Lone Survivor Power Fantasy. The type of trope you see in the Lara Croft reboot and the zombie post apocalyspe horror genre (such as Last of Us and The Walking Dead). The idea of a character starting off weak and isolated and is forced to grow stronger and "harden" themselves so that rise above all the adversity trying to kill them (nature or man or even society).

Again, there's definitely a similar basis for this trope in JFO. Cal is one of a few survivors from Order 66, a survivor that is targeted and hunted. A perfect set up for the trope. Except JFO chooses to explore Trauma Recovery instead. JFO is a story of healing both the self and community. It's why Cal starts off brash and threantening to cut down Merrin to handing over his lightsaber to her and Merrin choosing to aide Cal as a result. It's why seeing all the damage on Kashyyyk pains Cal and how the planet hasn't been completely ravaged gives Cal hope. It's why Cal's flashback to his master result in him moving forward instead of letting the past define him. It's why Cere and Cal go through a bumpy mentor-and-mentee relationship resulting in both of them finding the willpower to stand up and fight for what's right. Why the fight against Vader ends with Cere on the brink of giving into the dark side of the Force again and Cal reminding her she has a choice. JFO is about trauma recovery and the importance of community in that recovery process. That one does not need to and should not do things alone.

In a sense JFO is also dismantling the the Lone Survivor Trope the same way it dismantles the Power Fantasy. Of course this dismantling of tropes instead of playing into them, as many videogames do, results in people feeling disatisfied. Gameplay and premise wise, the basis is there but it isn't explored narratively. So Cal comes across as flat because his character didn't develop the way people expected him to.

In reality, Cal's character development and growth is explored through acts of kindness, empathy, and forgiveness. It's about ending self-isolation, running and hiding from your problems, in order to heal and move forward. Cal's story in JFO is about picking himself up and then offering a hand to the next downed person he sees because it's easier to get up with help.

Cal isn't flat. He simply isn't a typical videogame protagonist.

[creatively-cosmic]

Hi there!

Just wanted to say that I really like your artwork and am a fan of the Missing Numbers stuff. The way the characters are made/portrayed has me in a chokehold ngl. (Fire and Blue are probably my favorite characters, they look really cool-)

But I was curious/had a question about Fire. The scar he has on his chest, the one surrounded by the rings of Arceus: How did he get it? And because it’s been said that Fire is too important to die: does Arceus heal all of Fire’s wounds or just the fatal ones?

That is all though! Have a good morning/afternoon/evening wherever you are!

first of all THANK YOU SO MUCH??? im so glad you like this insane little story of ours!!! hearing ppl really do care about it only motivates us more to work on it!!

As for your questions, these are very fun ones. You're asking all the right things.

(This got long.)

First: The Scar.

The scar over his heart is a very spiritual one. The rings are a part of it, in fact, not just markings.

Fire was made to be the perfect replacement. A flawless player avatar who was only that, and nothing more. A body to be inhabited, controled, and a face to be remembered and idolized. When a player controls this avatar, especially in Pokemon, it doesn't have any free will of its own. Isn't supposed to. Not allowed to think or feel. Just a window into the world through which you experience it.

Extra care was put into making him fit this, as perhaps the most important "avatar" in the Almighty's eyes, and especially after the critical failure that was Glitchy, who's emotions and freedom led him to not only his demise, but mass corruption of the old world that required a total overwrite.

... When a human is made, it is only natural that they've a heart and soul to them. Free will is something that defines humanity. For this man, however, that was not an option.

To get to the point: The scar is where a hand of the Almighty cut his heart from his chest. His mind was also taken from him- did you notice the Golden scar on his neck?

It wasn't always like this. He was made meek on purpose. Quiet. Complacent. Cold. But it was soon proven by another boy's meddling that not a single risk could be taken, leading to his first death at the hands of frostbite. And the subsequent, forced removal of his free will.

So, he was left after with no heart to feel, and no head to think with. ...That was the plan, at least. But time has a funny way of healing all wounds. Reds have always had a funny way of surpassing expectations, for better or for worse.

Second: The Deaths.

Death is a recurring thing in Missing Numbers- the answer to how Fire survives answers how everyone survives, honestly. It all comes down to the fact that the world of Pokemon is a game. And what do you do, when something goes wrong in a game? When you lose? When you die? And, what does the game do when it breaks? How does it handle that? When it's overwhelmed by impossible demands?

Reset. Restart. Try again.

Of course, you, the player, will remember what happened outside of the resets. That's how you learn, and do better, to avoid losing again. You have a different, higher perspective.

The characters within aren't supposed to remember, though. You can rewind, step back, redo things as much as you need- they'll always be the exact same. Unknowing, unaffected. So when Fire dies? When Blue dies? Those two particularly are in a vicious cycle, where things are always put right back to before they went wrong, but...

A big part of the horror aspect of Missing Numbers is breaking this world enough, that the beings inside of the game see past the veil.

The main four we post about within this story have all already had their perspectives shattered to see beyond that. So even if they can't comprehend it or understand why this happens, they remember it. The more it happens, the more powerless you feel. The more desperate you get for your actions to hold meaning. The more drastic the measures you take will become.

Trying over and over and over and over

and over and over and over and over

and over and over and over and over

and over and over and over and over

and over again.