#i had to press A BUTTON to go to servers and dms

[laudthingcat]

Almost had a heart attack

Got a random ass discord update an hoooly shit it was so fucking bad

[hangup119]

ඞ JOIN GAME?

twenty-two. galvanized steel and eco-friendly wood veneers

warnings: spoilers for jujutsu kaisen (manga only), cringe brain rot 😓

NERVOUS WOULD BE A COMPLETE AND UTTER UNDERSTATEMENT FOR WHAT ANTON LEE CURRENTLY FELT. 

After he had made sure that the stream was officially over and that his camera was no longer running, he had made a quick dash towards the nearest mirror in a vain attempt of making sure he didn’t look too much of a try-hard with his outfit and hair. Only after making sure that he didn’t look like either, he gathered the last of his wits (what much was left after playing Resident Evil 4 for two whole hours anyway) and proceeded to make his way down to the lobby to finally meet the ”girl of his dreams,” according to the embarrassing, spur-of-the-moment tweet he had made earlier. He cringed just to even think back on it. 

“Where is she?” Anton muttered as he stepped out of the elevator, quickly looking around the relatively empty lobby for any sign of you, much to no avail. 

Well, this is  it, he thought while attempting to steel his nerves for the umpteenth time. This was the moment all previous chapters have accumulated to—the peak of countless weeks of having known each other online in and out of streaming and private DMs he would sometimes think about during the crack of dawn on a random Tuesday. He figured that there wasn't much to do now since he already hyped himself up while he was cleaning this morning, and recently just now when he was still five floors above. Sure, he probably looked real stupid when he kept repeating affirmations to himself (“your rizz is real, your rizz is real…!”) in front of whoever was monitoring the CCTVs today, but Anton realized that he was far too skittish about your short-notice meet up to truly care about others’ perception of him anymore. Which, in hindsight, was concerning. He wonders if he needs to schedule an appointment at the doctor’s…

“Boo.” 

Anton jumped lamely, cursing under his breath before having it immediately taken away when he turned around to face you. 

You blinked up at him.

“Woah,” you said, a bit surprised, “you’re so… tall.” 

“And you're so… short,” was his genius response. 

“What was that?” you asked darkly. Anton gulped nervously, but then you looked at him quizzically. “No, like, seriously, what’d you say? I couldn’t hear you properly; your voice is too soft, man.” 

Oh, okay. He almost breathed out a sigh of relief because you didn’t hear that.

“Nothing important,” Anton stammered, hastily ushering you towards the elevator doors without giving you a chance to say anything else. “Let’s just go. You wanna see the fish, right?” 

“But I—…” you trailed off, watching him hurriedly press the buttons on the wall. “Yeah, okay,” you breathed out eventually, awkwardly fiddling with the straps of your bag. When the doors finally closed, Anton stood back and glanced at you briefly. It didn’t go unnoticed however, as you quickly returned the look, offering him a small, steady grin.

“Hi,” you greeted. 

“Hi,” he nodded back at you, before tearing his gaze away. 

Anton didn’t bother to say anything else, and neither did you, so it was safe to say that the ride towards the seventh floor ended up being a little awkward, what with him trying to discreetly steal glances at you every now and then without you noticing, far too busy finding out what’s so interesting about the elevator ceiling. 

By the tenth urge, he realized just how hard it was to resist looking at you. 

Truly, incredibly, and scarily concerning. 

Now, don’t get it wrong: Anton’s not the kind to just fall for anyone that easily. Sure, he may be young and chronically online and knows too much brain rot-terminology for his own good, but he wasn’t some fourteen-year-old on Discord with a Ken Kaneki profile picture who’d join random servers that would probably die within three months, snag an E-Girlfriend within that time frame before breaking up with her because ‘LDR just won’t work out, babe, it’s not you, it’s me’ or however those situations would go. He was better than that, or so he’d like to think. (Although he was, unfortunately, a twenty-year-old on Discord.) 

Point is, Anton wasn’t stupid enough to fall for just anyone he met online—much less someone he met on Roblox Altitorture, for goodness sake! He can entertain the thought of finding them pretty through pictures he’s seen online, yeah, and he can entertain his friend’s teasing remarks about his supposed crush on someone he hasn’t even met, but Anton liked to believe that it never was that serious. He wasn’t that jealous over you sitting all alone inside another guy’s house, looking after another guy’s fish, or planning to spend another guy’s fifty bucks on useless micro-transactions he could buy for you as quick as lightning without you having to lift a finger (and he has!), and he definitely wasn’t that serious when he accidentally blurted out a sentence that could potentially jeopardize the fanbase he had been steadily building up since he was fifteen, right?

And inviting you over to his house under the pretext of taking a look at his fish (who was probably in both Sungchan and Shotaro’s hit list) wasn't that serious. 

…Right?

You’re just friends, Anton convinced himself when the two of you exited the elevator and walked towards his door. You’re just friends, Anton repeated inside his head as he typed in his PIN on the keypad. You’re just friends, he reassured when he finally swung the door op— 

“God, you’re so rich,” you muttered the moment you entered his condo, and all thoughts of denial Anton had repeating in his mind suddenly came running out the window as he watched you remove your shoes at the front. “You have all this space to yourself?” 

“My mom visits sometimes,” he squeaks out pathetically. 

You looked back at him, a bemused smile on your face and—oh, who was Anton kidding? You’re way prettier in real life compared to the pictures he saw on Sohee’s Facebook post, and whether that was a good thing for his mental health or not—well, he didn’t want to find out anymore. 

Wrongly assuming you’d head straight towards his fish tank, Anton found himself trailing after you as you started loitering by the living room. “Are these your parents?” you asked, signaling towards the multitude of frames on top of the wooden furniture. “You have a brother? He looks just like you.” 

“Oh, yeah,” Anton affirmed, moving to point at the photos. “That’s my mom, my dad, and my younger brother. Over there are my grandparents.” 

You whistled. “Wow, your mom’s really pretty,” you noted with a laugh, “she looks like she could be famous, or something.”

“Uh, she was an actress, actually.” 

Your smile dropped as quickly as it appeared. Anton had to stifle back a snort. 

“...For real?” you asked, carefully looking back at the picture and then towards him. He slowly nodded. “What? Don’t tell me your dad’s famous too? Your grandma? Your childhood dog? The mailman who steals your Amazon deliveries?” 

His silence practically confirmed it, and you squawked in response. (Though you weren’t too sure about the mailman. The grandma and the dog? Sure, since even his fish was famous.)

“My dad’s a music producer,” Anton elaborated, moving away from you to head towards the corner where his fish, the supposed star of the day, resided at. “He’s over in Korea, though, so I don’t see him as often anymore.” 

You followed after him, unsure of where else to go. “Your mom was an actress, and your dad’s some hot-shot music producer… and you decided to become a Let’s Play streamer?” you wondered to yourself, incredulous. Anton looked back at you indignantly, but you merely shrugged back at him. “I’m just saying, dude. You could be, like, I don’t know, a K-pop idol or something with those connections. Oh! You could be in NCT—what do you think of bright, green hair on those luscious locks of yours?” 

Anton gave you a scalding side-eye.  

“...Nah,” he eventually said with a  shake of his head, a wistful grin on his face. “It’s a little late for that.” 

You were about to say something else, something probably much more snarky to the absolute nonsense Anton responded to your suggestion with, but your words quickly died down inside your throat the moment a familiar shape of glass appeared in your vision. Anton promptly stepped aside to let you have your moment with his pet, unable to fight off the smile rising on his face as you approached the tank with wide, astonished eyes. 

“Stonerland,” you breathed out quite dramatically, finally witnessing the white betta fish swim inside his lonesome tank. “You’re real.”

You inched closer towards the glass, but remained mindful not to touch it per Leehan’s wise teachings. The light from inside reflected onto your eyes, splashes of green and white appearing in them. It would’ve been off putting to anyone else who was observing you, the you who was unblinking as you stared at the oblivious animal, but you didn’t seem to care. You were completely and utterly entranced, lost in your own little world. 

“...You’re so pretty,” you murmured, following Stonerland’s every move. 

Your gaze slowly moved towards him. 

“Right, Anton?” you asked, fully expecting him to be looking at the fish as well. 

Instead, you were met with him already staring back at you, like those romance K-Dramas Eunseok always made him watch with their cliché fireworks scenes that always had Anton’s eyes rolling whenever it inevitably came up. They were all just copies of one another anyway—Han River, fireworks, and the main couple having the space all to themselves when it really should have been packed to the brim with other couples because it was South Korea.; he really could have cared less about such things (even if Eunseok swore to him that they were “peak”).

“Yeah,” he breathed out absentmindedly. 

And because Anton always disliked watching those scenes, the thought of him doing the same thing, albeit at a different situation but with the same principle regardless, never crossed his mind. 

But now, inside his place—the Han River—and watching his fish—the fireworks—with only the two of you beside each other, Anton didn’t even have the chance to roll his eyes because he was too busy staring at you, like some cliché male lead in some cliché romance K-Drama. 

“Oh,” you said. 

And then Anton blinked, snapping himself out of his reverie. “What?” he sputtered out, looking away from you and towards Stonerland, before inevitably bringing his gaze towards you again, only to shy away when you caught him in the act all over again. He coughed out, “What were you saying? Sorry, I was… I was thinking about something else.” 

“Like what?” your head tilted to the side.

“Like,” Anton nervously began, licking his lips as he thought of something to respond with only to come up with blanks. “Like, uh—” 

His eyes landed on Stonerland. 

“—I was just thinking of ways that I could fortify his tank so evil, malicious forces won’t get to him…?” he cringed as the words just kept tumbling out of his mouth. “Because I’m low-key scared that if I invite the boys over, Sungchan and Shotaro will find a way to murder my fish when I’m not looking. Or something like that. I don’t know—I’m just getting bad vibes from them, you know? I might just be paranoid, though.” 

Anton immediately found himself desperately avoiding your gaze, feeling the tips of his ears turn red at how stupid he must have sounded just now. 

“No, I get it,” you said, which catched his attention. “Those two are definitely up to no good, since you practically memorialized the empire they worked so hard to destroy in the form of a fish. A small, helpless fish up against two grown men… yeah, maybe just don’t invite them over.” 

Anton looked at you hopefully, only to be immediately let down when you continued. 

“To be honest, if Stonerland was your pet fish in Minecraft, I’d probably blow it up when you aren’t looking too. Redstone engineering and all, it’d look like a whole fireworks show,” you added bluntly, watching the tank with blank eyes. After a second, however, you quickly look back at him with an easygoing smile, cheerfully saying, “Good thing Stonerland’s a real fish, right? So cute! Betta fishes are the best…” you sighed wistfully. 

You didn’t bother commenting on the look of absolute horror on Anton’s face, too busy cooing at his fish as if you had not just threatened to blow it up in another life. 

He looked at Stonerland—poor and unassuming Stonerland, oblivious to the evils surrounding him and his owner. He wasn’t even safe from the girl who kept squealing over him, simply because of his given name. Poor, poor Stonerland indeed. Anton briefly considered changing the unfortunate fish’s name, maybe install some galvanized steel beams around his tank and some eco-friendly wood veneers for extra protection just in the slightest case anyone would dare to think of hurting his precious betta fish, but he was definitely putting up a sign that had Sungchan and Shotaro’s names crossed off on his front door. 

He slowly turned to you, meekly saying, “Please don’t hurt him.” 

You looked at him, absolutely flabbergasted. “Stonerland’s a guy?”

“Yeah?” Anton’s eyebrows furrowed. “...You didn’t know?” 

“What!” you gaped. “But the fins…! It’s so pretty and long!” 

“Male betta fishes have longer fins, and they’re much leaner,” Anton explained, pointing at Stonerland’s white, flowy fins. “Shouldn’t you know this? Isn’t that Leehan guy you’re friends with a fish-expert or whatever?” 

You pouted. “Well, he is, but he doesn’t own any bettas… so I don't know if he knows anything about them.”

“Hm, so Leehan doesn’t know shit about bettas, the coolest fish ever. I see.”

He felt pride quickly bubble inside his chest when you looked at him expectantly. “Right, yeah! Bettas are so cool! And you know so much about them; that’s so cool!” 

“Nah,” he pretended to be humble, scratching the nape of his neck. “I just did my research.” 

“You should buy a black one,” you continued enthusiastically, “so they can swim together! Isn’t that cute?” 

Anton deadpanned. “Uh, they’ll probably fight to death if that happens…” 

“Oh, so like SatoSugu,” you said blandly. 

Yeah, whatever that means, Anton thought.

The both of you stayed there for a little while more, with most of it spent on useless chatter and you taking hundreds of photos of his fish, so much so that Anton worried whether your phone’s storage was about to reach its limit, however you didn’t seem to care. He honestly didn’t know what exactly was so enamoring about the fish—it was just some small living creature that came with flowy fins and a penchant for loneliness, and all it would do is swim and eat and live off of Anton’s paycheck, but he supposed that if you enjoyed looking at it so much, then he was fine with keeping it. Heck, he’d be fine with protecting it against Sungchan and Shotaro, if it meant that it would keep you happy to see it was still alive. 

Which is, again, concerning. Anton never meant for any of this to happen—he never meant for him to wake up on a random Friday and decide that he was gonna let you into his house when you were, at the core of this situation, just some girl he had just coincidentally met online—and at a kids’ game of all places. 

But between the calls you’ve shared, the jokes, the countless hours you’ve spent together playing games, and the private DMs you’ve shared where no one else could interrupt him teasing subtweets or obsessive ramblings from either shippers or haters, then Anton figured that getting Stonerland was worth all the trouble and money (and Wonbin’s constant whining at the bus) just to see you smiling towards the tank.

…So, yeah, maybe he was jealous of you sitting all alone in another guy’s house, watching another guy’s fish, planning on using the money you earned to purchase useless micro-transactions he could easily buy for you, and maybe accidentally blurting out a sentence that could potentially ruin his career was all the more worth it when you are literally standing right next to him now. 

Anton never thought that everything would eventually lead up to this moment, and he might not be extremely smitten with you right now the way those male leads in K-Dramas would be, at least he doesn’t think so, but what he knows is that there was already a tiny voice inside his head constantly saying that, eventually, at a moment when he least expects it, it will happen. 

“If you want, I can buy you a black betta fish,” he started, leaning his chin on his palm, “and then we’d have matching fishes. Just like SatoSugu, right?” 

You glanced back at him, a little bit shocked. But then your eyes twinkled, and a laugh escaped from your lips. Anton found himself smiling back.

“No way,” you said, “you don’t have to do all that. You already bought me some Robux.” 

“It was literally just twenty dolla—” 

You cut him off. “Plus, one of them dies anyway," you said grimly, your expression darkening. "Actually, they both die."

That quickly shut him up. 

You continued with a snap of your fingers. “You know what, I’ll just tell you their whole lore—no, wait, we should just watch Jujutsu Kaisen instead! Do you have a Netflix account? Let’s binge the first season.” 

Seemingly without a choice, Anton promptly handed you the remote to his TV, staring blankly ahead while he followed you towards his couch. 

It seemed that it was also safe to say that your online personality translated perfectly into real life. For better or for worse.

previous | masterlist | next

SYNOPSIS. not everyone is good at playing obby’s on roblox, and you’re no exception to this rule: after a particularly nasty encounter with another player on roblox’s altitorture, you log into twitter only to find out that the very same player who publicly dunked on your gaming skills turns out to be anton lee, a well-known streamer who also happens to be a friend of a friend. fed up with his fans bombarding your dms with teasing remarks or jealous musings, you decide to end it once and for all by appearing on his next stream with a promise to get through an obby successfully. however, you realize that the only thing you’ll be successful at is falling for anton lee instead.

AUTHOR'S NOTE. wooo first written chapter! what do you guys think so far??? i really like putting the pov on anyone else BUT y/n, it makes her more mysterious HAHA

TAGLIST. (closed) @shoberi @gisellessgf @serafilms @palchokitty @seunghancore @nujeskz @hisrkive e @alwayswook @emohoon @milktea-academia @kyusqult @dolloie @slutforjeno @meowbini @yizhuobberi @fae-renjun @kcharlyy @whoisgwyn @saranghoeforanton @au-ghosttype @gyehyeonist t @dodot04lover @outrologist @papichulomacy @odxrilove @maleegayuh @ilovejungwonandhaechan @dalsosapple @starwonb1n @tojis-luver r @slayhaechan @lakoya @he6rtshaker @rikianton @brachioswrld @woonagi-lemon @ffixtionista @endtostartbreathin @ki3ntot t @bidibaabidiboo @totheseok @astrae4 @hanbinniesmango o @daegale @regrool @sunflowerbebe07 @taroddori @miyawwn @snowyseungs @p-d1ddy

[eri-lessthan3]

Hey you

all of you complaining about tumblr live

Seethe and cope 😎

Okay but seriously

Get yourself the Stylus extension For Firefox users: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/styl-us/ and for everyone else: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/stylus/clngdbkpkpeebahjckkjfobafhncgmne

Get the Old Tumblr Dashboard Style: https://userstyles.world/style/11286/old-tumblr-dashboard-2023

You should get this stuff even if you don't plan to remove tumblr live :3 Now here is where the magic comes from:

Stylus allows you to add custom css styles to websites, and you can edit themes made by other people to fit your needs!

See that little fucker? How about we fuckin g kill it?

Press f12 to open the Developer Tools (or however it is called lmao)

Click on this little guy

Now you can select an element on the website, and it will show where it is in the html!

3. Point

Click on it, and now we will see something like this in the inspector!

Collapse a bunch of this stuff, since here we only care about the list items, or <li>

These are the different buttons in the banner

Now, how do we fucking kill that guy?

There are a number of ways to do this, so let's start with the simplest one

Delete

Just select the list item that has the title "Live" and press delete!

So it is gone now, right?

Well... not really. If you refresh the page, it is back. Which makes sense, since the only thing we did is remove that part of the "code" (if you can call html "code"), but when we refreshed it, the server gave us a version of the site that obviously had the button still there.

So what is a smarter way to get rid of it?

While you can't really delete a specific part of the site with just css, you can hide it! To do that, all you have to do is apply the style display: none;

Like that! While it doesn't fix the problem with the refresh, it brings us closer to the solution.

Remember when we got Stylus? yeah!

Go inside of it (😳), and inside the Old tumblr dashboard theme (😳😳), and now we just need to apply the css style of "remove that fucker" to the specific list item. How do we do that, since we can't add it directly into html? We use the attribute selector, and we look for title="Live"!

Where do I write this????

Well, css applies the styles from top to bottom of the style sheet (usually, this post is already too long), and you see how the list item has a few classes assigned to it? It so happens that they also modify the display property, so we have to override it by putting our selector after those in the css sheet... so basically you can just write the thingie at the end 😅

Here is how the attribute selector works!

the .IYr09 part is that specific class, so that if there is ever something on this page that has the title="Live" but isn't what we are looking for, it won't apply there (You don't need to do this, but whatever). The attribute selector is written in the square brackets, and you just... write the attribute that you are looking for there ;P

(I also did the same for the Explore button, but that can be an exercise for the interested ;P)

And now, BEHOLD

(How am I so popular that I got dms during the making of this >.&lt;)

And it will stay like this, forever*

*except if something happens to the addon, theme, css of it or whatever, but you get the point!

[nikkiitalks]

Race Baiting - A thoughtument by Nikkiitalks.

Okay.. Here we go.

Firstly, for the sake of absolute transparency, when I was first contacted by @olivaraofrph in a tirade of a novel of a response, my skimming through it had me starting to be swayed in her favour, mostly because of the depths of which her privacy was invaded for the sake of the allegations against her. And in that moment, I prematurely forgave her. Told her I understood. But it turns out, after much more has come to light, that I in fact do not understand. And in turn my forgiveness is recanted.

I did not have all the information. Hell, I had a fraction of it. Natalie and I, we were friendly, but not close. We don't talk every day and we never did. We had, though, stood arm in arm against that moment's hot button issue that I had felt strongly about, and so had she. It seemed. We'd held each other in places of mutual respect, shouting each other out and praising each other's advocacy.

Now, it all feels so... silly. This performative display that I so willingly let be pulled over my eyes. But that's beside the point. That was all I knew of her, really. There are others in this tiny niche of our already tiny community, that were far closer. Those that ran servers, indigenous servers, with her. They weren't even afforded the respect of being given an explanation to, but I did?

I was the one, who when I it was brought to my attention, when I was urged to send a DM which I already had, that was deemed the one to get that? A novel, let me be clear, the contents of which I won't make public upon request. A lot of it had nothing to do, truly, with the issue at hand but served to distract from it in a wall of text. It was overwhelming, and it felt just a teeny, tiny bit, manipulative.

There's so much evidence now, even evidence regretfully obtained, that the only place her advocacy extends to is Tumblr. None of your public, irl facing socials having anything there about it. Your own admission of percentage, (how that had been confirmed as she claims I can't speculate), and other things that don't line up. Those of us in the community affected haven gotten together to compare and talk through our feelings toward it all and there is a consensus.

It fucking sucks.

Just the fact that this needs to be brought up absolutely sucks. It detracts from the credibility of other indigenous creators in the space. Not all press is good press, and Natalie right now, is bad press. Beyond myself and the others being lied to. Beyond the personal offense I take to that. This is what bothers me the most. For all the posturing and all the 'talking in wrong and confusing ways' it makes us all look bad. And for what?

The other personal and religious or spiritual beliefs she believes doesn't mean anything to me. The other racism claims about her I can't confirm, whatever. Talking shit about a beloved creator, real or not. Doesn't matter.

What matters is there is damage done to the indigenous community here on the rpc, and before we came together to discuss it, it was distressing to all of us. There is no such thing as clout on tumblr and I don't know why people can't seem to get that through their heads? What need is there to claim to be something you're not, even through insinuations, half truths and vague details? I don't understand.

Yes, the indigenous community is so willing to accept anyone with any indigenous blood, and it's the fact that this is what was taken advantage of by someone... that really gets me. That's what really makes it sting. It's a blow to every white passing Native out there, in my opinion. That's where my hurt is. It's the fact that there is question of the validity of the claims toward a shared familial and generational trauma to myself. That still impacts my father's side of the family to this day.

I don't even know where I'm going with all this, and I feel like I'm typing myself in circles, but it's all to say that I don't care about all the other stuff that serves to muddy the waters of the real issue. Race baiting does nothing but end up hurting those who's real life experiences you're roleplaying.

[canmom]

having just read an enormous metafiction about tabletop roleplaying games, i ended up reflecting a bunch on how I play them - what my characters are to me. a discussion which ended up as a segue into a discussion of what an rpg 'system' actually means in practice.

...happy new year!

as a GM, I tend to be far more improvisational than Joon of Worth the Candle, but I have an affinity for how he does things - one of my most successful games had the players ultimately ascend to usurp me as MC of my Apocalypse World game, which is essentially the structure of WtC.

as a player... my characters are usually ways of experimenting with ideas or conflicts, reflecting some aspect of me, attached to some kind of cool image. my characterisation has been a bit weak for a long time, but I'm growing out of it.

sometimes I've played with groups who found it very easy to see what my character is 'about'. sometimes not. in one sad story - nothing Fel Seed level, don't worry - I struggled fruitlessly to find a way to mesh with the type of story desired by the group and create a story I found compelling. every time I thought I'd hit a groove, I'd press other people's buttons in a bad way. eventually I was asked to leave, and after doing a session where I retired my character, which felt at the time like reading out a false confession before my execution, except I had to improvise within bounds, I left the group and server and basically never spoke with them again.

looking back on it... I was going through some shit. not on the level that Joon was, and I didn't deliberately try to hurt people or lash out in frustration, but I wasn't able to see beyond what I was struggling with (at that time, the surface presentation was my discomfort with the need to make violence in fiction out to be justified, like 'evil races'). I didn't realise that the concepts I found compelling kept hitting another player's no-go list, which sucked for both of us - her to have a frighteningly opaque person who seemed determined to press boundaries, me because it seemed like every time I finally came up with a good idea and thought I had a handle on my character, the DM would quietly ask me to shut it down. nowadays I hope I would have understood all this and recognised the group and game was not right for me and quit sooner, but at the time it seemed like a deep personal failing. it's still a little sore.

nowadays I'm blessed to have a really good group of players with a great DM and everyone invested in the game, and I'm playing a Baru Cormorant knockoff who's the best realised character I've ever come up with I think. and like those previous characters, "Silene" is someone who exists to help me explore some shit. I can invest her with beliefs and attitudes I find repellent but could imagine another me believing, use her to examine arrogance and disregard for others. she's kind of an evil Bryn, and I can slip into playing her like a glove to get a different angle on these kinds of feelings, and then take the glove off later. and for everyone else, she hopefully comes off as an entertaining, strongly defined character that gives good handles to play off.

it's an interesting double consciousness because I absolutely get invested in what she wants and try to make her cool, but also ultimately I think she's wrong and I want to show it. and yet... I put stuff I do like into her, or follow ideas that come to me in the moment. her playful enthusiasm for 'natural philosophy', her loyalty to her friends - she's got an endearing side, she could grow out of it. i ended up 'discovering' that she has a lot of discomfort with rejection, which isn't a character choice I made consciously, but something I felt when other characters responded appropriately to the offputting character I had deliberately created. and it works, it's a good trait for her.

sometimes I get afraid that Silene is more of a true portrayal of me than I want to admit, or that I've been playing her too hard in a way that's unpleasant out of character too. I'm lucky that my friends are understanding and willing to reassure me in this situation. it can be a fraught thing to play this kind of character, but that's why it's interesting!

at university a long time ago, I played an industrialist character, "Sarus Tarr", in a game of Burning Wheel. that was another great game with a GM who was honestly much more astute than I was, probably than I am.

Sarus Tarr was not a good person. he was "about" the costs of technology, the industrial revolution - at the time I was much more straightforwardly a transhumanist true believer, so I made his conflict honestly a bit too simple, about the people chewed up by his factories as they changed the world with cheap iron goods. (the transition to modernity has been an obsession for that long I guess!).

I listened to the Clockwork Quartet a lot in that period. I was fascinated by the doctor who builds increasingly elaborate contraptions to save his comatose wife, replacing more and more of her - "what nature has neglected, the fruit of modern science will provide". I didn't really know much about the industrial revolutions, but I knew a little about the Luddites.

I remember one scene from that game the GM arranged a conversation battle scene in which Tarr was forced to defend his factories, using Burning Wheel's elaborate system. I wasn't sure I was up to it, but with some encouragement, I went for it, and surprised myself, getting into a good flow arguing - one of the most intense sessions I've played, but that was what made it so great. I defended Sarus Tarr's factories as thoroughly as I could. I can't remember what I had him say, but there was a choice about whether he was lying about some point he made about the safety of the factories, and I had him tell the truth. on the rules layer, I did my best with an unfamiliar system, weighing up options and FORKing in skills where I could.

in the end, Sarus won, and the protestor was forced to change his beliefs, the stake of the battle. if I'd lost, Sarus would change instead.

I realised that this didn't feel right. Sarus shouldn't have won. I didn't change my beliefs on the spot and instantly become an anarchist or a Marxist or something, that came later, but I think I learned something important, whether about the sorts of characters I like to play, or about what I really thought about factories.

nowadays I love the spotlight and I have to be conscious to make sure other players get their moment and I don't hog it. a lot of good RP is just improv comedy principle when you get down to it - making and taking offers, 'yes and'. your first idea is rarely as good as the idea you can make by bouncing off another player. why is that hard? there's something addictive about RP, a mindset I can access every week, where creativity just flows. ideas come, you respond to the prompts, you kind of inhabit another mind for a bit - it's not for nothing that hardcore LARPers talk seriously of 'bleed'. being in the hotseat with no time to think too hard, and just going for the idea that comes to mind from whatever is simmering in the subconscious, is fantastic. it cuts through all the barriers and blocks, and you get to see the response immediately, from people who each have an entirely different perspective on what this story is about and a different palette of ideas.

that flow state, the positive feedback, is hard to build and a little fragile. you need people with the same sort of wavelength, it's hard to find with strangers. you need to feel safe - it's a very vulnerable act. you need to be attentive to the other players. there's so much unspoken.

the 'Forge' and 'story games' movements did their best to translate those best practices for creating that kind of intense game into rules and procedures. I don't think it made bad games at all, it's hit and miss like any paradigm, it's more... most of the stuff that makes a TTRPG work is stuff you can't make into formal protocol.

but one of the good ideas to come out of those movements was the need to view a 'game system' (which 'Does Matter', ron would like you to know) as not just what's printed in the book, or the formal system of rules, but the actual way which people interact at the game table. accordingly, they made experimental games which played with ideas like sharing the right to have a final say on what's true, game mechanics which adjust the fiction based on drama rather than internal logic, or formally structuring conversations around scenes and phases and times for picking from lists of prompts.

for me, this was great. I struggled a lot with doing prep, since it's been hard to concentrate and hard to come up with a new image when one is filling my head. writing and drawing is a way of releasing them so more can grow. having a structure to facilitate an improvisational style has been an incredible boon.

but as it turns out, a book - which is not some perfect formal system but a prompt that players lean on while creating the 'actual game' - can only do so much. you can only playtest and wordsmith so far.

that's great. every Apocalypse World or D&D game I've played (to focus on the systems I've gotten to use more than once) has been completely different, arising from the dynamic of the group I'm playing with and the skills brought by the players. and yeah, cultures will develop - the Actual Play podcast is a powerful machine for aligning expectations, the D&D forum egregore acts as a weird sort of dialogue partner for many groups, there are many floating expectations of what a game is supposed to look like - but ultimately it's a weird inscrutable alchemy created by the ritualistic social space where you make up a story with another person and each let out some of the stuff you're carrying under the surface.

that's why people care so much about their characters. and it's why telling a good story about an RPG session is hard in most of the same ways telling a good story about a dream is, though you usually have a bit more shared context to lean on with an RPG.

my very first in-person RPG group was when I was what, 15 or so? maybe younger. we played D&D 3.5. I was by far the most invested, and I'd built up an idea of what D&D is like from the Giant in the Playground forums. we played through Sunless Citadel and then various brief games under rotating DMs while I tried to cook up an Eberron game, which... never really got off the ground and now I think about it, one of the players tried to have their character do a rape, and that probably had something to do with it. (i tried to negate it IC bc I was young and stupid). this was in the heyday of 4chan and my friendship group were all big channers so the humour we shared was very "15 year old teenage boys in Somerset who know about encyclopedia dramatica". I was Quite Autistic and often oblivious or hyperfixated and kind of the butt of a lot of jokes, but my friends found me endearing I guess, and were willing to indulge me in playing D&D and get into Warhammer. I would sometimes pretend to run out of the room and commit suicide as a joke. one time I misunderstood the word 'elope' and implied a relationship with another player character, and while it would be nice to say I played it cool and was like yeah we eloped that good with you~, I actually ran upstairs and printed out a replacement version and tried to pretend it didn't happen. teenagers!

anyway, we played "D&D". the rules were functionally pretty much what I said they were because nobody else cared that much and digging into one of those tomes is like... instant screeching halt to the session. I would print off maps and try optimised builds from the stack of splatbooks that absorbed all disposable income. mostly it was a pretext to just hang out. the players were trying to wind me up as much as anything. I played the role of exasperated DM who wanted tob keep the game on track. nobody cast magic missile at the darkness but that's the vibe.

I would also run games of "D&D" online over the Giant in the Playground forums. this was a strange ritual. the first step was that someone would write a forum thread with a pitch. then, players would bring complicated builds and pages of backstory. if I was the DM... ostensibly I'd be selective but I hated rejecting people so I'd start a second group of necessary. we'd start the IC thread. I would set a scene, then everyone would describe the appearance of their characters for several paragraphs. Some light character interaction would happen - slowly since you had to deal with different schedules and time zones, hence the paragraphs. Hopefully nobody would lose interest already, and we'd get going.

eventually we might reach a point where a dice roll is called for. this would take a couple of days to resolve if there was a timezone difference. at worst, the player would state their intended action with a paragraph of flavour, the DM would ask for a specific dice roll, the player would roll it and report the number, the DM would resolve the action.

if that sounds slow as shit, imagine how much it would bog down when you actually started combat. you'd have to establish initiative, everyone would need to take their turns, and if someone was away for some reason? you just gotta wait, or maybe bump the thread with a nagging message.

for this reason, games would very rarely get past their first combat. the fate of just about every single one of these games would be to fade away after some player stopped responding and the rest gradually lost interest. the game was more about... suggesting the idea of a game, and agreeing that idea seemed cool, and a token gesture at playing it.

(the much more robust form of forum RPG was the 'god game'. these would revolve around a pantheon of gods creating a world together. they would usually start on farflung parts of the map and build civilisations that would eventually interact, if the game got that far. the need for back and forth was minimal. posts would be enormous, each one looking more like a short story. the players had a lot more leeway to make decisions but direct interaction was rare. in short it was a form of parallel play.)

both of these 'games' as rituals have little resemblance to what D&D is supposed to be, as declared in the books and suggested by people who had real, dedicated in-person groups of the kind I have now. they were almost a kind of meta-roleplaying? everyone agreed that the activity we were doing in each case was 'playing D&D' though, and we really were responding to the D&D rulebooks.

every time I've played Apocalypse World, even in friend groups where talking about sex is pretty normal and comfortable, the 'special moves' on each playbook that trigger upon sex were implicitly or explicitly off the table. it would be weird. it's definitely part of the design that Vincent and Meguey seem to have intended, though. maybe in their group that is chill. moreover, i tend to neglect the inter-session planning methods, threat clocks etc., and refer to the list of MC moves much less than I'm supposed to. I would still say the games we've played are Apocalypse World, even if it's not exactly the Bakers' well polished machine.

in one game of D&D I played, I started creating an elaborate 3D map of the zone we were exploring in Blender as we played, which I streamed live on Twitch. (the creative energy of an RPG seems to feed into visual art somehow - or maybe just the sense of confidence it engenders). that became a core part of the game procedures for us: @barnacleheretic would describe a scene and I would take a minute to add a model of it to the map. you could never write that as an explicit game mechanic in a published book, but it did a ton to anchor the group and make the setting feel substantial. likewise, I always draw every group I'm in, and if the game goes on long enough, scenes that feel particularly vivid. drawing forces me to pay attention to detail.

the actual process of creating a character and inhabiting them is... very hard to teach except by giving people examples of other players and space to figure it out for themselves, I guess. playbooks and classes help with the blank page problem, but to get to the point where you launch away from the list of numbers and start to get a feeling for how your character thinks and what they mean to you? that's art, and thus as hard to teach as any art. all you can set up is the scaffolding, a gamut from combat stats through beliefs and tags and flag systems to whatever the hell chuubo's is doing, and rely on the social skills of the players to engage each other and get the engine turning, juices flowing.

I hope I continue to play RPGs for the rest of my life.

[johnmakingstuff]

“Two miles is close enough to walk…”

Audrey sighed as she peered out at the rain-soaked street.

Her phone buzzed with the DMs going back and forth between her team and a few of the engineers on the work chat. As Audrey donned her rain jacket and Wellies, she sent one last message in the chat…

“I’m heading in now.”

“Just switch it off and on…that’s it. Off…on…check in.” The task seemed easy enough, but Audrey quickly realized that she had actually never visited the office where this server was located. She grasped at her smartphone in her bag to pull up directions. The phone screen radiated under her crimson umbrella as she typed in the address.

“2.2 miles isn’t too bad...”

She approached the gleaming skyscraper with skepticism. The lobby lights were off. Audrey tried yanking on the door, but it didn’t budge. A head popped up from the security desk and opened the door remotely. BUZZ

“Can I help you?” the night guard gestured Audrey to approach.

“I need to head up to floor 13 and fix a server. I’m with SysEng.” she inquired.

“Do you have your badge?” challenged the guard.

“I’ve never actually been to this office yet…”

“Sorry…you’re going to need to get permission to enter after hours.”

Audrey blankly stared at the guard. “Who would I ask for that?”

The guard wobbled in their chair. “The admin office is out for the holiday. You can reach them on Tuesday.”

“Tuesday?!” Audrey gawked. “That’s next week! I need to head up there tonight!”

“Let me call them” the guard grunted. They fumbled around the desk for a moment, moving papers and stickies. The guard sighed heavily, “I need to grab their number from the security office. I’ll be right back.”

Audrey watched them rise as slow as the sunrise and amble over to the elevators, beeping their badge to get past the security turnstiles.

As they disappeared into the elevator, Audrey slumped onto the reception desk, defeated. Ten minutes passed and Audrey was mentally stuck between continuing to wait for the guard and quitting her job to become a horse rancher in Montana. She began wandering around the lobby, admiring the uninspired art and community accolades. A door marked Mailboxes caught her eye.

She opened the door to a short hallway with rows of small mail receptacles on one side…and a service elevator on the other.

Audrey pressed the up button. She waited, paranoid that the guard would come back looking for her. The door opened with the loudest DING imaginable. She entered quickly and pressed the number thirteen. The elevator slowly rose.

Stepping off the elevator, she inspected the office door. A small piece of cardboard propped it open. Carefully, she stepped inside. Distantly, from the other side of the floor, she heard the faint sounds of a vacuum and Aretha Franklin’s I Say a Little Prayer being sung by a very gruff, masculine-sounding voice.

She pulled her phone out and sent a DM.

“I’m here. Can someone unlock the IDF?”

The door clicked. She stepped into the noisy room.

“It’s rack B, third box from the top.”

Audrey took a moment to orient herself, found the server, and shut it off with the flick of a switch.

Twenty seconds.

She turned the server back on. The lights on the front blinked.

Yellow.

Yellow.

Yellow.

Yellow.

Yellow.

Green.

“We’re good…”

Audrey left the IDF and headed to the service elevator. As she pressed the down button, the reception door opened and the night guard stepped into the office. Instinctively, Audrey held her breath as her eyes followed the guard as he walked across the floor. The guard turned towards reception and picked something up…Audrey’s red umbrella.

The service elevator’s DING pierced the silence.

Audrey, frozen with indecision as the guard turned towards the sound, jumped into the elevator and began pressing the door close button as rapidly as she could.

The guard, taking hurried steps toward the elevator, was only briefly visible before the doors closed. Audrey hoped that she could get to the lobby before the guard. Once the doors opened, she sprinted through the mailroom door and out the glass front doors. She ran down the street, not looking back, until she ran out of breath.

The rain had picked up and Audrey was standing on the sidewalk, bereft of an umbrella, laughing into the sky as the clouds soaked her.

After an exceptionally moist walk home, Audrey stepped foot in her apartment, shoes squishing. She quickly disrobed, headed to her bathroom, and took one of the most satisfying showers of her life. As she towel-dried her hair, she rummaged through the freezer and found her secret stash of Thin Mints. Gazing out the window, she munched on a cookie and thought about which 90’s sitcom she was going to partake in before her long weekend.

Her phone lit up with a notification.

She cautiously picked up her phone and felt the blood drain from her face as she read the notification…

“Are you still around? The server just went offline again.”

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

More than just a game

Warnings: dark elements including noncon and rape, oral, fingering, doxxing, stalking, and other explicit content. 

This is dark!Jake Jensen and explicit. Your media consumption is your own responsibility. Warnings have been given. DO NOT PROCEED if these matters upset you.

Summary: You find a new gaming buddy but he sees you as more than that.

Note: So this is my first Jake Jensen fic and it was lots of fun so let me know what you think and hope you enjoy. :D

Thank you. Love you guys!

As always, if you can, please leave some feedback, like and reblog <3

Special shout-out to @navybrat817​ for helping me with this idea

After too many nights scrolling through subreddits and searching for something to keep you distracted, you decided to bite the hook. Several other redditors agreed to hop on Minecraft and it had been a while since you logged in. You missed the almost relaxing ritual of mining and building.

You joined the chat, quick to hit the little microphone emblem as you listened to the voices in your headset. You learned long ago to keep your mic muted on the servers, especially with strangers. The last time you dared to speak up as a woman in a game chat, your DMs had become so overwhelmed you deleted and started a new account on Discord and changed your ID on Steam.

You were all given your tasks as players called out coordinates and you kept to chopping up the side of a mountain. You mostly worked alone, chatting through text instead of voice chat. As you placed a crafting table in your little mine, another player, JJ-Smooth, popped up and dropped some iron for you. 

He stayed close but you didn’t mind. A lot of players tried to work together the deeper they got and you were used to it. As you uncovered some lava, he dumped water before you could get burned and helped you hack up the obsidian. 

He thanked you on the voice chat but you knew any courtesy in return would earn you the attention of the entire server. So you dropped some gold for him and went on your way.

“I hear a zombie,” he warned.

You turned to hack up the undead before it could get you, only to be shot by a skeleton hidden on the next level. Another appeared and you died before you could hide, the bony villain killed by your ally as you watched your possession scatter over the death screen.

“Hey, I got your stuff,” he said as you loaded back up, “I’ll find you.”

You typed quickly in the chat, ‘sorry, mic busted, give me your coordinates and I’ll come to you.’

You waited as ‘JJ-Smooth is typing…’ appeared at the bottom and finally he sent the numbers. You hopped over the blocky hills and through the forests until you found the mine again. He was just outside and handed over all your tools and ration. He headed back into the mine and you followed him. This time, you began your own path in the opposite direction.

Before you knew it, you’d lost track of time. You sat back as you realised it was only you and JJ on the server. The silence should have tipped you off earlier. He was the host and you felt super awkward for staying so long. You typed that you were logging off for the night and thanked him. 

You hit the keyboard with your knuckle and yawned as you opened the screen, 

“God, it’s late,” you muttered.

“Hello?” he said.

Your eyes rounded as you looked at the mic symbol and the lack of red line made you cringe. You’d hit an extra button without noticing.

“Um, hi, sorry, I just--”

“Mic busted, huh?” he asked.

“No, I--” you didn’t know what to say, “anyways, I should--”

“So, you’re a chick? Is that why you mute?”

“Uh, well, it’s just… easier, sorry, I--” even if you weren’t trying to hide from gamer dudes, you weren’t the best at conversation.

“A gamer girl, nice,” he said and you sighed, “sorry, that sounded weird, didn’t it?”

“Mhmm,” you touched your bottom lip as you cupped your chin, “it’s late, I have to work tomorrow.”

“You comin’ back?” he asked, almost hopeful.

“I don’t know--”

“I won’t tell anyone,” he said abruptly, “promise, lips sealed.”

“I really don’t know if I can do this too much, I usually work early mornings so… yeah,” you said.

“I get it but you know you’re always welcome, hope you don’t mind if I send you an invite now and then. No pressure,” he offered.

“Uh, sure,” you shrugged, “okay, yeah, good night.”

You left the chat quickly and pulled off your headset. Shit.

‘I’m Jake by the way,’ a pm popped up, ‘gg.’

You typed back, ‘gg, it was fun’ and quickly logged out. You sat back and rubbed your eyes. Well, he didn’t seem like a total creep, maybe just a bit awkward but so were you. You shut down for the night and stretched out as you switched off the lamp. You were going to pay for your session in the morning.

🎮

A few nights later you got an invite to the server. You debated it but as it was Friday, you decided to make good use of the PC you’d saved up forever to build. You spawned in the middle of nowhere and built a bed before you found the half-finished settlement. You joined the chat but you must have been early as you were the only one there.

You headed back to the same mine, some work done since the first night, and laid your torches as you ventured into the depths. You jumped in your seat as a voice broke your peace.

“I don’t think anyone else is gonna join,” JJ-Smooth, or Jensen said, “you think maybe you’ll unmute?”

You stopped your mining and stared at the screen. You hovered over the mic button and re-read his name, he was the only other one there. You clicked and gave a strained smile to the screen.

“So, um, what’s the goal tonight?” you asked.

“Get some materials and go back to the settlement, keep building, oh, maybe we could try a portal, you ever gone to the nether?” he said but before you could reply he kept on, “shit, I shouldn’t assume, you seem like an experienced player.”

“Yeah, a few times, but I’m more a casual miner,” you went back to harvesting stone and ore.

“Ah,” he said, and it was silent for a moment, “so, you work again in the morning?”

“Not tomorrow,” you said as you focused on the game, “daycare isn’t open on the weekends.”

“A daycare, huh? That sounds fun, I love kids… not in a weird way but you know, I… urgh, I have a niece,” he said with a nervous chuckle, “nah, that’s cool though, sounds more fun than my gig.”

“Oh?” you turned and kept your axe moving.

“IT. You know, some people would be like ‘hey Jensen, why do you spend all your free time staring at a screen when that’s what you do at work?’” he scoffed, “well, who says I’m not mining there too.”

You wrinkled your forehead and gave a small laugh. He was rambling and it was kinda odd. You were happy for once not to be the strange one.

“But anyway,” he said, “I found lots of diamond over here. If we get some lapis lazuli we can build an enchanting table and get some sick armour.”

“Awesome,” you pressed your fingertips to your lip as you leaned on your elbow, “should try to head back before dark…”

“Hard to tell down here. How about you mine and I’ll keep an eye out for monsters?” he offered.

“Sure,” you agreed as he came onto your screen, “that works.”

🎮

Another week went by and you ventured back into the server a few times but not for very long as late nights did not mix with young children. The next weekend, you joined again on Saturday night and like the last few times it was just you and Jensen. You wondered why no one else was joining when the subreddit was so popular but you didn’t worry about it for long.

You mostly played in silence, Jensen did most of the talking and it was never about anything more than the game or his niece’s last soccer game. That night when you left the game, he kept typing on Discord.

‘I like playing with you,’ his message blipped up.

‘Same, thx.’

‘Really, you’re awesome.’

‘Thx :) Tired, gotta sleep.’

‘Sweet dreams.’

‘Night.’

You changed your status to offline and dragged yourself to bed. You opened your phone as you laid in the dark and went to the subreddit, you scrolled through the builds and screenshots of other people’s catastrophes. 

You came to Jensen’s last invite post from that night but all the comments complained that the world code was incorrect. Hmm, you should tell him next time.

You blackened your cell and plopped it on your night table. You rolled over and buried your face in the pillow, the light still etched into your vision. You fell asleep quickly and woke the next day to another invite from Jensen.

‘How about some Fortnite? If you’re into it?’

‘Srry, can’t, my mom’s expecting me for lunch.’

‘2 bad, maybe later.’

‘Maybe’.

You got ready to go see your mother for your usual Sunday afternoon visit and it went by like any other. When she asked you what you’d been up to, you didn’t mention the gaming, she was never a fan of it. When you got back home, Jensen was messaging you again. You didn’t open the notification and settled in to catch up on some streaming before another week of work.

Monday hit you like a train and you were glad you hadn’t spent the night mining again. If you had, you doubted you’d even be able to open your eyes. You got to the daycare centre and welcomed in the kids. You got them set up for the morning snack then cleaned up as Sandy took them over to the reading circle.

You wiped the tables and then did some painting before you went out for some play time in the yard. As you watched several of the children on the swings, you glanced around. There was a man across the street. You squinted through the chain link as he seemed to be watching but assured yourself it was nothing as he quickly headed for the corner and disappeared.

Inside, the kids were due for quiet time, some napped and those who didn’t, stared at the ceiling and yawned. You could have joined them but knew that wouldn’t be acceptable. The end of the day came and you helped the kids pack up their paintings and their sweaters. You waited in the yard with them as the parents showed up and handed them off one by one.

You waved to Danika as she clung to her mother and your eye was once more drawn beyond the chain link. The same faded grey jacket, the same glasses, and the hat with the frayed brim. It was a better look at the man. Was he looking at you? Why on earth was he hanging around outside a daycare?

“Sandy,” you turned and lowered your voice as she neared, “see that man?”

She peeked over and shrugged, “which one? The guy crossing the street?”

You looked up again and like before, he was walking away casually as if he hadn’t just been staring through the fence. You shook your head and huffed. “Sorry, never mind.”

“Ah, don’t worry about it,” she waved her fingers, “come on, let’s clean up.”

With the kids all sorted out, you went back in and tidied up the last of their mess. You and Sandy were friendly but like with any, you weren’t very talkative. You never really knew what to say but you were never unkind.

You pulled on your jacket and checked your purse for your phone and wallet. You checked the time and turned off the lights. You bid Sandy goodbye as she headed for her SUV and you took your usual route down the sidewalk towards your bus stop. 

You stopped short as the man was there. You were paranoid, he must just be waiting for the same route. You approached and he turned to watch you as you sat on the bench. He smiled and the dread sank deep in your chest. 

His rectangular glasses gave light to his blue eyes and a goatee trimmed his jaw. He was tall and well-built, you could tell even under his comic book tee. He was going to talk to you, another weirdo in the city.

“Hey,” his voice was chillingly familiar, “how was your day?”

You stared at him and blinked cluelessly. You looked around, it was only the two of you. You opened your mouth but you had to be wrong. He said your name and you winced.

“Jensen?” you breathed as you stood and squeezed the strap of your bag, “why? How--?”

“You weren’t answering me, I was worried,” he said, “just making sure you’re okay.”

“What the-- I don’t understand how--” He stepped closer and you backed up against the bench. “Don’t, I’ll scream.”

“Scream? Why? I’m just-- You know me, it’s me, Jensen.”

“You doxxed me?” you snapped, “what the hell?”

“No, I didn’t-- I’m just checking on you--”

“I don’t know you,” you said as your heart began to race, “so please, leave me alone,” you edged away from him, “and don’t message me again.”

You sprinted across the street and as you came up on the curb, you looked back at him. He watched you but didn’t follow. You could tell from there he wasn’t happy but the brim of his cap shadowed most of his face so you couldn’t guess if it was hurt or anger. You quickly spun away and continued down the next street to the nearest stop.

You couldn’t believe he’d just shown up like that. You couldn’t believe he would think that was okay. You couldn’t believe he’d think that much about you.

🎮

You blocked Jensen on Discord and left his world on Minecraft. That night you were shaky and nervous, afraid that he would show up at your apartment. Did he know where you lived? He must if he could figure out where you worked.

You didn’t open Steam that night. You paced your small apartment, jumping at every noise. Sleep didn’t come easily but in shallow spurts that left you even more tired. You watched over your shoulder as you walked to your stop and boarded with one eye on the door.

Work was little better as you found yourself distracted in the room full of toddlers. Sandy asked if you were okay as you kneaded play-do violently. You shook yourself out of your paranoia and assured her you were only short on sleep, not a complete lie.

You took out your phone when you stepped out for a small break. Your mom had called but you would have to get back to her when you had two hours to waste. There was another notification, that one from Discord, a friend request from JJ-NoRematch. It wasn’t hard to guess who it was and you declined it right away.

There were several others from Jensen, too. He followed your Insta, blocked; he followed your mostly empty twitter, blocked; and he even commented on your LinkedIn like a weird. You closed your phone and took a breath before you headed back into the kids, their voices rising in their excitement to go outside.

In the yard, you had another look around, expecting to see him there on the other side of the fence. You were slightly relieved when he wasn’t but still on edge. You joined a game of tag then watched several of the kids line up for the slide. You lost yourself in your job as you told yourself he must have gotten the hint, at least not to bother you irl.

Just like the day before, and every day, you left work and headed for your stop. He wasn’t there either and you sat down and phoned your mom, hanging up as the bus pulled up with a promise to call her again when you were home. At home, you felt almost normal again and checked your notifications; no more follows, no more requests, nothing.

Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday passed in a similar fashion. Each saw your anxieties less than the day before. You even resolved to open Steam and start a new world for yourself. You spent hours mining and almost fell asleep in your chair. When you nearly tipped over, you decided it was time for bed.

You slept better than you had all week and woke up before noon. You wanted to log right back on but you had life to deal with; groceries, cleaning, and of course, making that call to your mother you’d delayed the night before. After all that, you felt accomplished and you decided to treat yourself to take out, a rare divulgence.

You called the local Chinese eatery and waited eagerly for your feast as you turned on a new episode of your current binge. You played on your phone until the battery was low and had enough juice to buzz up the delivery man. You dug for your wallet as you went to the door and unlocked it without looking up.

“How much--” you asked as you opened the door.

Your eyes met a familiar pair, two blue gems behind a pair of narrow glasses. Jensen wore the same cap and held the paper bag of take-out with a smile. You grabbed the door and tried to swing it shut but he was too quick as he slapped a large hand against the peeling paint.

“It’s on me,” he said, “I love spare ribs.”

“What the--” you gasped as you pushed on the door helplessly, “please go away.”

“You’re not answering me,” he said as he stepped closer and forced you back as his body brushed against yours, “you blocked me and I can’t even get a hey, Jensen, how are you?”

“I don’t want you here,” you tried to shove him and he shouldered you away easily, “get out!”

He slammed the door and you flinched. He put the bag down on the corner table and reached back to twist the lock without a look. His eyes roved around your entryway and further into your apartment. He smiled as they stilled and focused on you.

“This place is cute… like you,” he said and you heard a slight hesitation in his voice.

You swallowed and backed away from him. You spun on your heel and ran for your couch. You reached over the back to your phone and unlocked it as the battery icon flashed. You had just enough juice to make the call. You dialed as you turned back to him.

“I’m calling the police so you b-better l-leave,” you warned as your voice and hands shook, “I me--”

He was quick and before you could pull away, he swiped your cell out of your hand. He scoffed and tossed it across the room. It hit the wall and landed screen down on the hardwood. You bit down and pressed yourself to the couch. You stared at him and kicked yourself forward as you tried to slip past him. He caught you and wrestled you back into the front room.

“Why are you doing this?” he asked calmly as you struggled in his grasp, “I’ve been nothing but nice to you.”

“N-no, you’re-- you-- let me go,” you stammered as he angled you around the couch. He pushed you down so you bounced on the cushion. You tried to push yourself up and he pointed his finger in your face and wagged it. 

“No, you stay,” he growled and wiped his other hand on his jeans. He was nervous, even if he was angry.

“Please, why-- what do you want?” you grasped the cushion and hovered at the edge of the couch.

He sighed and sat in the chair. He took his hat off and set it on the table as he ran his fingers through his short hair. 

“Good question,” he said as his jaw squared and his eyes turned to pinpoints, “better one, why did you block me?”

“Are you serious? You-- you--” you struggled to get your words out, your voice even more splintered by your fear, “you doxxed me, you came to-- to my work-- and…”

“I thought we were getting along. I thought you liked me,” he said with a frown, “I really did, you sure acted like it and-- I only wanted to make sure you were safe.”

“But why wouldn’t I be? I--” you shivered and crossed your arms as you withered beneath his gaze, “Jensen, this was only supposed to be online.”

He scoffed and stomped his boot on the floor. He shook his head as he looked to the ceiling and his anger bulged along his temple. He tilted his head and looked at you again.

“You know, for years, I have been a nice guy, I am a nice guy,” he pushed his shoulders to his ears as he threw his hand out, “I’m so patient and caring and you girls, you don’t even give me a second look.”

“Jensen--”

“No, really, I mean look at you, you’re no supermodel and yet it’s the same thing, ‘let’s just be friends’,” he spat, “but I watch guys all the time treat women like shit and they don’t have any trouble at all, they got them hanging off of them and I’m a creep for giving them a compliment or opening the door--”

“I don’t… know you,” you eked out, “you have to understand--”

“I don’t understand,” he stood abruptly, “I’m done trying to understand.”

He pulled his jacket open and slid it down his arms. You watched him sling it over the chair and as he turned back to you, you stood. He caught your shoulders and held you in place. His strength was plain in his grip as he squeezed then slowly moved his hands to cradle your face.

“I just wanna be nice,” he said as he leaned in. You tried to pull away but he moved a hand around the back of your head and forced your lips against his. He poked his tongue inside your mouth roughly as you tried to shove him away. Finally, he parted, his hands still firmly around your head, “wasn’t that nice?”

“Please,” you begged as he ran his thumb over your bottom lip.

His eyes searched your face as you stared back at him in terror. He sighed and dropped his hands back to your shoulders. He pushed you down to the sofa harshly and backed away.

“Fine, I won’t be nice,” he snarled as he took his glasses off and folded them carefully. He put them on the table beside his cap and twined his fingers together, loudly cracking his knuckles.

You blinked at him as your eyes grew glossy. You brought your legs up under you and pressed yourself to the back of the couch. You grasped the upholstery and turned as you launched yourself over to the other side. You stumbled as you landed on your feet and ran for the door.

You were yanked back as he snaked his arms around you and took you off your feet. You kicked out and screamed but it was cut off by his palm as he kept one arm around your middle. You scratched at his hand as he dragged you back to the couch. He pushed you face down onto the cushions and planted his knee in the middle of your back, slipping his hand away as he put enough weight on you to keep your voice suffocated.

“Listen, I know I look like some IT nerd but I’m a lot more than that, now don’t make me hurt you,” he played with your hair as he smiled down at you, “you try that again and I will shut you up and if someone hears you, I can take care of them too.”

You sniffed as tears pricked in your eyes and nodded frantically as it felt as if he would snap your spine. He pushed off of you and you stayed as you were, paralysed with fear. He sat and unlaced his boots one at a time. He looked up as he set them neatly beside the foot of the chair and he bent to catch your eye.

“Well?” he pointed at you and traced the line of your body in the air, “let’s go.”

You stared at him dumbly and he stood to pull his tee over his head. His torso was sculpted perfectly and his chest trimmed with hair that trailed all the way down to his pants. He stepped forward and tugged at the back of your shirt.

“You want me to do it for you, baby?” he purred, “I can help you.”

You swatted him away and sat up. You bent your legs to your chest and hugged them. “Please, I’m scared, just leave me alone--”

His hand rested on his belt and exhaled again. His fingers moved swiftly to unloop the striped belt and unbutton his jeans. He pushed them down, nearly tripping as he stepped out of them. He stood in his boxers, tented with his impatient excitement, and gripped his hips.

“It’s okay, baby, I know you’re shy, I am too,” he neared and you winced as he grabbed your wrist. He tugged on your arm and you resisted until he bent your hand back painfully and you cried out. He tickled your jaw as he looked you in the eye and tutted, “it doesn’t have to be like this, alright?”

You went limp and let him pull your arms apart. Your legs slipped down and your feet dangled above the floor. He got to his knees and pushed between yours. He slowly rolled up the hem of your shirt and bent to kiss your stomach as he bared the flesh. You trembled as he forced your arms up and swooped the fabric over your head. It fluttered through the air and to the floor as he cupped your tits through your bright pink bra.

“Is this so bad?” he asked as he nuzzled your chest and pushed your tits up. 

He glided the straps down your arm and slid your bra lower so that you popped out. He nibbled at your flesh and traced your nipples with his tongue. You sat rigid and let him explore your body, too terrified to move a muscle. He reached around you and struggled with the hooks, frustrated he snapped the clasps and the band came free.

He continued to play with your chest, his fingers crawling up and down your stomach and sides. There was a genuine curiosity to his touch and it sent a chill through you. His fingertips pressed to the top of your pants and he pulled at them as his lips travelled down to your hip.

He tugged on your pants and jerked your entire body. He tore them lower as he pushed you up and you lifted yourself to let him peel away the layer. He added them to the floor and toyed with the elastic of your panties. The little bow in the front drew his attention as he pushed your legs wider and ran his nose along the cotton.

He hummed and rubbed his fingers down your crotch, pushing the fabric to your folds as he teased you through them. You inhaled sharply at the tingle it inspired and he pressed firmer against you, flicking his fingers along your bud as he noticed how it made you squirm.

He gently pulled aside the cotton and you felt his hot breath against you. You pushed on his head before he could delve into you. “Please, don’t--”

“Shhhh,” he threw your hand away from his head and bent over you, “just relax.”

He dragged his tongue along your cunt and lingered around your clit. You clenched as it sent a thrill through you and he moved his lips against you, suckling at you bud as your breaths grew raspy. You pushed yourself against the back of the couch and dug your nails into the cushion.

He slid a finger along your cunt and circled your entrance. He rubbed up and down as he kept his tongue swirling over your clit and you swallowed back as gasp as he poked inside. He felt around and added another finger, stretching you as he carefully pushed them in and out of you in time with his mouth.

He lapped you up and you closed your eyes, desperate to resist the coil winding within you. Your legs tensed against the couch and you tilted your pelvis without thinking. He sped up, the noise of his mouth and your slickness filled the silence. You let out a puff and moaned as you slapped the couch. The waves rolled over your flesh and you came into his mouth with a pathetic mewl.

He stilled his fingers as he lazily teased you with his tongue. He pulled his fingers out and sat back, the heat between your legs cooling in his absence as he licked up your juices. He watched you as he sucked his fingers and stood. Your head lolled and you edged forward on the couch. You tried to stand but he caught you and flung you back.

“We’re not done, baby,” he winked at you as he grasped the top of his boxers, “go on, lay down.”

You murmured your refusal and once more tried to get up. You slipped onto the floor and shakily crawled away as he dropped his boxers to his ankle. He grabbed you before you could get around the side and lifted you easily. He turned you and shoved you down onto your back as he lifted a leg over you.

He straddled you and again his hands roved over your body. You smacked at his fingers weakly but he easily ignored you. He kept one hand moving along your curves as he stroked himself with the other. He groaned and shook as he stroked his dick. Your eyes followed his hand and you gulped, he was thick.

He moved his knees back and pushed them up beneath your thighs as he kept a hand planted on your chest. He ripped your panties down your legs and untangled them from your feet. 

He held you down as he ran his tip along your cunt, wetting himself with your coerced arousal. You groaned and grabbed the arm of the couch above you. You tried to pull away from him.

He pushed against your entrance and you looked at him in shock. You couldn’t stop him. His eyes were set between your legs as he inhaled and slowly eased into you. He gasped as he got his tip inside you and his muscles tensed. He bit his lip as he dove further in and you gasped as he filled you inch by inch.

“Shitttt,” he moaned as he reached his limit and you whined at how full you were, “oh, baby.”

His hand slid from your chest and he gripped your hips as he pulled back and thrust. You exclaimed and he did it again, slowly as he watched himself impale you over and over. You curled your fingers against the couch arm and your feet arch as you pressed your thighs around him. He lifted your pelvis high as he angled his dick even deeper.

“You feel so good,” he rasped, “oh, baby, you’re so good. Ahh-hh-hh,” his voice fizzled as your walls clenched him and you closed your eyes as you felt the heat building. 

He moved his hand along your thigh and stretched it over your pelvis, pushing his thumb to your clit as he kept his pace. He purred as you writhed helplessly against him and you panted through the rising ecstasy.

“Please, please, please…” you chanted, unsure if you were begging him to stop or for more.

He moaned as he sped up and you sucked your lip under your teeth as you neared your peak. You quivered as your orgasm crashed into you and you let out a strangled cry. He snarled and planted his hands beside your head as he leaned over you, his hot breath tickled your face as he pounded into you.

Your legs bent around him as his pelvis rubbed against you and the friction drove you to another climax. You held onto the arm of the couch as he fucked your harder and harder. He kissed you and nibbled at your lip as he groaned and hooked an arm under to hold you close.

“You’re gonna make me cum, baby,” he said against your cheek and you turned your head away from, “ah, here I--”

He spasmed and slammed into you. He took several long thrusts and stilled. He grunted and drew heavy breaths as he rested his weight over you. He grabbed your head and turned your head up as he pressed his forehead to yours. You kept your eyes closed as the flames slowly dwindled.

“Was that so bad?” he stroked your cheek and trailed his finger down to poke between your lips, “No, it’s what you wanted, isn’t it, baby?” he wiggled his hips and you hissed, “yeah, you want me.”

[cipherexists]

YOO started a new multichap Hermit!Tommy fic, chaper one is done so please ponder it as if an orb!

Ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/36062998

Chap one under cut!

Ping!

Tommy’s communicator sounded from where he discarded it in his tent. The boy was sitting on the shoreline, letting water splash against his legs. He wasn't expecting a message. Dream had severed his comm’s link to the main chat, so the only messages he would receive would have to be directly to him.

No one would ever message him: why did his comm go off?

Tommy stood, letting the water drip off of his legs before the sand would stick too badly. The sand still formed makeshift boots before he made it to the grass to wipe it off. His comm screen lit up the small tent in the evening dark: It was actually a message!

[Warning!: This is an out of Server message, The contents could be harmful.]

<Grian> Yo! Saw we are teamed for MCC! Wanna discuss stats and strats?

[Accept] [Decline] [Block]

MCC? He had completely forgotten about the event in the timeless feeling that exile had brought him. He knew it was in two days time but he hadn't even checked the board of announcements to see who he was teamed with, Grian was unexpected though.

Tommy swore, he was crude and inappropriate for Grian’s image, he also just wasn't worthy to be working with someone as cool and talented as him. Tommy continued to stare at the button that would accept the message: he couldn't leave the server and hadn't been able to bring himself to speak.

The button’s click was loud in the quiet bay, the beep that sounded after made Tommy wince. Pressing the keys felt foreign, Tommy typed slowly in order to not make mistakes.

<TommyInnit> Heya G! Yeah, im down to talk stats, can only dm tho, server restrictions and that

The reply was almost instant, the buzz of his comm made his arm burn.

<Grian> Sure! Messages are fine, what server has those types of restrictions tho lol. Can I add you to a group with the rest of the team?

A group? More people to talk to when he’s been practically alone for months? He slid his comm on to silent to stop the notifications from overwhelming him more.

<TommyInnit> yeah ofc, i havent actually checked who we r teamed with so, be happy to talk!

<Grian> Awesome, adding you now!

His comm suddenly lit up with notifications from a chat named ‘Blue Bats For The Win!’. Tommy opened the occupants list to find that he had been placed with Grian, Cubfan153 and PeteZahHut. Holy shit, that was a lot of really good players.

Tommy took a breath, typing an ‘o/’ in response to the welcoming messages. The others immediately got into asking his best games, what strategies he had and what role he usually took in a team. Tommy had to pause and catch his breath often, stopping to stroke the scratches and dents of his comm before every message sent.

After an hour of discussion the conversation turned more personal, the three other’s friendship becoming obvious as they conversed without Tommy. A few questions were directed his way, harmless questions about meeting certain players or his favourite meals to prepare for a big day. That was until:

<Cubfan135> Hey Tommy! Pete usually comes over to Hermitcraft a day or so before the event so we can all practice together, you reckon you could come along tomorrow as well?

He didn't know, leaving the server meant asking Dream, asking Dream meant actually interacting with him. Dream didn't like him very much. He practised the argument in his head, planning it to be along the lines of ‘it would be bad for the image to keep me from going, it's hermitcraft!’

<TommyInnit> ill have to ask the ol admin, im sure he will say yes tho!!

Now he had to ask Dream. He opened their message logs, watching as the cursor blinked in the empty box.

<TommyInnit> So, My MCC team has asked for me to meet in their world, Hermitcraft, the day before the event. It would be bad for the public image for me to attend, its standard practice with Hermit teams. Will you open the portal to the world hub for me when it comes time?

His hands were shaking as he typed out the message, once sent he dropped his comm onto his bed moving his hands to ball them into his eyes. Steadying his breathing, he waited for the message to come through. A few agonising minutes later, his screen lit up with a message from Dream.

<Dream> I will open it for 5 minutes, be at spawn for 12 on that day, no later, no earlier.

Relief washed over him as he realised he would get to go, time on the Hermitcraft server seemed like it would be fun- terrifying after being in isolation for months, but fun! He decided to let the Hermits know that he would be there, also thinking to ask when he was wanted for.

<Grian> just stop by anytime before 3pm Hub time, don't worry about packing dinner or sleep stuff btw, we shall provide!

<Cubfan135> Yeah, all inclusive hotel at G’s unfinished mansion. Don't mind the breeze! /j

<Grian> \(@~@)/ Why must you insult me in this way cub /lh

The two continued to bicker back and forth but the thought that Tommy would be staying in the mansion he had only ever seen pictures of? Tommy was awestruck. Even if he were to sleep in a tent outside, that would be cool enough!

If he was visiting the server, would he get to meet Etho? He would have to try to seek him out, promote Tubbo and his work or atleast get a picture with him to show Tubbo when they were friends again. If they were friends again.

For now, the sun had long since set, the chill of the night settling into his tent. He clambered under scorched sheets, dreaming of what tomorrow would bring. He slept almost through the night, the cold was the only thing that woke him, he was free of nightmares that night.

//

The spruce woods that surrounded spawn brought only pain, he knew he was close to home, but it was 11:59 and Dream was supposed to open the portal soon. The man was nowhere to be found, probably taking the opportunity to rifle through his belongings, making sure he hadn't hidden anything anywhere. He hadn't, he was good.

The classic merage-like portal appeared in front of him, distorted voices carried through from the main world hub, it was only 8am Hub time, Tommy could only hope they weren't bothered by him waiting by their portal so early.

Walking across the hub always felt weird, he did it rarely and it was always to go to the MCC portal that wasn't too far from the DreamSMP one. The hermitcraft portal was always easy to spot, it was well decorated and it was old.

Instead of getting new portals when they moved worlds, their admin went through the pain of reassigning the original portal. The frame had everything from Vote For Mumbo stickers to notes written by GenerikB. Years old posters were stuck to the sides and it was delicately painted with vines and flowers.

The sign was always new though, reading in green font ‘HermitcraftVII’. Tommy stood outside the portal, it was inactive and he would need to message one of his teammates to let him in but the view was just nice enough to deal with for a bit. But soon enough, his ragged appearance outside of such an esteemed portal caught the looks of the mods that managed the hub.

<TommyInnit> Hey Grian, im pretty early but this was the only time my admin would let me out, im okay to wait just let me know when you can get the portal open. ty!

Tommy decided to wander around, stalling outside of the deactivated and closed portal for SMPEarth, he nodded solemnly at the childish writing of ‘Biggest man ruled here!! -Tommy innit’ and the various stickers of the Antarctic empire flag.

He passed several other portals, a portal labelled Technical Difficulties SMP that was currently flickering on and off, much to a mushroom covered robots dismay, the rest of the server members were running around or trying to distract them.

There was a portal labelled Empires SMP: there were various gold emblems and crystals growing from the portal frame, the portal itself seemed to shimmer and spark with magic energy more than others. He was going closer to inspect it but his comm buzzed in his pockets.

<Grian> Awesome, will be there in a minute. Looking forward to meeting you Tommy, prepare for clean language tho! /srs

Tommy almost forgot that the hermits did not swear, he thanked Dream silently for training him to be perfect; he couldn't swear and mess it all up if he didn’t talk! He was good when he was silent, the respectable people on Hermitcraft wanted him to be good!

He was just outside the portal when it flickered to life, a familiar red jumpered avian stepped through.

“Hey Tommy! Early birds are we? Let's get going, have you eaten breakfast?” Luckily,Grian had already stepped back through the portal before he would have the opportunity to reply. The portal felt cool as he stepped through, it was cool because he was immediately thrown into an ocean that pulled him down.

Panicked, he threw his arms around, splashing in the cold ocean water was useless as he went further and further down. His fear did not subside when he hit the bottom, or when he was pulled out of the column of water by a laughing Grian. His breathing only evened out when his feet were planted on solid ground and his hand pushed his ‘tubbo’ compass into his chest.

The pressure on his ribs calmed him as he shot daggers at the avian, who was now in a cubical drying his feathers. Tommy followed suit, finding an identical cubical on the opposite side of the room. He stepped in and was hit with a wave of warm air. If he was honest, this was the freshest he had been in weeks,hair was even fluffed up and looking actually blond.

Once fully dry, he stepped out and followed Grian into the nether. The man chatted idly about the plans for the day, he mentioned that they were heading to a cafe for breakfast. Tommy was busy being amazed by the environment they were in, the nether hub was nothing like he had ever seen before, the sight of stepping out of the portal at the other end was even better.

The commercial district was stunning.Grian was walking too fast for him to admire it now, but the detail in each build was too much for Tommy to even understand. From Tubbo’s midnight rambles about the server he understood that they didn't grief or steal; yet it still didn't make sense to him why they put in so much effort for a world that would be left behind in a year or so.

Grian turned tail to enter a cafe, claiming it to have the best morning snacks in the whole server. Pastries were pulled from barrels as they entered and a coffee machine was turned on. Grian paused to ask if Tommy wanted a cup of tea, and he nodded yes thinking it would be rude to decline. It wasn't because he hadn't had tea in months, totally

The chairs were comfortable, the pastry was delicious and Grian was still talking endlessly about his excitement for MCC. He managed to eat ¾ of a croissant before being full, sipping on his tea to let it go down easier, as the pastry was too rich for a stomach used to bread and potatoes.

The atmosphere was nice. Grian seemed to pick up that he wasn't really wanting to talk so Tommy sat fiddling with the crumbs of pastry. That was until another man walked into the store, Grian perked up as the man approached. It was The Mumbo Jumbo. Not to mention that now The Mumbo Jumbo was moving to sit at their table.

Tommy’s day just got so much better.

[blue-bird-on-a-wire]

Vercopa (Hope)

gif credit: @coredrive​

Part 1 of the Gar Cuyir Yaim series

Rating: Mature

Word Count: 3,620

Pairing: Paz Vizsla x (Y/n) with she/her pronouns

Warnings: Jabba’s slave culture, violence, threat of unwanted sexual harassment. This takes place in a universe where Jabba never died in Return of The Jedi (maybe he passed out or something).

Summary: All (Y/n) can remember is being sold to Jabba at a young age. She has grown up within his palace walls, hears tales of great warriors called Mandalorians. Just as she faces what may be her last few days alive, a big blue Mandalorian shows up.

A/N: Hi! This is my first time posting a fic on Tumblr. You can also find this on Ao3 under B1ue_Bird_0n_A_Wire. Please feel free to give feedback, as I don’t have a beta reader and often miss spelling mistakes. Or if you feel there need to be more warnings/other warnings, feel free to DM me! I don’t bite 😊. Enjoy!

The room was always full and loud, bustling with music from the band and conversation between various criminals. It was a place full of sleemos making deals, only to backstab each other when the twin suns set. The smell of sweat left a foul taste in your mouth, but it was easier to ignore the longer you stayed. One might say this palace was full of life if not for the giant slug who controlled everyone within it. All who stayed there were either a slave through debt or in chains.

I was not so lucky as to be a slave through debt. I could not work my way out of slavery, for I was in chains.

Sold to Jabba as a girl, almost all of my life had been within his palace walls. I had been a server while growing up. Hardly anyone ever paid attention to me as I scrambled around the place. I served and refilled drinks, or cleaned up after “guests” who died by the hand of Jabba's goons.

My biggest fear, aside from the rancor pit beneath my feet, was being turned into one of Jabba’s dancers. He went through them faster than a womp rat could scurry through an alleyway at night. If Jabba’s rancor wasn’t fed by someone who failed to pay back their debt, it was fed by a dancer after Jabba grew tired of them. A pretty face would only last so long.

I had learned a lot from listening to bounty hunters tell stories about their travels. My favorites were the stories about the Mandalorians. They were warriors who lived by a strict code and valued family just as much as they valued their weapons or beskar armor.  

As a child, I would dream of these Mandalorians coming to Jabba’s palace, and taking me away. They would raise me to be one of them like I was a foundling. I wanted to be strong like a Mandalorian too, in how they could strike fear into even the most dangerous criminals with only a tilt of their head.

Although I had never seen one before, I knew they wore what was called beskar armor, and were not allowed to take off their helmets. Some people said they would paint their armor a different color from the shiny silver of beskar metal. I remember overhearing a conversation about Mandalorian traditions in regards to their loyalty and the love for their children. I painted a picture in my head of these great warriors and idolized them as the heroes in my daydreams. I never thought I would meet a real one.

~ ~ ~

“‘Nother round o’ spotchka!” a bounty hunter called as I walked past his table. “An’ ‘Urry it up, Babe!”

I did my best to refrain from rolling my eyes as I quickly made my way to the bar.

The thin metal collar around my neck rubbed at my skin as I turned my head to look up at the bartender. It was a constant reminder of my place within this hierarchy, though after so long I had nearly grown numb to the pain. 

“Spotchka please, for table six,” I said, watching as the bartender took a glance behind me to make sure there was actually someone at that table.

There were no true friends here. It was almost a rule to expect lies coming from everyone's mouth. Besides, Jabba had issues with his slaves and alcohol consumption in the past, hence the unease for my honesty (not that I had ever been dishonest with this bartender before). The bartender turned around and pulled a glass from off the shelf. He filled it with the glowing blue alcohol and slid it across the bar table.

I smiled at him, picked up the glass, and gave a nod in thanks.

Though I did my best to ignore it, my neck burned at the gesture. I couldn’t wait to get my hands on a little bit of bacta gel from one of the closets downstairs. I planned to sneak in there while no one was watching. Maybe I could find a few moments to myself as well, away from the hustle and bustle of the people in the throne room.

“Took ya long enough, Babe. I was startin’ to think ya ‘ad forgotten abou’ me,” the bounty hunter said as I returned with his alcohol. He stroked his patchy beard and eyed me up and down while I set his drink on the table.

I kept my gaze cast downward with my lips tightly pressed together. All I wanted was to get in and out without being noticed, but as I have grown older that had become much harder to do.

Just as I turned to leave, I saw the bounty hunter pick up the glass and dump its contents on the floor.

“Oops,” he said. “Guess ya gotta clean that up, Babe.”

I could feel my face heating up, knowing full well what game he was playing at. I wasn’t stupid. I had seen guests do this to other slave girls before. It never ended well for one or the other person.

I pulled a rag hanging from my belt, as it was common for me to be cleaning up spills. Instead of bending over, I chose to keep my front facing the bounty hunter and squat in order to wipe up the blue alcohol.

“‘Ome on now, Babe! Don’ be tha’ way,” the bounty hunter wined, banging his fist on the table as I stood up.

“Would you like another drink?” I asked, plucking the now empty glass from the table.

“Betta’ watch ya tone with me, ‘ittle one. I’m sure Jabba woulden’ wanna ‘ear abou’ trouble comin’ fro’ ya.”

I smiled, though it did not reach my eyes. “I’ll take that as a no,” I said and walked away to dispose of the rag and fetch a new one. I felt proud of myself, though the feeling did not last very long.

“Jabba!”

The throne room grew quiet with the bounty hunters' booming voice.

My blood ran cold and I froze in place.

Jabba finished chewing on a roasted frog before grumbling out in huttese.

“The great and powerful Jabba demands to know what you want, bounty hunter,” translated the crime lord’s red protocol droid.

The middle-aged man stood from his seat, drunkenly staggering up to Jabba’s throne.

“Don’ ya think tha’ pretty ‘ittle server ovah there,” the bounty hunter pointed at me. “Odda make a good danca?”

I thought my knees were going to collapse. I could feel my fingers twitching around the glass, and my eyes widened as I watched him.

Jabba paused for a moment before speaking.

“The all mighty Jabba wants to know what makes you say this,” droned the protocol droid.

The man looped his fingers through his belt while he turned to look at me. “She’s been ‘ere for a long time, Jabba. She’s experienced with this crowd. I’d imagine she’d make herself more useful to ya in tha’ way before her expiration date.”

My heartbeat was picking up speed with every second this dragged on. My expiration date? What, were they planning to kill me once I reached a certain age or something?

Jabba spoke again, his tone was much harsher than before.

“The great and powerful Jabba says you should not be telling him what to do.”

“Oh! Bu’ o’ course not! Look, Jabba, all I’m askin’ is tha’ ya-”

Jabba cut the bounty hunter off and spoke more aggressively.

Everyone in the room flinched back at his tone, even the protocol droid.

“The all mighty Jabba says you are in no position to be making deals, bounty hunter.”

“Jabba! Jabba! Now, wait a minute and jus’ liste-”

The overgrown slug slammed his fist down on a button on his throne, opening the rancor pit.

Gasps could be heard through the room as the bounty hunter fell into the beast’s layer.

The crowd quickly swarmed around the grates on the floor, subsequently pushing me forward as well. They laughed and jeered as the rancor was released from its cage.

I felt my stomach churn as I listened to the bounty hunter screaming and pleading for his life. I would never understand the appeal of watching a monster devour people.

At least that man would never pray on anyone ever again.

As the rancor picked up the helpless bounty hunter and swallowed him whole, the crowd let out a big cheer.

I was nearly elbowed in the face with all the commotion before the crowd pulled back and dispersed to where they had been before.

I shuffled backward with everyone, the breath I had been holding was finally released.

This must have meant I would remain a server after all.

Jabba finished laughing, and I began to leave and fetch another towel when I heard my name leave his slimy lips.

Oh boy.

I halted in my steps, dread shooting back down to the pit of my belly. I turned on my heels, knowing one should never leave Jabba waiting.

“Yes, great and powerful Jabba?” I squeaked out, quiet enough that I wasn’t sure I had been heard at all.

Jabba hummed before he spoke.

“The all mighty Jabba says the bounty hunter was stupid, but made a good point,” explained the protocol droid. “You are getting old, and your youth will not last for much longer.”

I didn't think I was that old. I must have been in my 20′s at least. If I wasn't so terrified, I might have been offended.

I tried to control my trembling but my muscles ached with the effort. Was it hot in that room, or was it just me?

Jabba gestured to some of his goons as he continued to speak.

“He says you have one rotation to learn the dances.”

One of Jabba’s goons grabbed me by my upper arm, dragging me away into the back of the Palace while the music resumed and chatter once again filled the palace.

I had no words, but my thoughts were running a mile a minute. This was it. This would be my death. Within a week I would be eaten by the seething monster below if I wasn’t sold off to a bounty hunter as payment or reward for a job well done.

I couldn't even dance! How was I supposed to learn to dance in twenty-four hours? I could probably wiggle like a Hutt, but nothing more elaborate than that!

Who was I kidding? With my only skills as a scurrying little waitress, my lack of grace when it comes to moving my body in any fashion, and my definitely-not-as-beautiful-as-a-twi'lek’-body there was no way I would survive even an hour on that throne.

Before I could register what was happening, I was being fitted into royal blue undergarments underneath a black fishnet jumpsuit. The outfit left hardly anything to the imagination. This was something I had once seen a green twi'lek girl wearing several years ago. Oola, I believe was her name. It seemed as though Jabba had someone fish her outfit from the inside of his pet’s belly. Maybe it was worth more than it looked, but I would not want to be the one assigned the task of retrieving it.

I was shoved into a secluded room, where a holo-vid with a skinny-looking rodian was showing demonstrations for various dance moves.

As soon as Jabba’s goon left, I began to watch the rodian. I stood and tried to copy his gestures and from, but ultimately I stumbled over myself and was left winded.

Late into the night, I continued to practice until the soles of my bare feet hurt. I could already feel the blisters I would have in a few hours, and I had grown frustrated.

I was about ready to completely give up, curl into a ball on the floor, and cry myself to sleep. It felt useless anyhow. The rancor probably already knew my name, and was just waiting for me down below.

I felt hopeless, at least until I began to think about those Mandalorian stories.

I was sure a Mandalorian would never give up. They probably fought until their very last breath even when they knew the end was staring them straight in the eyes.

I took a deep breath, grounded myself, and did the best that I could to fight through the pain, tiredness, and hopelessness that threatened to break me.

Keeping track of my feet while also making sure to move my arms and put on a smile was difficult. It was like juggling glasses of spotchka while walking on a tightrope over a Sarlacc pit. However, I was determined to figure it out.

I would not be a pathetic little thing who laid down at death's door. I was going to fight with everything I had, even though I felt like I was attacking a Krayt Dragon with a spoon.

Come morning, my muscles were stiff and ached. I was covered in layers of sweat, but I knew I had done all I could to prepare myself to go out with a bang.

I was led to the sonic showers, where I cleaned myself up before donning that same dancer's outfit as before. It was as though the whole outfit screamed my designation as a slave, with the revealing design meant for the pleasure of anyone but the wearer.

No matter, I fixed my hair and kept my chin up as I was escorted back to the throne room.

Sure enough, Jabba was waiting with a heavy-looking chain in hand.

He said something in huttese that the protocol droid did not translate before he clasped the chain to a loop in the front of my collar.

I had never been this close to the crime lord before, but I swore his breath could kill alone. That must have been how he had risen to power, as I just could not imagine Jabba as a fighter who won his way to victory through blaster fire or skill with a vibroblade. No, he most defiantly must only need to burp to murder everyone within the room. If I didn’t know any better, I would say the entire palace only smelled so badly because of him.

"The great and powerful Jabba commands you to sit," says the protocol droid.

It was only then that I realized Jabba had addressed me, as he gestured to a spot on his throne beside his tail.

I moved to that spot and crossed my legs as I sat there, the chain swaying heavily with my movements.

I lifted a hand to rub the irritated skin around my neck, only to flinch away as the touch of my fingers stung my skin. Perhaps touching my wounds was worse in the long run. Disappointment filled me knowing there would be no way to get ahold of that batch gel now.

I wondered how difficult it would be to dance with the giant chain connected to my collar because of the extra weight it put on my neck.

Soon enough, the crowd in the throne room was as lively as ever, with the band playing their repetitive upbeat melodies.

For a few hours, not once did Jabba command me to dance, and for that I was grateful. My bare feet were allowed a few hours of rest, while my mind was allowed to wander.

Would it hurt to die? Would I feel my soul slipping from my body? What would happen in death? Would everything go black or would there be something waiting beyond it? My mind was spiraling and all I could focus on was my inevitable doom.

That was until a new bounty hunter entered the palace.

Thud. Thud. Thud. His steps were heavy.

He was huge, dressed from head to toe in blue armor. Easily 6’6”, this man could command the room with his size alone.

I struggled to find what he was looking at, as the dark visor on his helmet left no clues as to where his eyes wandered.

Jabba laughed as he spotted the bounty hunter. He raised his arms in welcome.

"The all mighty Jaba wonders what you are doing here, Mandalorian," translated the protocol droid.

Mandalorian? Wait a minute. This was a Mandalorian?

I felt my face heat up in embarrassment while my spine straightened a little. I had been waiting for a Mandalorian my whole life, but it occurred to me at that moment I was dressed in something so revealing when one finally showed up. I hoped he wouldn’t notice me, but I was right beside Jabba which made that very unlikely.

He looked so much more powerful than I had imagined those of his creed to be. This man would be able to take on a rancor just by barreling into it, given how much he looked like a tank. There was no doubt in my mind anymore about how Mandalorians were able to tame the great Mythasaures on their homeworld.

There was something about him that was also familiar. Perhaps it was the black visor which hid his eyes, or simply the general design of his armor. I felt like I had seen those of his kind before, though I swore I had never met a Mandalorian before. Surely I must have been creating false memories for myself.

The Mandalorian paused in front of Jabba's throne, and it became apparent he made sure not to stand above the entrance to the rancor pit.

"I mean you no trouble, Jabba. I am only seeking out a bounty said to be hiding within your palace," the Mandalorian said. His voice was deep and raspy, like the rumbling of a generator just before it reaches full power.

As Jabba again spoke in his native language, I noticed the Mandalorian’s helmet tilt in my direction and his shoulders tensed.

There was no way he was looking at me, right! It had to of been someone behind me.

He was definitely looking at me, and I was trembling from both fear and excitement under his gaze. He could shoot everyone in this room if he wanted to and not suffer a scratch from it.

From the bottom of my heart, I hoped he was here for me, though I knew those thoughts to be childhood fantasies. I had lost hope long ago of seeing the stars one last time before I would die in this place.

"The wise Jaba asks who you are looking for."

The Mandalorian’s focus snapped back to Jabba. He unclipped a bounty puck from his belt. "I am here for someone that owes a debt to the crime lord, Twene Shias, here on Tatooine."

Jabba, as well as the crowd gasped. He pulled back and began to gesture wildly, which caused my chain to be inconsiderately tugged.

I tried not to choke at the movement while I scooted closer to the giant slug in an attempt to ease the pressure on my neck.

Jabba hummed before his protocol droid said, "The great and powerful Jabba, though shocked, wants to make a deal. He says he will hand over whoever you are looking for, in return for the murder of this Twene Shias."

The Mandalorian paused for a moment. "This bounty I am after is worth much less than the head of this other crime lord. Surely, as a part of one of the most powerful and wealthy crime syndicates, you can offer me a little bit more than this."

Jabba considered the Mandalorian’s words with small nods of his head.

"Jabba the Hutt says that although this is already a generous offer, he wants to know what else you might want."

The big blue Mandalorian nodded while he gestured with his helmet in my direction.

"How about her?"

Me? Was he serious?

Jabba burst into laughter, the crowd within the palace following suit.

I felt my face heat up and my heart jumped into my throat. I turned my head away from the Mandalorian, fiddling with my skimpy outfit.

I must have been dreaming. There was no way this mandalorian was referring to me. If he was, he had no clue just how useless I would be to him.

Once Jabba was able to get a hold of his laughter, he spoke again.

"The all mighty Jabba says this girl is not worth anything. She is a servant in this palace with no skill sets of value to a Mandalorian such as yourself," explained the droid. "That is, unless you are a Mandalorian with other needs."

The blue armored man scoffed. “Then Jabba can spare one measly dancer in exchange for the murder of a rivaling crime lord.”

Jabba, whose pride was easily wounded, wasted no time to correct his words.

“The great and powerful Jabba says that if this is what you wish, he will gladly transfer ownership of the girl to you after you bring back this crime lord’s head.”

I felt my heart skip a beat as my head shot up to look at the Mandalorian.

Oh my gosh, he was serious. I would belong to a Mandalorian? What would this mean? What would he want with me?

The Mandalorian puffed out his chest, “You have a deal. Now, where is the toydarian, Drob Tufme?”

Jabba gestured to some of his goons behind him, who quickly entered the crowd.

Yelling could be heard from near the bar before a hunched-over toydarian was shoved onto the floor at the Mandalorian’s feet. “Hey! Hey!” Drob Tufme shouted, scrambling to stand up. “I didn’t do nothin’! I don’t got no debt!”

The Mandalorian quickly shoved Drob to his knees, running the blinking red fob over his head before clipping it back onto his belt.

“Doesn't matter,” said the Mandalorian while he cuffed Drob.

The Mandalorian pulled Drop to his feet and gave Jabba a nod before he turned and dragged the squirming toydarian out of the palace.

There was a pause before the quiet throne room burst back to life with the Mandalorian now gone. It was as though a weight had been lifted from everyone’s shoulders.

It was at that moment a new realization came over me. I wasn’t going to die in this horribly smelly place. I wouldn't be eaten by the monster below, nor shot by stray blaster fire. I refused to allow myself to think about what my life would be like in the hands of this Mandalorian. I did not want to believe my circumstances could get any worse than they already were. Perhaps it was simply for the preservation of my sanity, but I felt giddy inside that my childhood fantasy of being taken away by a Mandalorian was sort of coming true. One should never give up on childish hopes.

(Part 2 coming soon!)

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[systematicmasspoisoning]

Traitor Tubbo

I've seen so many excellent theories as to who the traitor is and I would like to throw my hat into the ring. I see several possible options. Depending on how this is received, this could be part one of a few. Reminder, this is all speculation. I'm analyzing a character here, not the streamer themselves, and in reality no one, especially not these teens and 20-something role players, are genuinely intending to be malicious or calculated. This is a game. But they're playing it, and my heartstrings, so damn well.

My top theory for the traitor? Tubbo.

Traitor Tubbo is definitely a fan favorite, and I'm probably a bit biased. I watch his streams most often and perhaps am overthinking things. But here's my supporting evidence: I think Tubbo has the most motivation because it's been established that Tubbo is underapprecited and underestimated. He's assumed to a yes-man, Tommy's right hand man. Schlatt specifically made him Secretary of State because he knew it would be a kick in the gut to Tommy.

But everyone also knows that shit gets done when Tubbo is on the server. This kid is dedicated. Guess thats what quarantine does to a Minecrafter. He planned the fesitval, helped streamline Pogtopia's potatoes, is an expert in redstone, is draining the ocean and making allies with the Badlands (BBH, Awesamdude, Antfrost, a few others).

Jschlatt said in his speech at the Festival that Tubbo gets things done (only to kill the kid like 10 minutes later :sadface:) and Wilbur said, later, that the planned Manberg Hotel probably won't be built now that Tubbo is (supposedly) on Pogtopia's side. I see parallels to Eret's traitor arc: he was the deus ex machina who saved them in Season 1 from being arrested for drugs, built their walls overnight and was given little credit for it. Wilbur still says to this day, "The walls I built to protect us."

Underappreciation fuels betrayal on this server. And Eret was smart. Overpowered, almost, from all his grinding (some of which he did with Tubbo, for hours on end.) He knew the revolution was 'never meant to be,' that L'Manberg was the losing side. He betrayed for power and kingship. Tubbo has different motivations - he doesn't advocate for violence, so he's said, and he just wants people to get along. He doesn't want a war. So what might he do for peace?

We all know, if we watch old SMP Earth clips and his Among Us streams that he is big brained. He's sometimes malicious and mischievous when he wants to be, as attested by his recent stair pranks. So him being the peaceful, owo baby boi side character isn't necessarily fact. It's a bit. A role, along the lines of Tubee and Big Law. He's much more.

Speaking of the stair prank, so funny, but had the potential to be cruel, too. Anyways, he clearly said that he was watching Tommy's stream, and saw Tommy die to the stairs. Then he pops on the server later and acts clueless to what went down, though he knew, mentioned in his stream earlier that day, that something important was going to happen that day. He turns up while they're discussing traitors, is quick to take control of the conversation and point out that the traitor is likely Wilbur (for being 'technically' on Dream's side, the side of chaos.) Fuel is added to the flames of confusion and infighting.

Playing dumb is one of Tubbo's most popular bits. It farms awes, as Tommy says. People underestimate him and assume he has no reason to lie. Tommy so easily believed him when Tubbo said he had the discs. In the Dream Betrayal stream, Tommy confronts Dream about the location of the discs with Tubbo in the call. The misunderstanding is cleared up. They don't question Tubbo's earlier statements. They also don't question it when Tubbo mentions he has blackmail on Dream. I have no idea what that might be, we can speculate on that all day. But when it comes to the discs, I think Tubbo lost a bargaining chip there. His lie was very thin. But we know he's good at lying (when its actually important) and thinking quick on his feet so I feel like there must be some motivation behind it. I don't know how, but I think the discs will definitely play a part in the coming war.

That same stream, with Dream's betrayal, Wilbur even foreshadowed Traitor Tubbo. He was making a list of their allies on the wall in Pogtopia and, despite his chat screaming at him to include Tubbo, he leaves the kid off the list and dismisses chat's worries. I'm being a little dramatic here, but can you imagine Tubbo coming across that? Seeing himself, once again, left out of the loop, off the list of people they can trust, possibly considered unimportant now that he's filled his role as a spy and had his arc seemingly completed? Back to being a yes man, a footnote in L'manberg's history, the sidekick to the protagonist, a foil who is killed off to fuel the protagonists' need for revenge.

Except, in Minecraft, you don't really die. You're respawned. Tubbo didn't die when he was executed on the day of the festival; a celebration he planned, was proud of, so excited to take part of that he used a dyslexic font to write his speech.

Some notes about the festival.

1. His excitement. He was looking forward to it. I say let him be excited, that's not necessarily suspicious - he worked damn hard on it.

2. But, I have thought about his difficulty choosing a side. He showed interest in blowing up L'Manberg, but then turns on a dime when Tommy says it's bad, and then comes up with a diplomatic response of "I trust your better judgment, Wilbur " There was the added element of peer pressure from Wilbur and Tommy, granted, talking over him and assuming his viewpoint. He's not always a yes man, he stands up to himself with Tommy constantly, but the scene with him on the roof with Tommy and Wilbur shows how little he is kept in the loop. (Him understanding peer pressure likely led to him forgiving Techno so easily. But I also wonder, and others have too, if he forgave Techno.... too easily.)

3. This isn't so much of a point but something that keeps the writer in me up late at night. He was very grateful when Schlatt praised him, probably something he didn't hear often under Wilbur's rule.

4. He said the phrase. In spite of him not advocating for violence, he said the phrase that would trigger an explosion. The choice was in his hands. That is assuming he got Wilbur's DM telling him what to do, but Tubbo had been told by Wilbur to check his DMs and they had been exchanging whispers frequently throughout the stream, Tubbo taking orders from Wilbur to hurry things along. On that note, why a DM? Why didn't he give Tubbo the order through a whisper thru minecraft where we could see the wording? Likely because they use their DMs to push along major plot points and discuss serious matters. This wasn't just an order from Wilbur, the character, this was an order from the streamer who has the most role playing experience and has admitted to being the puppetmaster behind a lot of Tommy and Tubbo's major actions. Tubbo, who has always tried to advocate for peace, supposedly was told a trigger phrase that would blow the place up, and he said it. It was so out of character for him, that I was surprised, and Wilbur was surprised too, from how Tubbo scrambled. So, I don't know - did Tubbo know it was a trigger phrase? What did the DM say?

There was clearly a lot of miscommunication and weird things that day so all of this is speculation. However, from Tubbo' side of the stream, you can see the deliberation when he finished the speech. The pause. The silence, like he was finished, but then Schlatt reminded him (not the real quote) "Anything else?" And then. Tubbo took the leap. To us, the uninformed audience, it seemed he was willing, in that moment, to allow the chaos.

He was given a role of power, and it backfired on him so quick after, but I would like to rewind to the moment Wilbur decided to give Tubbo a deciding role. I knew Tubbo would be playing a big part this season, cause the boy deserves it, but Wilbur putting that decision in the hands of Tubbo? Wow. *Chef's kiss* Wil's reasoning was, if Tubbo wanted to prove he wasn't a yes man, he'd make the decision NOT to pull the trigger.

But Wilbur also said that Schlatt approved of the speech and would know if Tubbo deviated, putting Tubbo at risk of being caught. He was caught anyway, obviously, but there was a moment there... where Schlatt was giving Tubbo a choice, too. To say the phrase that would prove he was a traitor. Like...Schlatt knew what was planned, and wanted to see what Tubbo would decide. Maybe it was a trigger phrase for something else, not just the bombs.

Point is. Tubbo, technically, saved the day. He was, in physical form, the button. He was the deciding factor for great destruction. He said the phrase, but instead of Manberg being blown, Schlatt moved quickly to trap Tubbo and start a bit that would STOP WILBUR IN HIS TRACKS. The button was never fully pressed. Tubbo's Traitor/Spy Arc was halted, and a diverging plot formed, one where Tubbo is exiled too, trusted again by Pogtopia, and the land isn't blown to smithereens.

As Wilbur has said time and time again, when you introduce a weapon in a story, it has to go off at some point. Traitor Tubbo has been on our minds since the day he was left behind in Manberg and given a position, (once again, might I add, as a right hand man, a loyal lackey. Never the lead.) Has that arc met its completing? Did it go off with a bang?

One possible theory is that, well, no. This has all been premeditated. Not scripted fully, but I feel as though there are strings being pulled by a master who knows how to tell a story.

When he was asked to be a spy, Tubbo's position was nearly revealed time and time again but it was Schlatt who decided he was too bored to continue walking down the tunnels. It was Schlatt who easily accepted Tubbo's blatant lie that he was pregnant and allowed for so much betrayal under his nose.

What I'm saying here is that Schlatt is, in fanfic terms, soft for Tubbo. In a less fluffy way, what I'm suggesting (which has been suggested before) is that Tubbo wasn't a double agent. He was a triple agent.

I've read a lot of fucking books, and when you're a triple agent and one side is getting suspicious of you, what's the greatest length you can go to to prove your loyalty to someone? Die for them. Organize your execution. Throw yourself on top of a bomb.

But like I said. You don't die in Minecraft.

(While I'm on the subject, does anyone find it interesting how Tubbo focused on messaging only Wilbur while Technoblade was on stage, whispering 'i thought he woulded hurt me?' and the like. Wouldn't you, if you were being executed, contact your best friend to get you out of there? Or the clearly stalling 'ally' holding a crossbow to your head? But it wasn't Tommy or Techno that Tubbo needed to convince of his innocence. Its Wilbur who was sus of him.)

I digress. Tubbo didn't die, but he execution=exile and he's living full time with Pogtopia. He's proven his loyalty. When Tubbo is asked if he's a traitor, his best friend quickly jumps to his support and says, something to the effect of, "Schlatt killed him! He couldn't be a traitor!" Suspicion is thrown off him.

He wasn't even there when Dream revealed there was a traitor. He. Played. Dumb.

Meanwhile, streaming on his own, Tubbo is seeking out tridents and OP bows, working on Redstone traps, refusing to get netherite for Tommy, going so far as to trap his friend's house under the guise of a prank, and appearing in TeamSpeak calls to listen in while Tommy was mining gold with Dream (around the time Tommy was pressuring the green bastard to reveal who the traitor is.)

Tubbo has also been building a reputation as someone with bad wifi and a constantly crashing game, so he can conveniently leave situations and not help out when he doesn't wanna. Sidebar: I have to wonder if Tubbo will even stream the day of the war. Schlatt doesn't stream, and neither did the Dream Team when they were villains. It builds up tension and the audience wonders about their motivations. Granted, Eret did stream so his betrayal was a huge surprise, but recently Tubbo has, quite often, made a point of struggling with bad wifi and a game that seems to crash when he's not the one streaming. It wouldn't be too suspicious for him to claim technical difficulties so he can slide under the radar and not have snitches and stream snipers tracing his steps. This is a stretch, but it would be Big Brained to meta game the war.

I've watched a lot of Tubbo's streams lately. It's probably not healthy, and I'm probably connecting dots that aren't there.

But here is my prediction(s) for next week.

Dream said, jokingly, the traitor is Tommy. Despite Tommy's adamance, it may just be possible. He just doesn't know about it yet. Maybe Tubbo talks Tommy into betraying Wilbur. (Wilbur, specifically, and not necessarily their cause, which is not to be exiled and have a not-blown-up L'manberg.) Tommy has said he couldn't be the traitor because he wouldn't betray Tubbo (followed by "Wilbur, too...well...he is a little crazy lately" and you can hear Tubbo in the background making noises of agreement.)

But if betraying Tubbo was no longer a worry? I think, for Tubbo, and for the discs, Tommy would negotiate new terms with Dream. Another end to the war. Another peace treaty. Let's be real, once Tommy switches sides, Pogtopia will crumble. Him and Tubbo are the linchpins.

To continue, Dream supposedly has a contract with Schlatt, and in the stream today, he was leaving banners with a big red X on different properties, like in Tommy's house. Marking territory. He made a point of doing it while Tommy was streaming, following the kid around into the nether and giving shields with the giant red X to supposedly Pogtopian allies (Awesamdude, George.)

Wilbur told Quackity in the Dream Betrayal stream that he worries that Dream's deal with Schlatt is to rescind Manberg's independence. To give power back to Dream. To get Tommy's allyship, Dream may propose instating Tommy as president. Those are Wilbur's predictions. They're not far off the mark. Or maybe I'm just as paranoid as him lol.

I think Dream is trying to manipulate Tommy, but what will the terms be? Presidency? Or Freedom?

I'm not sure that Tommy wants to be president. He likes to play around and while he's shown he can be good at coordination and leadership, (for example, the recent MCC thing where he taught Quackity how to play and they kicked ass,) Wilbur is quite right. Tommy shouldn't be president. Narratively, we all know the server would become....chaos. Okay, that might be kind of fun and he's got good ideas.. I like the kid, and he's grown so much, but he's not "mature enough." Not like Tubbo is, according to Wilbur himself (this is referencing the Stays in The Pit battle). Dream has also said, in the eboy collaboration, that the only Dream SMP player in the video whose stood a chance was Tubbo.

Tubbo has said he doesn't want to be president either, but shit gets done when Tubbo is on. Nature is preserved, giant builds are coordinated, events planned (with cute little digital invites sent to players). The few times that Tubbo has shared his opinion about drama on the server (there's a moment before the Pit that he gives a good speech) he's shown sound logic, great empathy, a willingness to compromise, to have fun and strengthen their community.

There's an old saying, that those who seek power shouldn't have it, and those who don't want the power are the ones who deserve it. If peace wants to be preserved on the SMP, maybe Tubbo should be president, and Tommy should see what it's like to be the right hand man. Or maybe, they will simply run off to a distant jungle base and leave the war to the adults.

My point is, Tubbo is Chekov's gun. Tubbo is the button that hasn't been pushed yet. He may be the deciding factor to change the tide of the war, by changing Tommy's loyalties. Tubbo might not be fully loyal to Schlatt, I could be totally off about the triple agent thing, but he's certainly not loyal to Wilbur. To Dream? We'll have to see. From what we've been shown so far, his loyalty is to himself and to Tommy, and in the end, its usually him and Tommy against the world.

If I'm wrong, I'm wrong. It's fun to speculate. He's just a kid, a smart one granted, and he's having fun; he isn't evil. Unless Evil Tubbo is the next huge arc, the villain of Season 3???? God I would love that. Go feral kiddo.

There are other streamers who are equally over looked and unappreciated and have just as much motivation to be the traitor. Niki is a strong contender, have ya'll heard about the letter she wrote to a mysterious 'friend?' Or, or, what if Philza gets whitelisted? What if there's no shocking traitor at all, just Dream trying to cause division in Pogtopia? What if it's us, the viewers, who were the traitors all along for being dirty snitches? (@rainbowtransform, great theory.)

I'm sure I'll be surprised no matter what the outcome is. But nothing would please me more than to see Tubbo get the spotlight he deserves.

Let me know your thoughts?

[katieurah]

Guys, I can’t get Elorcan as Zoommates outta my head. So I write it. And it’s a mess. But here I am posting anyways. Yikes.

Forgive my terrible attempts at writing out sounds of a coffee grinder. I hear one every morning, but still..... 

Also, still titleless.

..........................................................

Whiiirrrrrrr. Sccrrrrr. Whiiiiiirrrrr.

Lorcan glared with bleary eyes at his coffee grinder struggling to keep up with the too-large scoop he’d tossed in that morning. He opened the latch and poured the grounds out into the pour over basket and set it to steep.

Extra butter went on his toast that morning, fried eggs instead of a healthy protein shake, and regular bacon - not turkey baked in the oven. Oh, no, not today, he’d thought as he laid the strips in the cast iron pan. He needed all the grease, comfort, and caffeine life could afford him for his day.

Seven months. Seven months, one week, and four days to be exact. His goddaughter’s dedication was perfect. The day was perfect. Until.

He finished his coffee, plated his breakfast, and walked to the office to turn on his system. And brood. Apparently he was good at that.

Elide. She was the other perfect thing about that day. But, apparently he was as self-absorbed as she claimed. How did he not know about that break-up? He and Elide were friends. They had a connection. A spark. Or so he thought. 

As Rowan’s oldest friend and former military buddy, he’d always been around. He knew Elide from the start of Rowan and Aelin’s relationship. Aelin’s cousin was more like a sister and was always there. They talked. They chatted about life. He thought they were friends. Then one day, friends didn’t seem like enough. He didn’t like that she went home earlier than everyone else and he couldn’t seem to talk to her. He had tried to compose about a million different texts to her, but nothing seemed right. He followed her Instagram and Facebook, but messaging her there felt like he’d just be sliding into her DMs, which made Lorcan’s skin crawl.

But, how had he not known about the breakup? How had he not known there was someone to break up with? She never said a word. Had she? He speared his fork through an egg and watched the clock. His computer system was up and running, but he realized after Elide’s haste and hatred in logging off yesterday, they never specified times for working today. He really thought 7:00 was too early to be video calling her. Mornings were not her thing. She’d probably shoot a virus through to his system. And if anyone could get one in his through his security protocols and firewalls, it was her. 

He ran through a few of his other projects while waiting, sipping his coffee and watching the clock. As 8:30 rolled around, he logged into the chat portal to ask what time they should start. As he was typing the first words, the screen lit up with a message:

>> Okay, Salvaterre. What time are we doing this?

He smirked at the sass in those eight words.

<< Whenever you want, Lochan. I’m all set up.

>> Gimme 5.

He chuckled as he imagined her getting her area cleaned off, checking her hair, and taking deep breaths before logging on. 

The 3-tone alert for a video chat came through and Lorcan switched the camera and mic on. Here we go.

…

Elide scrambled to get her hair pulled into a semi-decent bun on her head. She was at least wearing a nicer sweater this morning, even if she was still rocking glasses and no-makeup. Deeming her work area decent enough to be seen on camera, she grabbed her iced coffee and pressed the call button. 

Deep breaths. Deep. Breaths. 

Lorcan Salvaterre was on this planet to torment her, she was sure of it. They’d been… acquaintances? Friends? Something? Ever since Aelin and Rowan had started dating, Elide and Lorcan were along for the ride. They had a lot in common. It was so easy to talk to him. They had fun together. He made her laugh. She soon wondered how easy it would be to date. To hold hands, to kiss, to… everything. But he’d never seemed interested in more than whatever it was they’d been, so she went on dates. She went out with other guys and even a few second dates. Then a real relationship. For a few months anyways. She was sure she’d told him about it. 

Anyways, who asks someone else out while they’re crying from a break up? And while they’re buzzed? Ridiculous.

“Good morning, Sleeping Beauty. Nice of you to join me,” Lorcan crooned, eyebrow raised, small smile on his face. She was not a morning person. Never had been. And he knew it.

“Can we not? I haven’t even finished my coffee yet and it’s too early for your….your… it’s just too early…” She groaned at not even being able to formulate snark this early.

“What you’re drinking - that’s not coffee. It’s cream and sugar pretending to be all grown up.”

“Oh, yes, because your pretentious single-sourced pour-over makes you an expert,” Elide sniped back. Lorcan always drank the strongest, blackest coffee and it was always some single-origin that he had various methods for brewing. 

It would be too easy to fall into their banter. Too easy to believe he wasn’t an asshole. She needed some distance between them before it got too comfortable.

“So, I’ve been asked to make sure support services on the public side and the internal side secure and protect privacy rights. Here’s how we’re currently trying to keep that up,” Elide said as she launched into discussing protocols, servers, firewalls, identity management systems, and anything else they thought was necessary.

Lorcan was all business, professional to a fault, and courteous as they shared information. He asked great questions and traded scenarios with her. They worked for several hours getting a feel for what each department offered and wanted.

At noon, Elide’s stomach rumbled, drawing a chuckle from Lorcan.

“Geeze, El, hiding a gremlin over there? Go eat. We can pick up after one, yeah?”

She scowled back at him. Teasing her and using a nickname? Nope. “Sure, Salvaterre,” she said shortly, trying to put distance back between them. She almost felt guilty when she thought he looked startled, but his face went back to it’s neutral, calm, emotionless expression. She logged off the video chat and rubbed her hands over her face. How was this ever going to work?

…

As the chat window went dark, Lorcan sighed through his nose. He tried. He still had no idea why her ire with him went that deep. 

Lorcan strolled to his kitchen to get his protein shake ready. Before he could start the blender, his phone chimed. He swiped at the screen to read the messages.

Young Pup: So, old man, how’s the “partnership” going?

Lorcan sighed again. Fenrys somehow knew he and Elide were working together. This couldn’t be good.

Sarge: Fine.

He watched the three dots bounce and disappear a few times. 

Young Pup: Elide’s not got your balls in a twist yet?

Hawkeye has been added to the chat.

Lorcan groaned. Fen adding Rowan wasn’t a good sign either.

Young Pup: Ro, do we need to have an intervention with El? Two days working with the old man here and yet he’s alive and responding to our messages. Somethings wrong!

Hawkeye: Fen, knock it off. 

Hawkeye: El’s a professional. I give it a week before we need to worry about her.

Lorcan rolled his eyes and didn’t even worry about checking Fenrys’ reply and put the phone on vibrate. He finished making his shake and walked to the living room. As he sat on the couch, his phone buzzed for a phone call. Glancing at the screen, Lorcan saw Rowan’s name at the top of the screen. He sighed and answered. 

“I’m playing nice, I promise.”

Rowan laughed softly on the other end. “I bet. Look, Fen found out that you needed to work with their support services department and put two and two together about Elide. Aelin and I knew that Elide’s boss was going to ask you two to work together…” He trailed off, as if he didn’t know how to finish that thought.

“Just because we haven’t seen each other or spoken in months doesn’t mean I can’t do my job,” Lorcan said, a bite to his words.

“Hey, man, I know you can. It’s not that...It’s… Look, A is just worried. You two are Ellie’s godparents and you’re at odds right now. And I’m a little worried, too, about you both. You’ll let me know if things get worse, right?”

“Yeah, man, of course.”

“Good. And-” Rowan suddenly swore. “I gotta go. Ellie’s crying and A’s in the shower. Call me later and we’ll talk, yeah?”

“Sure.” Lorcan hung up. He looked at the time, downed his shake, and went back to his computers. Security systems and technology, those things he knew. People? Women? Foreign languages to him. He still couldn’t figure out why Elide was so pissed with him. Couldn’t figure out why Rowan and Aelin thought things would get worse. And now it was affecting his job.

It was going to be a long project.

[bibislut]

Bitter-Sweet Days (Chapter 4)

Find the entire fic here

Chapter 4 

{This chapter contains explicit smut, but also some key things. I have highlighted the beginning and end of the explicit content with this >>> _-_-_-_ -_-_-_-_}

 21st May 2001

Draco kicked off his shoes as he walked into his apartment, unbuttoning the top of his shirt. He allowed himself a moment of weakness; leaning against the wall to catch his breath and slow his heart after the four flights of stairs up to his apartment. They had never winded him before - but he supposed that’s what dying did to you. It was a warm, sunny, spring afternoon and he was eager to spend it reading on his balcony. 

The morning had gone better than expected. 

"You're resigning?" Matthews had frowned at him over his glasses.

"That's correct, sir." Draco kept his face neutral.

"But you only finished training last year. You've barely been in the postition 6 months." 

"I am aware of that, sir." Draco tried hard not to grind his teeth. How this buffoon was his superior he had no idea.

"Why?"

"I feel that I no longer suit this role," and I'd cut my testicles off with a butter knife before I spend my last months working for you.

Draco held up a hand to stop him from speaking. "I've cleared my desk. I'll take my leave as effective immediately." He swept out of the room, smoothing down his hair.

Draco ruffled his white hair out of his eyes and hung up his suit jacket. The sound of a muggle ice cream can sounded below, the playful tune ringing out. A wonderful idea popped into his head. 

He walked into the living room, clicking his teeth. "Lady? Where are you girl?" 

He reached into a cabinet and pulled out some treats. The rustling was all that was needed for his gorgeous black owl to swoop in from Merlin knows where. She landed on his shoulder and nudged his ear. He reached up and fed her a treat. 

"I need you to take a letter for me."

He placed some treats on his desk next to his parchment and she happily hopped over to eat them. 

Potter,

I hope you're free. I said we'd do something more low-key next time - how about a canal-side walk and an icecream on me? 

Let me know ASAP

DM

He rolled the parchment up and secured it to Lady. 

-----

The sight of Potter's flabbergasted face was both adorable and hilarious. He really was easy to read.

"I don't think I've ever seen you so dressed down, Malfoy."

Well, he wasn't wrong. Draco was wearing long denim shorts, canvas shoes, and a white short sleeved button up with his shades tucked into the top. He felt weirdly free without his suits and robes, but he would never admit it.

"Like what you see, Potter?" He smirks, trying his best to appear smug - though Merlin knows if he managed to look anything other than the bundle of nerves he really was..

Merlin's tits. The way Potter licked his lips and returned the smirk, surely it was illegal?! 

"More than you realise, Malfoy." 

Swooning didn't happen in real life did it? Draco was sure he was about to find out. He cleared his throat and settled a smirk on his face, slowly raking his eyes up and down Potter. He was wearing black denim shorts and trainers, and a red shirt that said "melanin king".

"You don't look too bad yourself Potter, for a tramp that is." He laughed at that, and oh boy, could Draco get used to that sound.

"Fuck off, Malfoy."

"Make me, Potter." Draco held his gaze steadily, every bit the challenge. The darker boy stalked towards him, leaning in close to his ear. Who needed breathing anyway?

"Later," Potter murmured and Draco shivered. Cheeky bastard. He grabbed Draco's arm. "Where to?"

With a crack they disapparated, landing in a small, shaded alley. The sound of splashing water could be heard. Potter took his hand. "Lead the way."

His hand was so warm, all of Potter was. It was like he was fire personified, warming you up, all blazing looks and passion. Draco ached to know whether he brought that fire to the bedroom. 

He lead them out of the alley and into the bright sunlight, muttering a skin protection spell as he went because he knew how easily he burnt. They turned the corner to see a stream of clear water, children splashing in it as parents and dogs sat on the grassy banks, eating ice cream and laughing. It looked heavenly.

"Where are we?"

"Bourton-on-the-water, I came here once as a child and was mesmerised by how clear the water was."

Potter smiled and took off, pulling Draco with him. "Come on, let's get some ice cream." He went right up to the store front. "What do you want?" 

"Oh, um." Draco peered at the flavours through the glass. "I'll have mint-choc chip, please." He smiled at the server.

"Make that two," Harry said as he pulled out his wallet. Draco smacked his hands away.

"I said I'd get it, you pillock." He pulled out his own wallet as Potter snorted. 

They paid and made their way to the water. 

"Hermione got me the shirt, as a Christmas present," he pointed down at his chest. "We have matching ones," he chuckled.

"Ah yes, Granger," Draco murmured.

"Oi, watch out. She's my best mate." 

Draco held his hands up in surrender. "I didn't mean anything about it, oh Mr Saviour," his voice dropped with mockery.

Potter made a funny face and licked at his icecream. "Don't even start, Malfoy."

Draco smirked and put on a high pitch voice. "Oh Merlin! It’s Harry Potter!" he squealed, tapping him on the shoulder. "Can I have you autograph, Harry?" He poked his shoulder repeatedly.

Potter laughed and dropped his ice cream, wrapping his hands around Draco's wrists. Draco tried to pull away but Potter just tightened his grip, and really, his shorts shouldn't be this tight. He stopped struggling and as Potter was about to say something, he pushed him back, knocking the two over with Draco sprawled across him. Potter kept his grip and leaned up to whisper in his ear. "You're dead, Malfoy."

He rolled them over, pinning Draco's hands above his head. Draco could just about hear a small voice over the sound of his heartbeat saying that it was good they'd walked so far along the river - there was only one other person around and he was dozing on a blanket 30 feet away. 

Draco lifted his hips, struggling against the hot, firm body of Potter, who had the gall to smirk down at him. They were both panting slightly, and… was Draco hallucinating? Or was that the hard length of The Saviour pressed against his thigh?

His own cock hardened at the thought, and he looked into Potter's endless green eyes to see an excitement that was echoed in his own. He closed his eyes, and with a sharp crack the two landed with a bounce on Draco's bed.

Potter let go of his wrists, looking around. "Are we…?"

"In my bedroom? Yes Potter, we are. On my bed."

"Impressive accuracy, Malfoy."

Draco smirked, wrapping his arms around Potter's neck. It was his turn to lean into his ear. "Just wait until you see what else is impressive."

Potter groaned and placed his lips against Draco's neck, grazing his teeth against his sensitive skin. Merlin, 15 year old Draco would have burst a blood vessel knowing what was about to happen, after spending so many nights in his bed at Hogwarts, fist tight around his cock over the thought of Harry Potter. 

"Are we really doing this, Potter?" Draco tugged gently at his hair to pull him up so he could see his face. 

"I want to, do you?" He looked down at him.

"I do, I just wonder how much you’ve done with all this,"  he gestured between the two of them. “Or how much you want to do.”

Potter blushed at his words, looking away. "I mean I’ve done it, slept with a guy, yeah." 

"Good." Draco traces his fingers over his face before flipping them over, Potter landing with a gasp. He grinned devilishly. "But do you have experience taking it?" 

Potter gasped like a fish. "You're…?"

"A top, Potter? I am, when the mood takes me." Draco ran his thumb over Potter's lips. "And it seems to have taken me now."

Draco watched as Potter gulped, his eyes following the long line of his neck. 

"Okay," he cleared his throat. "Okay, Malfoy. Let's see what you've got."

And that was all he needed to hear. Draco kissed him fiercely, running his hands over Potter's top, trailing his fingers over the bare skin where it had ridden up. Potter wrapped his arms around Draco and sat up, Draco straddling his lap as he pulled his top over his head. He ran his fingers over his chest hair before reaching round to scratch his back. Potter hissed into his mouth and Draco felt the noise go straight to his cock. 

Potter fumbled with Draco's buttons, practically ripping them off as he tore away his shirt. His hands were so hot on Draco's skin, blazing a trail along his torso. Draco felt his fingers graze over the scars on his chest before Potter pulled away. He looked down at the scars under his hands and cursed.

"Fuck, Malfoy, is that… is that what I did to you?" his voice cracked a little. That night in the bathroom, Potter had scarred him for life, literally. Draco felt no anger about it, he could still remember the horror on Potter's face as Draco fell to the floor in a pool of his own blood. He hadn't meant it, he knew that.

Draco smoothed back the curls away from his forehead, running his own fingers over Harry's scar. He smiled sadly.

"Look at us, huh? Scar head and scar chest…" He chuckled slightly.

"Yeah but that's different, Malfoy. I did that to you!" Draco smacked him lightly on the back of the head and held up his left arm.

"And I have the mark of the guy who did that," he traced his fingers over Potter's scar again, "to you." 

The Dark Mark was no longer black, instead looking itself like scar tissue, pink skin winding intricately over Draco's otherwise pale arm.

Draco grabbed Potter's chin and made him look at him. "The past is the past, Potter. Focus on where we are right now." 

Potter smirked slightly and looked him over. "You're sitting on my lap." 

"And you're about to take my cock up your arse." Draco whispered the words teasingly. Potter visibly shivered at his words and Draco smiled. He kissed him again, much more softly this time, and the two seemed to hum in unison.

_-_-_-_ -_-_-_-_

Draco climbed off his lap and pulled him up until they were both standing, kissing Potter again as he undid the buttons on his shorts. They fell to the floor and Draco palmed his cock through his boxers, feeling it harden further under his touch as Potter panted into his mouth.

"Do you want my mouth around your cock, Potter?" The darker boy moaned loudly at his words.

"Fuck Malfoy, yes."

"Ask me nicely." Draco used his other hand to pull Potter's hair.

"Shit, please," he hissed as Draco gave him a gentle squeeze. "Please suck my cock, Malfoy." 

"Since you asked so nicely," Draco smirked and dropped to his knees, pulling Potter's boxers down. He took him into his mouth slowly, licking his length and hollowing his cheeks. He bobbed his head at an almost sinfully slow pace and heard Potter curse again. Draco teased him a few moments longer before coming off his cock with a pop. 

Draco stood again and pushed Potter back until the back of his knees hit the bed. He reached into his side drawer and pulled out a pot of lube as Potter crawled backwards onto the bed. He tossed it to him with a wink. 

"Touch yourself." 

Potter looked like he was about to say something but changed his mind. He unscrewed the lid and dipped a finger in. Draco undid his own shorts and pushed them and his boxers to the floor, kicking them off. He took his cock in his hand and stroked it languidly, watching carefully as Potter spread his legs and traced the puckered point.

He watched as Potter slowly slid his finger in, millimetre by millimetre, with a soft gasp. He got to the knuckle and then began pumping it slowly, his eyes closed and eyebrows knitted together. Draco thought he'd never seen something so beautiful. He watched as Potter pulled it out, slicking up another finger, before pushing the two in with a wince. Draco knelt next to the bed, his head between Potter's legs and kissed his way up his thighs.

"You're doing so well," he whispered and Potter let out a little whimper. Draco watched as he began pumping his fingers a bit faster, panting heavily.

Draco tapped his hand lightly. "Stop."

Potter did as he was told, pulling his fingers out as Draco stood up. He took the lube and spread it over his cock, his heart hammering as he realised what was about to happen. He was about to fuck Harry Potter.

He kissed Potter's chest, then his shoulders, then his neck, and finally his mouth. He looked into his bright green eyes as he lined his cock up. "Are you ready?" Potter held his gaze and nodded.

Draco pushed the head of his cock in and they hissed in unison. He watched Potter's face as he slowly pushed himself further in and almost came right then when he saw his eyes roll back.

"Fuck, more, Malfoy, more."

It was like siren call, the sound of Harry Potter begging him to fuck him. He pushed his cock in further and further until he finally bottomed out. He stilled for a second as he tried to catch his breath. Potter was so tight, and so warm, and fuck, he felt so good. 

He thrust gently, moaning with Potter as he picked up his speed. "Shit, Harry." 

Potter's eyes flew open and he laughed. "Did you just call me Harry?" 

Draco chuckled and leant his forehead against Harry's. "Shut up and let me fuck you."

"I thought you already were-" Draco cut him off with a hard thrust and they both moaned. His pace quickened and became more erratic.

"Come for me, Draco," Harry whispered, and Merlin's tits, who was Draco to say no to that. He fucked him harder, panting, but it was the face Harry was making that tipped him over.  The sight of Harry Potter underneath him, dark curls stuck to his forehead, lips parted in ecstasy as he chased his own orgasm, was one Draco knew he would never forget.

"Fuck, Harry!" he shouted, his cum shooting out. Apparently that was all the permission Potter needed, as his own cum spurted between their chests.

They lay panting for a moment, before Draco slid off and curled into Harry's side. Potter slid his arm around him and kissed the top of his head. Is this what heaven felt like?

------ 

_-_-_-_ -_-_-_-_

Draco must have dozed off, worn out, because when he woke he was alone in his bed, and he could hear clattering in his kitchen. He pulled on a pair of boxers and walked out of his room to find Harry bent over, rummaging through his cupboards. He leant against the doorway with a smirk. "Well isn't this a nice view."

Potter let out a startled shriek and spun around, clutching his chest. Draco had never laughed so hard. "The saviour of the wizarding world folks, acclaimed war veteran," he said between gasps.

Harry pouted and walked towards him, shoving him into the wall. "Don't be mean, Malfoy." He pressed his chest against his.

"I thought you liked me mean," Draco laughed and pecked him on the lips, sliding out from under him. He filled up the kettle. "What were you looking for?" 

Harry sat at the counter. "Biscuits."

"All out, I'm afraid." Draco switched it on and pulled out two mugs. "How do you take your tea?"

"Milk, one sugar." 

Draco pulled out a paper package and unwrapped it to reveal a half eaten cake. He cut two slices and passed one over. "It's French, my mother sent it over." 

Potter took a huge bite, letting out a moan. "Its really good! I've always wanted to go to France." 

"You've never been?" 

"No, I used to spend a lot of time as a child looking at pictures of it though, the little villages, the Parisian streets. I always wanted to visit the Eiffel tower." Draco watched as Harry's face took on a distant, almost pained look - but before he could say anything he shook his head and smiled at Draco.

Draco poured the water into the cups, stirring. "We should go together, sometime." 

Harry smiled. "That would be nice."

Draco passed his mug over and gestured towards the balcony, where streams of dying light were pouring in. "The sun is setting, we should go watch it."

"So romantic." Potter winked at him.

"See, Potter, I don't spend all my time being evil." Draco winked back.

[georgebenjiart]

NANOWRIMO

Okay, so I only got 2,599 words. lol. This is a story that I’ve been working on and crafting for 3 years now, with the help of my older sibling who isn’t on tumblr. At one point I had 10k long novella written out for it. There’s also a 2nd 10k long novella from another character’s perspective as well. This is most likely going to be the first chapter, and I’m sorry that it’s really rough. This story doesn’t have a name, but at one point it was known as How I Lived, so I’ll be referring to it as HIL until I decide on something better.

HIL-

(if you’d prefer the google doc link to read it, dm me)

Words- 2599

Summary- A world where your chest glows a color when you’re near your soulmate, Heath, a boy who doesn’t believe in soulmates, or love, gets the biggest surprise. (note: only about half of this is in the story so far lmao)

Story:

My brother always tells me that waiting is even better than the reward, but to that I say bullshit. That’s all we do, right? We just sit back and wait. We wait until it’s time to talk to our friends, we wait until it’s time to go to sleep, to wake up, to go to work, to go home. Loops and endless waiting. My brother will die on a hill claiming that the wait is the best part. Personally, I think he’s just looking for an explanation as to why he hasn’t found his soulmate yet.

--

Like clockwork, Mel knocks on my door at six-forty-five that morning and I’m out the door, a quick goodbye to Onus and my backpack swinging onto my shoulder.

“Alright, spill. Jungle Blitz 4 demo, promising or no?” Last night we were up on a voice call waiting for leaks of the newest demo of the next game in our favorite video game series. Mel had to go to bed before the demo dropped.

“Depends. Do you like good games or not?”

“Oh God. That bad?”

“Think Kingsley has a kid.”

“So… good then?”

“Continue thinking, Lane is canon.”

“Holy shitting fuck. No.”

“Yes.”

Mel squeals a little bit and I know she’s going to be smiling about this for the rest of the day. “I can't believe the audacity of them to release the demo on the first day of school.”

“Oh, come one, it was world wide, they didn’t do it just to spite you.”

“You don’t know that, Heath.” Mel wiggles her finger at me and I can’t tell if she’s completely serious or not.

We continue our conversation as we make our way to school and as we pass through the student parking lot, a group of jock-ish seniors slow their conversation to glare at me. Mel just kind of glances my way and we don’t say anything about it.

“Alright, your first period is Mr. Long in room 105? Algebra 1?” I flip my hair out of my eyes and Mel laughs just a little bit.

“Get a haircut, and yeah. Well, yeah and no. Mr. Long in room 105, yeah. But it’s for Algebra 2.”

“How in the- That’s… I’m only in geometry you smart bitch.”

“Yeah! Remember, I was ahead of you in middle school too.”

“Yeah, yeah.” I walk her to her class and hug her goodbye. “Good luck, sorry you’re like ten minutes early.”

“Eh, it’s the first day, who cares?” Mel shrugs and her jackets make a sound.

As soon as Mel enters her class, the first bell rings and I head to the stairs. On my way up, I spot a very confused and short freshman gripping their class schedule.

“You need help finding your first period?” I’m afraid my voice scared the poor kid.

“My.. My brother said that he would… he would walk me to my first period.”

“Where is he?”

“I don’t… know.”

“I can help you in the meantime, can I walk you to you class?”

“Y-yeah.”

“Okay, coo. What’s your class?”

“Room 105.”

“Hey, I just walked my friend Mel there. She’s super nice, and a freshman like you.” I turn around and motion for them to follow me. “So what’s your name?” After a beat, “And pronouns.” They look very feminine, short bleached pigtails, blue tips, very big, bright blue eyes, a small button nose, and a thin pink jacket.

“Naomi.. And uh.. She/her.”

“Okay, cool. I’m Heath and I use he/him.” I smile at her, but she still looks like she’s ready to explode any second. “So what are you into? Do you play video games or anything?”

“Um… Kind of, not really.” We get to her class and I point at Mel, who is sitting at a table by herself.

“Go make sure Mel makes at least one friend, please.”

“Sure.. thing…” Naomi then rushes into the class, her tiny backpack bouncing with her.

When I finally get to my class, I choose a seat towards the back of the class, having not recognized any friendly faces in the crowd. My first four classes go by slowly, my teachers discuss silibi and give us “peer bonding” assignments to get to know the classmates we’ve known since freshman year. Lacking as that sounds, it’s still stressful and by the time I get to lunch, I’ve forgotten that Mel and I have the same lunch.

“Heath, I’ve been texting you. What the heck?” Mel sits down next to me, startling me from the astral plane my soul had traveled to.

“Oh, sorry, I was spacing out.” I check my phone, sure enough there’s five unread messages about lunch.

Then Naomi sits down next to Mel and gives me a little wave.

“Hey, you have lunch with us!” That gets a simple smile from Naomi. I pull a piece of bread from my backpack and begin to chow down.

“You cannot be serious.” Mel glares at me, her glasses slipping down her nose.

“What?” I ask, my mouth full.

“That’s your lunch?” Mel has pulled out a sandwich and soda can, while Naomi has a bag of chips and a salad.

“Yeah. I slept in this morning and Onus forgot to make me lunch.”

“Oh for christ’s sake, here,” Mel pulls out a second sandwich from her bag and hands it to me.

“Ohoho, thank you!” I kiss Mel’s hand begin to chow down a second time.

Just then, a loud bang sounds and we look over from our cafeteria table near the double doors, to see none other than Ronnie fucking Yule, their face pressed against the glass. “Let me in bro,” they mouth.

“Who’s that?” Mel asks.

“Ronnie, they’re in our discord server. You’ve talked to them before.” I open the door for then and they join us at our four-person table.

“My little brotato chips, what is cracking?” I can just feel the cringe radiating off of Naomi and I’d be lying if I said the only reason why I wasn’t cringing as well was because I love Ronnie with my entire fucking heart.

“Not much, just my bones.” And then I crack my neck.

“Oh, yucky. Hey, who’re you, you little carraromo?” Ronnie is talking more so at Naomi, rather than with her. That’s just a thing that they tend to do tho.

“I’m N-Naomi.”

“Sweet! Hey, so say you’re not just Naomi, but also a sister. Would you be having a brother who is on the football team?”

“Uh… Yes…?”

At this point in the conversation I’ve spaced out again and only really care about my sweet sandwich. I wait for lunch to end. Then I wait for the day to be over and I walk home with Mel.

I ask her if she plans on joining any clubs, she says no. I ask her what she thought of Naomi, she tells me Naomi is pretty cool so far. I ask her how her day went, apparently okay. I ask her if she wants to hang out at my house to play Jungle Blitz, she says yes.

My house isn’t much to look at, to be fair I’m surprised we still have it. It’s a mobile home, and a very homely one at that. It’s painted a perfect suburban beige on the outside, and a sickly sweet yellow on the inside. Our kitchen and livingroom are mostly connected, but there’s still a breakfast bar separating the two. We have fairly lights up in the living room year round because one reason or another when Onus and I were younger. The house always smells like either musty old books or whatever was most recently cooked, usually pancakes or spaghetti.

I sprawl out on the couch, Mel takes her place on the floor, leaning back on the couch, and she starts playing the third Jungle Blitz game. “I need one of the achievements still.” I fall in and out of sleep, watching Mel play. We hold a running commentary on events of the game, events which I am so well in tune with that I’m able to talk about them in my sleep apparently.

Mel leaves after a few hours, and I’m free to sort out the stack of silibi and other assorted papers I need my mom to sign. I leave them on the couch and I head to bed.

The next day of school is the first day of one of the three clubs I’m a part of (I know, social butterfly Heath), which is the first thing Onus informs me of when he hands me the stack of papers my mom signed sometime during the night. The next thing he tells me is that he’s made pancakes. I’m out of bed, ready for school and pounding my fists on the table within the next four minutes.

“Calm down, bro. I have a headache.” Onus serves me the pancakes and it takes everything in my not to eat the plate with the pancakes. “Didn’t put butter on-” I take a bite out of the stick of butter on the breakfast bar. “No. No, jesus christ, not this early in the morning you fucking gremlin.”

“Awugh c’mon O-nie,” I spit some crumbs his way and he rubs his temples.

“How old are you? Six or sixteen?”

“As if a six year old could be as funny as me.”

“Fucking Hell.”

“I have club today?”

“Chew your goddamn food. Yes, you have GSA today. Tomorrow you have DnD.” Onus reaches into his backpack haphazardly lain on the kitchen counter to pull out a textbook and a bunch of papers.

“What- that?” I swallow my food between words.

“Just some biomed bullshit. Doesn’t really matter.”

“Ah.” Just as he spreads his papers out to start working on them, there’s a knock at the door, and I’m stuffing my papers in my messenger bag and sprinting out the door, tugging shoes on as I run.

“Guess who got breakfast this morning!” I brag.

“You, for once?” Mel yawns and clearly would rather be in bed.

“Haha! Onus is the bestest brother in whole entire wide world ever!”

Mel yawns in agreement.

Similarly to yesterday, when we pass through the parking lot, the group of seniors hanging around some small sports-ish car all stare at us, mostly me, and glare. One of them laughs a little bit. When I glance over, usually I ignore them, I realize that I do, in fact, recognise most of them. The one laughing is Calvin James.

Calvin James sure is a character, or something like that. I’ve never spoken to him, but I’m certain he’s spoken about me. Not that his friends are horrible and the worst people in the whole world, but they sure don’t like any of the trans kids who go to school here. Including me. And probably Mel is they ever get close enough to her to know that.

“I need a haircut still,” I whine as we enter the school. Calvin James is the hottest guy I’ve ever seen. “This sucks!” I flip my hair out of my eyes and my glasses almost fly off my face.

“Get one then.”

“I need Onus to take me, but he’s busy with, like, adult stuff or some shit.” When we get to Mel’s class I walk in and sit with her at her table.

“Do you think my parents could take you?”

“Um… Maybe?” I think about this for a moment. “Wait- new topic, are you going to GSA today? Please say yes. You have to say yes or I’ll cry.”

“Bitch.”

“Fucker.” We makes hearts with our hands to really get the fact that we actually hate each other across.

While we’re having our chat, Naomi joins and we welcome her, there’s a brief exchange in which Mel agrees to go to the club after school today, only if Naomi goes too and Naomi agreed to because it beats just watching the football team practice while she waits for her brother to drive her home.

I only get a few complaints from teachers about the crumpled papers, it’s mostly just jokes though. At lunch, Ronnie joins us again.

“Heath, you need a snake?” Ronnie offers an applesauce cup to me and I oh so humbly accept it from them.

All but inhaling the applesauce, it’s gone sooner than anyone can start a new conversation. As I slam the empty applesauce cup onto the table, a group of preppy-adjacent freshman girls pass by us and sicker to each other, pointing at Naomi.

“I can beat them up for you,” I offer, wiping applesauce from my face.

“Haha, n… no. That’s not… needed.” I’m just now realizing that Naomi might not be stuttering from anxiety and she might actually just have a stutter.

“If you say so.” I shrug my shoulders and start a conversation with Ronnie about our Dungeons and Dragons characters, before moving on to talk about how GSA is meeting after school.

After lunch, my next three classes are boring and nothing particularly happens in them. At the end of the day, I head back to my art class where GSA meets.

“Hey Heath!” I’m greeted by Jae, who is in conversation with a freshman, who must me new this year.

“‘Sup.” I start moving some of the tables together so there’s a large table for about twelve people to sit around. “We’ll be starting soon, probably. Take your seats, please.” Jae and the freshman sit down at the other end of the table, soon Ronnie joins, then three small freshman, then Mel and Naomi. “Okay, we’ve got mostly everyone who will be showing up today, and it’s about time to start.” We start with check ins, which consists of stating your name and your pronouns?

“I’m Heath, this club’s president, and I use he/him pronouns.”

“Ronnie, I’m the vice president, they/them.”

“Mel, she/her.”

“Naomi, she/her.”

“Christian, he/him.” The freshman with Jae.

“Jae, the secretary, he/him and they/them.”

“Felicity, she/her.” One of the three freshmen.

“Alex, she/her.” The next freshman.

“Kali, she/her.” The last freshman.

“Okay, thanks for coming, everyone, today we’re just gonna set some stuff up for the rest of the year…”

The meeting goes well enough, the three freshmen mostly just whisper and giggle to each other, but other than that nothing goes wrong. I walk home with Mel after the club and I eat dry cereal out of the box as I do homework in the living room.

Mom doesn’t come back home that night, and I feel sorry about how many hours she’s currently working.

*

The next morning goes business as usual, except for the fact that I didn’t get any sleep at all. Onus arrives at the house, makes me a pancake, packs me a lunch and does does homework while I get ready for school. I leave the house with Mel, we walk through the school parking lot.

“School parking lot” is where things deviate from business as usual. As we’re walking by the regular group of jock-adjacent kids, they snicker at me and I turn to them.

“You’re just gonna do that everyday, huh?” I shout. The morning is bright, cool and the perfect time to throw some hands.

“Keep walking, girl,” one of the guys, a taller, lankier one, who isn’t even facing my direction just kind of shouts back out of the side of his mouth.

“Keep laughing, asshat.” I tiptoe my way towards them, and I can feel Mel plant herself in the pavement.