#i know fuck all about the lore or whatever but i rotate all of the characters in my brain CONSTANTLY

[goblinroleplay]

hes so babygirl i need to woobify him NEEOOOOOW!!!!!!!!!

[clareguilty]

Din Djarin/reader | A/B/O, Biting, Possessiveness

This fic was written for Kinktober 2022! Let me know what you think <3

Alpha!Din Djarin/Omega!Reader (Gender neutral) Rating: Explicit | Heat/Rut cycles, Biting, too much star wars lore Word Count: ~3000

The Mandalorian bounty hunter usually pissed you off simply by existing -- but never before had you felt blinding rage every time you caught a glimpse of that fucking beskar.

Your ship. Your beautiful ship. You had called her The Scarab. A YV-560 light freighter with a beautiful bronze durasteel light-armor hull.

And then that fucking Mandalorian had sent a land speeder crashing into it at top speed.

The explosion was all you saw every time you closed your eyes.

You were drowning your sorrows in Novanian grog, fingers covered in soot from where you had spent hours digging through the smoking wreckage.

And he had been watching you. You knew because the gleam of his armor had never left the corner of your eye no matter how many drinks you finished.

The bartender was debating if your credits were worth having to carry your plastered ass out with the trash as you demanded another drink, and the mother fucker sat down in the seat next to you.

You swiveled in your seat to glare at him, trying to ignore the way the whole bar spun.

"I'm sorry about The Scarab," he said simply. You wanted to punch him in the helmet, but it wouldn't be worth the broken fingers.

"I want to kill you," you slurred.

The bartender raised an eyebrow, but you couldn't bring yourself to pay him any mind. When you didn't reach for your blaster he finally stepped away.

The Mando nodded. "That's fair. I would do the same if you damaged the Razor Crest."

"Then why the fuck are you sitting here." Your fingers itched for your knife, but you were so drunk you would probably just wind up hurting yourself.

"I feel responsible for your ship-"

"You ARE responsible for my ship, fuckass!" You were off your barstool before he could even finish, stumbling and bracing your hand on his breastplate so you didn't topple over.

"And I wanted to make you an offer to make up for it," he continued as if you hadn't even spoken.

"You can't afford to replace her," you scoffed. "I know what kind of bounties you've been bringing in lately."

"And I know about yours," he countered. "You could ride along with me until you get a new ship, and we could take better jobs that would pay more split between us than if we both worked alone."

"Anyone ever tell you you're too nice for this job?" You asked, head falling to the side.

"No." He placed a few credits on the bar beside your elbow. "I leave at sunrise. Replace whatever you can in the market and find me before then. Otherwise, I'm leaving you on this planet."

You pocketed the credits and threw a vulgar gesture at his back as he left. 

-

The worst part of it all -- aside from sharing a dumb shitty ship with the bastard that had destroyed your beautiful perfect ship -- was that Mando was right.

You worked really well together.

At first, you watched him constantly, not willing to let your guard down for a minute. That resulted in an uncanny ability to predict his every move after several days of memorizing all of his tells. This only helped you fight alongside one another.

The jobs were quick and the credits came easy. You took on more and more dangerous targets, bigger and bigger bounties. 

You would never be able to afford a new ship. The only way you were getting one was through theft. In the meantime, you were raking in the credits and biding your time for the perfect opportunity -- and the perfect ship. 

Until then you were crammed together under a small outcropping of rock on some bumfuck planet in a system you had never heard of before. The sound of a speeder engine grew near, and both of you stiffened. You had been camped out for hours, tracking the patrol schedule and guard rotations for the veritable fortress built into the stone face on the opposite side of the ravine. 

You waited for the speeder to pass, gliding over your hideout just as every patrol had before it.

The Crest was carefully hidden several clicks away, and you knew it would be one hell of a hike back once you managed to secure the bounty.

Some Imperial senator had decided to live out the rest of his days in a heavily fortified vacation home hundreds of parsecs from civilized space rather than answer for all of the crimes he had happily committed under the Empire, and you and Mando were more than happy to take an obscene amount of Republic credits in exchange for hauling him to Chandrila.

Unfortunately, that required the two of you to infiltrate after an entire cycle of recon, and so far it looked as though this guy had several squadrons of ex-Imperial troopers to guard him.

You scribbled another line of notes to indicate the timing of the patrol speeder and the number of guards visible through your scopes.

“Want something to eat?” Mando offered you a ration bar.

“I’m good, thanks.” You waved him off.

“You haven’t eaten since we landed,” he pointed out, and you scoffed at the concern in his voice.

Your appetite was gone, that was for sure. You had felt off since coming out of hyperspace, and the only way you were keeping your strength was the canteen of broth that you prayed would last you a few more hours.

The fever was getting worse, though. And you wouldn't be able to hide it from Mando much longer.

"I'm fine," you lied. "Just not hungry."

"Your temperature keeps climbing," he said, calling your bluff. "You're going to be delirious with fever by nightfall at this rate."

"Well, there's nothing we can do about it," you snapped. "All we have in the medkit is bacta." It would do nothing to bring down your fever, and you mentally kicked yourself for not stocking up on useful supplies when you had the chance.

You began making a checklist of what you needed, only to realize exactly what was happening.

You gasped, glancing immediately out to the ravine and trying to calculate if you could make it back to the Razor Crest before it was too late.

"What is it?" Mando asked, following your gaze with a hand already on his blaster.

"My suppressants were on The Scarab." You said, still trying to determine if you could climb out of the ravine without being spotted by the patrol speeder.

"Suppressants?" Din asked.

You rolled your eyes. Of course, a Mandalorian wouldn't know about suppressants. He probably didn’t even have a mating cycle for all you knew. You, on the other hand, had always made sure to keep some on hand so you could control your heat. As a bounty hunter, you preferred to wait until you could take some time off and visit your home planet to go through the whole messy ordeal.

Except your suppressants had been on the ship the Mandalorian had blown up, and he didn’t have any with him on the Crest. You had completely forgotten about them in all of the chaos of the last few weeks, and now your heat was here and you were trapped in this damned ravine. With him.

"Does your helmet filter your air?" You asked.

He hesitated half a second before answering, trying to figure out what was going on. "No. It offers a little protection, but small particles still make it through."

"You're so fucked," you couldn't help your wry grin. "Have you ever been exposed to an omega in heat before?"

He made a small sound of realization, the severity of the situation settling in. "I haven't."

You weighed your options. “If I killed you now, I could throw your body into the ravine and make it through this alone. The crest would be all mine, too.”

Mando chuckled. “You wouldn’t win that fight, especially not with how weak you are now.”

The thought didn’t make you feel any better. You glanced out into the ravine, wondering if a jump would finish you off.

He followed your train of thought and reached for your arm. The feeling of his warm glove against your skin was too much, and you hissed and flattened yourself against the stone to put distance between you.

“What should I expect?” he asked. “We can make it through this together. Just tell me what I need to do.”

You rolled your eyes. “My pheromones are going to make it impossible for you to do anything. It’s getting worse, and you’re going to be just as bad as me in a few hours.”

Now that you were aware of what was happening, it was as though everything had amplified tenfold. Your skin was warm and sensitive, and the feeling you had mistaken for nausea was actually burning arousal. This tiny hollow of rock was too cramped, too cold, too exposed. Every minute that passed you could feel your head grow lighter, struggling to stay focused.

“Hey,” he called to you softly. “It’s going to be okay. I’ll watch over you.”

“You’re still too fucking nice,” you panted, a combination of panic and heat warring inside you. “Anyone else would have had their way with me and just left me here for the imps.”

Mando flinched. Didn’t like that. It was silent for a moment and then he reached for his helmet.

You screwed your eyes shut, knowing you weren’t supposed to see. None of this made any sense, but you weren’t about to violate his trust like that.

“You can look,” he said, and the sound of his voice without the modulator was so kind and soft that you had to bite back a whimper. “I need you to trust me.”

Wary, you cracked one eye open. He was staring at you with the most expressive brown eyes you had ever seen, shining and warm. His hair was plastered to his head from the helmet, and he ran his glove through it leaving it fluffy and wild.

You couldn’t not trust him.

Sighing, you scooted across the stone until you were sitting side by side. “This is going to be gross and humiliating.”

He chuckled. “I’ve dealt with my fair share of gross and humiliating.” His chest heaved with a sigh, and you watched his eyes widen and his skin flush. “ Oh. ”

It was your turn to laugh. “It’s worse without the helmet, isn’t it? I can feel myself slipping, and I’m sure I’ll be begging for you to fuck me before it even gets dark.”

“Yeah?” his voice was wheezy. “Uh… what do I do then?”

You shrugged. “Put me out of my misery? Heats pass more quickly if I mate with someone, then we can finish this job and get out of here.”

“Practical,” he noted.

You didn’t even bother responding. His glove had accidentally brushed your thigh and the touch had sent you reeling with want. It was impossible to disguise your reaction now that he knew what was happening.

“What if-” his voice was raspy and he cleared his throat to start over. “What if we started now?”

You stared at him, eyes dark with desire. He was probably waiting for you to respond, but you couldn’t even formulate a sentence with all of the thoughts rushing through your mind.

“Maybe it would be over more quickly? And then we could get the job done?”

“Right,” you nodded, trying to clear your head. “That’s… practical.”

“Exactly,” he murmured, but he hadn’t stopped staring at your lips.

The stillness left all at once.

You had never taken your pants off so quickly in your life, and Mando dragged you by the hips to the thin bedroll you had been using in shifts before hooking your knees over his shoulders. The backs of your legs were warm against the cool beskar of his pauldrons, and you had to bite your own arm to keep from moaning as his scruff tickled your skin. He tortured you by kissing all the way up to your knees before burying his face between your thighs. He grabbed your ass and lifted your hips to pull you in closer, and you thought you were going to die.

“Mando,” you gasped, digging your fingers into the rough canvas of the bedroll.

The fucker had the audacity to stop.

“My name is Din,” he said, looking up at you with slick-covered lips. “Probably should have told you that a long time ago.”

“Din,” you repeated. “Don’t fucking stop.”

He obeyed, licking and sucking experimentally until he found exactly what had you shaking and rocking against him. The pleasure was the answer your body had been searching for, and you let yourself sink into the wonderful feeling. You knew the taste of you was dragging Din into the same lustful spiral.

But you couldn’t find it in you to feel guilty. Not when his fingers were digging into the softness of your thighs and his tongue was circling your clit slowly and deliberately. Despite how desperate you were, he seemed intent to take his time. 

He didn’t have to take very much time at all, because you came quicker than you ever had during your heats alone. He couldn’t get enough of the taste of you coming over his lips, and you had to physically shove him out from between your thighs as the sensation became too much. Your heart was thudding heavy in your chest, every movement sloppy and uncoordinated as you tried to get your bearings.

Din was the least composed of the two of you. He had never been affected by an omega’s heat before, and his expression was far less controlled than when he first removed his helmet. You had barely recovered from your orgasm when he dove forward, pinning you beneath his entire weight with a hand over your mouth.

A patrol speeder was nearby.

You froze, panting against his glove as the sound of the engine grew louder and then steadily fainter. Din passed the moments by nosing at the junction of your neck and collarbone, kissing and licking and dragging his teeth over the sensitive skin. He was only driving himself deeper breathing in your scent like that. You knew that he was just as bad as you when his hips ground down against you, trying to find the right friction. Unfortunately, he was plated head to toe in beskar.

“Ow,” you hissed as his belt dug into your hips.

“Sorry,” he breathed. He pulled away to remove whatever he could, and you immediately missed the closeness. Luckily, he was back on you in moments, this time with his pants unfastened and his cock grinding against your entrance.

You shifted your hips just a bit, and he slipped inside. The stretch was perfect, so full and warm and exactly what your body had been craving for hours. Your reward was a curse and a hiss, followed by Din’s teeth sinking into the exact spot from before as he thrust into you with an uncoordinated jerk of his hips. You had to fight to stay quiet as he found exactly the right motion to make your vision go white. He was a fast learner and pulled your hips up to meet his so he could do it again and again and again.

It was still quiet -- too much noise would certainly catch the attention of the imps -- but you loved every hitch of Din’s breath, every quiet moan and curse as he fuck you. The only way he could keep from being too loud was to sink his teeth into your shoulder, or your collarbone, or busy his lips against your neck. You gently led his lips to yours, feeling his scruff against your palm and the motion of his jaw. Unable to resist, you ran your fingers through his hair, tugging gently. He pinned you in place after that, rutting into you harder and harder every time your fingers scratched gently at his scalp.

You placed a kiss to the skin just below his jaw, the only thing not covered. He shuddered, snatching your wrist and shoving your hand between your bodies with a desperate clumsiness. “I can’t- I’m not going to last,” he panted.

You understood immediately, sliding your hand the rest of the way to where he was inside you and bringing yourself off in a matter of seconds. Only after you finished, back arching and then finally sinking back onto the canvas, did he let himself follow.

His cock twitched, and you felt it. Warmth spread through you, filling you and satisfying that aching need. Din growled against your skin, silencing himself by biting into your shoulder. He pulled your hips onto his cock, sinking as deep as he could go and losing himself in how tight you were around him, how warm.

He caught himself before he collapsed onto you, saving you from being crushed beneath his armor.

It took a fair amount of adjusting, trying to get comfortable when he was still mostly armored, but you managed. The silence was strange after everything that had happened. Luckily, both of you were clear-headed after giving into the blinding impulses of your heat.

“Thank you for trusting me,” Din murmured, idly trailing his hands over your skin. You wanted to tell him to take the gloves off so you could feel the warmth of his fingers, but you weren’t sure how.

“Thanks for being trustworthy,” you murmured back, trying to play it off. You didn’t want to let him know just how much it meant.

“You know,” he spoke up again, surprisingly chatty. “Sometimes I hope you never find another ship.”

It took you off guard. The admission. You and Din had become closer, for sure, but you hadn’t thought he would grow to like you.

You realized the worse thing was that you had grown to like him.

“I don’t have to leave,” you offered. 

“I don’t want you to.” There was frustration in his voice, something he couldn’t figure out how to say.

“Then I’ll stay,” you promised.

[b1adie]

Oh my bad I should've elaborated! What I meant exactly was that it seems REALLY buggy/glitch-y and a lot of people online are complaining about it and that the EN voiceovers are bad is another popular complaint rn

Is that true? In your experience at least :0

OHHHH okay well here are my thoughts

well i don’t seem to be getting nearly as many crashes/disconnections as i’ve seen people complain about (it’s never crashed for me, but it occasionally will say “reconnecting” for a few seconds). kind of glitchy, but not in a way that really effects anything too badly. like 90% of the time you can just run straight up a wall, which honestly? hope they never patch that, i love it. also you don’t take fall damage which rocks. leave that.

the en voices though,, yeah, they’re not great. really flat and peculiar imo. like you can tell they’re reading off a script and it sounds like it’s the first time they’ve ever read it. not much of an issue for me since i rarely play games with sound on, but it is kind of disappointing (and sometimes irritating…)

they’re also just throwing a bunch of words at me all the time and its so much of a lore dump that i didnt even bother trying to keep up and just started skipping cutscenes LMAO like yeah i’d like to know more but i dont know half the shit they’re saying to me and they’re not making me interested enough to find out. i was only playing the main story for the xp and shit but i got to a point in it where it was like “you have to increase your level more before you can continue” so ive just been running around exploring and fighting shit. which! is mostly what i like doing, anyway. i like to pick flowers and kick the shit out of monsters

i’ve been having fun but i am disappointed with the story and the voiceovers. like, they really just start throwing so many words at you and dont give you a second to catch up… i LOVE video game lore, but they didnt even let me get a slight grip of the world before saying a bunch of new shit to me, so i lost interest in trying to figure out what anyone was talking about.

but! like i said, i just love running around. i’m a big fan of open world games and exploration. if you knew anything about the story/characters and were interested in those you probably won’t be too happy.

OH BUT YOU KNOW WHAT PISSES ME OFF?? they make you click the scroll wheel of the mouse to lock on to enemies, if you don’t click it you don’t auto target enemies and just kinda fire at whatever. I DONT HAVE A MOUSE I PLAY WITH A TRACKPAD!!! so i had a harder time starting off but now i’m really good at rotating my camera fast as fuck. still, super annoying that they won’t even let me change the key input for it in settings…

[korpuskat]

Y'know what'd be fucked up?

Oh my god this is so long nahshajajs I'm sorry I couldn't help it- Also mild tw for character death but also not really?? They're sort of dead but sort of aren't because I'm not committing to that grief

Human consciousness being transferred into an omnic body

Like on the surface it seems nice, longer lifespan, body that probably doesn't ache, and since everything is mechanical there's probably an easy fix for whatever pain you might feel

But it'd also probably take a mental toll on most people, everything is different, possibly even "wrong", human minds weren't made to be transferred to metal frames, and that's if you know what's happened to you, but if you don't? Immediately 10 times worse

Just imagine it, Ramattra's human lover is abducted, and no matter how he searches he can't find a single clue about their current location, it worries him sick. They're somewhere, afraid, hurting, a part of him hopes they're alone, or better yet that they ran away, but he knows he can't ever assume that.

And one day, as if handed to him on a silver platter, he finds their location.

It's a dark place, claustrophobic and damp, it makes him uneasy, even more so the thought that this is where his lover was being held

He's too late, or so he thinks when he sees an omnic staring at his lovers unmoving body, hooked up to countless amounts of machinery. The omnic is acting odd, poking the human body, touching their own face before bringing their hand in front of their face, rotating it slowly, clenching and unclenching their hand, after that their hands drop down on their stomach, their shoulder move up and down heavily, as if trying to breathe

All of that takes less than a few seconds to notice, then, he notices something much more terrifying

His lover isn't breathing

Chaos, confusion, flashing lights from shots fired, complete and utter discord fills the room, the cowering omnic before him tries to explain something that he's far too enraged to listen to, and what enrages him even more is that they manage to escape

He unhooks his lover from the machine, only now noting the other vivisection table next to them, and a monitor next to him starts to flash, in his grief he doesn't think of it, much too occupied to notice, or more so piece together the story of his surroundings

His lover is dead, but only in their flesh, but their mind still lives, in a cold, metallic body, something that terrifies them

And yet the thought of not being able to explain themselves terrifies them even more

I'm only here for Ramattra yet now I want to turn this into a full fledged oc. I know nothing about Overwatch lore

AAAAH okay first sorry this took so long to answer jfdhsgsd

PLEASE CONTINUE WRITING THIS???? Ramattra being infuriated with his partner who he doesn't recognize is breaking my heart.

[spaceratprodigy]

could i bother u for more thoughts on faith and max in a mock apple orchard 🥺👉🏻👈🏻

@gayafsatan — I would absolutely LOVE to brainstorm some fun ideas of them in a mock apple orchard!!

I've been replaying again so they've been rotating around in my mind a lot extra hard and was especially thinking about mock apple picking bc the botanical labs also has a lil orchard where you can pick mock apples up off the ground! But I'm currently in Roseway so oughhh.. ideas....

I want you now I am going to ramble a LOT so please bear with me I swearsies it'll be more fun if we get the full lore dump from my brain 😩💖💕

–

👇 ROSEWAY THOUGHTS 👇

(I AM GOING TO TALK ABT ROSEWAY THOUGHTS AS A WHOLE AND THEN EASE INTO SOME SILLY MOCK APPLE ORCHARD IDEAS AT THE END OKAY. OKAY ILY THANK YOU).

–

My thoughts are very chaotic and rambly so let me try to walk though my ideas lmao

Roseway is typically where I peg Faith's death wish arc happening, and to summarize what all that entails, it's when the mask slips and the weight of everything finally hits her in full force.

I always envision this story happening over a long period of time so a lot of time has passed since first arriving at Edgewater and the Groundbreaker.

Halcyon. Her situation. Her identity. The life Phineas threw her into abruptly and his expectations for her. Making split second moral decisions where no matter what someone is going to get hurt. Being so alien and alone, no one to understand her or believe in her predicament but having to be the mysterious competent captain regardless.

It finally gets to her. Bad. And she makes some self destructive decisions. She gets sloppy, careless, hoping someone else will end this nightmare for her. Until they almost do.

I am swiftly brushing past many details so we don't get too lost in the sauce. But Max went after her, found her collapsed and injured bad, carried her back to the ship for Ellie to do whatever she could, and then stayed by her side for as long as it took for her to wake up.

This is such a key moment for them getting closer. Because there was a lot of frustration and emotion and being forced to confront the possibility of feelings existing, but nothing they fully understand or are ready to acknowledge as such yet.

She tries to brush past the subject of what happened, deflecting everything until he raises his voice in a way he hasn't since she gave him the journal and she threatened he never talk like that to her again. And it was enough to break through her facade, for her to show just how utterly broken and vulnerable she is, and they have a proper fucking conversation about where she's at mentally. He still isn't ready for the truth about her life before. But it's a step forward.

There is a lot of patience and understanding and just. Yeah. A lot happens here. Some walls come down. There grows some room for them to become softer and closer over more time.

All of this is important because a short piece I had written a long time ago took place in this area roughly after this incident.

It was a personal outlet vent piece, I will be honest. When I wrote it it was after I had a very bad panic attack after an awful scare. And I wrote it into Faith because I just wanted to get some feelings from that experience out of my system.

The shortened version of that one is Faith recovering from a bad episode, trying to calm her breathing, waiting for her ears to stop ringing and for her vision to come back. Her legs gave out on her and she was sitting under the mock apple trees. Her voice locks up on her when she's seriously distressed. Yadda yadda yadda, Max had brought along his datapad so she could communicate anything important and she was incredibly confused because she knows he doesn't like using his datapad ever and then rendered even more speechless to know he brought it specifically for her in case something like this were to happen again. It ends with her just asking if he would keep talking to her, and they sit there under the mock apple trees for a while, in no particular rush to get anywhere.

And after this point, I think the mock apple orchards become a really peaceful, therapeutic spot for her when she just wants a moment to herself. Sits there, breathes, takes in the Roseway scenery and collects herself before jumping back into the horrors of Halcyon. Spends some time picking mock apples to take back to the ship.

I've been having a lot of ideas of her asking Max to go with her. I'm of the mind if she'd ask directly that he'd either decline, or at least pretend to be uninterested but she's the one who asked so he accepts the offer.

But I can see her being vague and just saying that she's heading out if he'd join her and she leads him to the orchards. By this point they're already often in each other's company, she indulges his interests often, letting him be the one who is finally listened to. But in general, they get along very well in conversation when it comes to a handful of similar interests and their personalities and attitudes bounce off of each other well.

(In my story anyway, since she spends an extended amount of time in Edgewater and the Vale, there was also a lot of time spent doing some early bonding with Max. So do with that info what you will. They're not likeee besties yet but they're much more than strangers by this point, ya'know? Just to get an idea of where their familiarity with each other is at and why there's enough respect and trust to some extent already existing. Not to mention how much time they had spent on the Groundbreaker).

They'd be having such a peaceful time away from the rest of the crew.

Oughhh hear me out, okay, Faith loves to bake. She doesn't even ask, she just makes Max hold her bag open while she starts collecting mock apples and after they finally head back to the ship she figures out how to make mock apple pie for the crew 😭 we already know Max doesn't care much for sweets (I wonder how sweet or tart a mock apple pie would be.. Faith girl what all Halcyon ingredients are you adding to that bad boy) but.. what if.... After everyone goes to bed...... He tries some anyway........ Because she made it..........

Most of what's bouncing around in my brain is them early on having wholesome bonding time in a spot just for the two of them. Just enjoying each other's company. Realizing they have genuine respect for each other, Faith feeling like she found a genuine friend who went to lengths further than anyone had in her entire life to make sure she survived. I am specifying Faith's feelings here intentionally. I write Max in a more complicated spot very blinded by his revenge scheme more or less unaware for a long while just how much the lines start blurring between his faith and his Faith. To put it succinctly. (Look I know I'm always drawing The Good Stuff™️ but in actuality their relationship is suchhhh a slow burn. They are not the most romantically inclined people lmao).

But also.. once she realizes she can talk to him when she needs to. I think coming back to this spot, off the ship, away from the crew, she just likes it there. She likes being there with him. She finds comfort in that spot.

OKAY BUT DO YOU KNOW WHAT ELSE WOULD BE CUTE.... they should come back here.. post-scylla and post-gorgon...... Ya'know......... The first being when they establish not wanting to be apart and the second being when they want to make that partnership a permanent one......... ASKING HER IN THE MOCK APPLE ORCHARDS WOULDN'T THAT BE DARLING ough okay I need a minute my brain is going too fast to comprehend

My Roseway ideas aren't the most cleaned up I know BUT so many important bonding moments exist and oughhhh LOOSE IDEAS ARE STILL WORTH TALKING ABOUT OKAYYYYY

I just want them to go mock apple picking together and learn how to get smiles out of each other and not understand why it makes their chests hurt but they know they need to do it again

ACTUALLYYYYY post-scylla when he's much more mellowed out and they're the closest they've been I think would be so so nice. they'd be so much softer and he'd probably be so much more involved in wanting to enjoy silly lil activities with her.....

Currently imagining him reading out loud to her, all the conversations they'd have, maybe he brings his tossball cards to show her, maybe they bring one of the lil games, have a lil makeshift picnic....

Godddd the transition between just how much enthusiasm he shows spending time with her is enough to make me explode. Can you see my vision. The reluctance, to the hesitancy, to becoming absolutely inseparable.

I HAVE A LOT TO THINK ABOUT BUT I'M GETTING SLEEPY SO SENDING IT!!!!!!

Literally feel free to add on or share your own thoughts I'm begging you lmao I promise there is so much room for ideas to be fleshed out and better put together, I'm mostly just spitballing what all I think would be incredibly fun ideas to work with. Plus I'm kind of thinking across the timeline and how much their relationship would change between each visit. And how over time they would enjoy it more and more and make each visit more special than the last.

WAIT BEFORE I LOSE THE THOUGHT!! They make a stop RIGHT BEFORE HEADING TO SCYLLA TO GO TO THE HERMIT'S LODGE!! Oh that could hurt so good omgggg. Okay okay I need to stop now I NEED TO STOP.

[forever-will-last]

psych ward + 7 ?

Behind-The-Scenes Fic Ask Game

7. What inspired the idea for the plot?

Okay, so, once again, this was born of the old discord server. I don't remember the exact context and I could be misremembering who came up with specific things, so apologies if I'm getting this slightly mixed up.

We were joking about some of the silly polyship titles (such as Nightmare Blunt Rotation, Regina/Cady/Janis, and Dream Blunt Rotation, Cady/Gretchen/Karen) and someone (might have even been me but I don't remember) was like what about a massive polyship of all five girls. I believe it was @sexycornenthusiast who came up with the title of "Psych Ward" and that shit was just funny as hell so that became the official title.

Then, on 4/20, I got high out of my fucking mind but really wanted to write but really didn't want to write a thousand pics bc I knew my super high writing wasn't going to be a good fit for whatever super dramatic shit was going on in that fic at that time. So I asked around for one-shot suggestions on the server and I believe it was @acetone4veins who suggested I hit Regina with progressively more ridiculous things over the course of a day (this was like, within a week of the chair chapter going up, and shortly after @girlkisser-wieners 's fame AU where Regina gets hit by a golf cart went up, so the mood was very much "REGINA MUST GET HIT WITH THINGS FOR THE MEME" overall in the server). I loved the idea but didn't know what ship to do for it, because I knew I wanted to start it off with Regina getting elbowed in the face by her partner upon waking up. I believe it was again @acetone4veins who suggested this be a Psych Ward fic, and I was sold.

It was supposed to be just a one-shot, but I loved the idea of the ship and that universe so much that I decided to do a one shot collection with it. Then I just kinda started expanding on some of the lore on my own and with others on discord for brainstorming and here we are.

This was a ridiculously long one, but who's surprised that my storytelling isn't concise? Not me! 🤪

[orangetubor]

I'm back again!

DOMES! so- what can u tell me about the space and education domes. I'm so interested. Why are they separated based off of activity? Are all the domes in a giant ish dome? ALSO WHAT DO MARTIANS FARM. POTATOES? what kind of recreational activities are in the recreational dome?

Also what are the fatal flaws of your ocs... I love finding out about this stuff if u cant tell. Any funny (or otherwise) story that any of them would tell about another to like describe one of them? (that sounds very confusing but basically when I introduce folks that are my idiot friends, I give a memorable story that makes people go "ah, that's such a (friend name) thing" (e.g. One of my ex friends from school ate her essay out of spite - she wrote it on rice paper and wanted to spook the teacher)

And yes I've seen the whole "I think I'm attracted to you because youre the hottest person I know" so AMAZING JOB- I love ur ocs!!!

Respectfully curious,

a nerd who likes knowing lore and science (and character!!)

(I'M SO SORRY FOR HOW LONG THIS IS I'M JUST REALLY INTERESTED)

I'm gonna do the flaws first bcs it won't take as long so:

Martha: gets sad cuz she doesn't have a specific 'thing' like the rest of her friends (jenny's the tech guy, Evelyn's the animal guy) and she gets sad cuz she thinks you need a thing to work in and aspire to in order to live your life to the fullest

Tammy: doesn't think. Like at all ever. No internal dialogue nothing in that brain half the time she's just playing rock music on loop. Lights are on but no one's home except the lights aren't even on

Jenny: builds little robots and then gets existential about creating a pseudo life to fulfil one singular purpose. Continues to build little robots anyway.

Thomas: internal dialogue goes 100 miles a second and so when he has to take a second to actually think he just. Blanks. He also has awful memory due to things getting pushed so far back by unrelated tangents

Genji/James: has a mullet

Aled: catastrophises a LOT and overthinks literally everything he's just handing Thomas a hair bobble and he's like 'wait is this elasticy enough. Oh no there's a hair on it oh no. What if my hands sweaty what then-' baby girl it is a hair bobble

Georgie: previous break ups have left her feeling like she isn't interesting enough, now she has to always give her two cents or else she thinks she's forgettable

Dane: ~\_(°u°)_/~

Sahrah: given her uniqueness as a weird fucked up entirely new species she feels like her life has to be perfect so that her mother species doesn't get a bad rap, especially since her mother is the first of her kind to live in mars. Also she's really supposed to be a litter animal but she was the only one who survived to birth so she's lonely a lot of the time

Fun story: Martha says 'the first time me and Tammy met was when she needed someone to show a dead bee to. She asked me if I wanted to pet it'

And ... DOMES!;;

educational dome has the schools and colleges in it, a few corner stores for hungry students, it's not that interesting other than the fact that there are geese for some reason

Space dome is basically just space science stuff, it's got telescopes, research for crops, rockets, exploration base, it's also the original dome! The very first one built by the robots they sent here so that the researchers had somewhere to stay.

What kind of crops do martians grow? Well, any they can get there hands on, there are several small climate controlled domes used to grow different things, deserty, tropical, whatever Ireland is, and some animal domes that rotate various animals and grain, it's also home to the farm house that hosts the majority of Halloween parties. There's also the eden dome, which isn't connected to the farm fines, but to the space domes! It was home to the very first crops grown on mars. (Which, of course, included potatoes) and then if course. The big dome. The super massive one that uses my new favourite thing: AQUAPONICS!! obviously you can't feed an entire small country with just plain kabd, you need stacks! You need later upon layer of fish, water, wires, dirt, plants, synthetic sunlight, and more fish! They also synthesize a lot of meat because it's sci-fi. I can do what I want. And it's better for the air cuz farm animals produce a lot of gas

The recreational domes have shops, cinemas, various sports centres, a nice park, and also hosts lots of festivals. There's also a small 'market dome' that's connected to the residential dome so you don't have to go all that way to pick up some eggs or something. (Martha and Tammy's favourite thing to do is go roller skating at 'saturns rings' also there's a diner where the waiters are all in roller skates)

As to why they're separated, it makes it easier for me to design them in a cool way. Also the air inside is very different to the air outside, so smaller domes make it easier to manage, and keep out the sticky martian sand while building.

Martian sand is ridiculous

[a-court-of-moonlight-and-ire]

Someone liked my post about how Amren should have to drink fae blood and since ive been on a pretty big vampire kick since about october of last year Im just thinking about what if acotar was about vampires. first of all, i think sjm writing vampires would make me very angry, i hear that the way she writes fae makes fae-fans really angry and I can definitely see why even though i dont know THAT much about fae, I just dont have a whole lot of personal investment in the accuracy and interestingness of fae lore, but I am highly invested in vampire lore it would make me pretty mad but I think itd be more fun for me to complain about, so what Im saying is sjm should totally write a book series about vampires

But anyway, lets get back to my initial thought of 'What if ACOTAR but vampires'. honestly, theres not much to get back to because Im basically just rotating some vague aesthetic bullshit in around in my mind. Oh, also I just had a thought, what if Feyre had to experience episode one of the hit-netflix miniseries Dracula (2020). I think she'd kill that old man if im honest. OH wait no, speaking of dracula series

Okay so, imagine this: at some unspecified point in the future, Feyre gets sick and tired of Prythian and leaves, I was gonna say Rhysand died before that but i dont wanna imply that she only left because he died and also I remembered that stupid death bargain existed. So she leaves and she actually goes back to the mortal realm, but she goes to the continent instead of returning to her home village, she wants a completely fresh start and shes like, pretending to be a human too, shes hiding her ears and glamouring herself and whatnot. With her shes brought some faerie lights as well as all of the stuff she needs to make a whole lot more of them, because shes gonna sell faerie lights as this groundbreaking alternative to more traditional light sources. So she rolls up to the scene, this hot mysterious foreign entrepeneur, shes enlisted that mercenary from all the way in the beginning of ACOTAR to help her in her endevour, and shes got all these suits who have a vested interest in maintaining a monopoly on light sources so theyre doing everything they can to prevent her from getting faerie lights of the ground, but Feyre simply keeps evading them. At some point she aquires a boytoy with whom she does not have any kind of sexual or romantic relationship with its exclusively professional and for the sake of her faerie light business, Feyre ends up seducing her boytoys fiancee and just absolutely destroys her marriage. Thats when those light source suits come back in, they have still been trying to bring Feyre down while shes been busy seducing but now theyre back at the foreground, and they approach the boygoy being like "hey, we heard that mysterious weirdo stole ya girl. Well, shes in danger of stealing our profits as well so how about you sabotage her and destroy her business and life" maybe they would mention something about her being a dangerous fae as well but idk, theyre like capitalists so Im not expecting them to care that much about the danger. But whatever, boytoy says "sure I'll do that" and he goes over to this big warehouse/factory type building where they make/store all the faerie lights. Feyre is about to give this big show where she properly shows the public how the faerie lights work and how you can replace normal lamps with them, this has been planned for months now and theyre storing all these lights in one place. So boytoy goes to where they store all the lights and he fucks with them a little, and then Feyre goes up on like a stage in front of am audience holding a faerie light and shes giving this presentation on how they work and whatnot, but as she goes on she notices that theres something very wrong and she realizes that all the faerie lights are about to EXPLODE OH NO so she tells everyone to run away, get out of town as quickly as possible, but its too late; she just barely manages to save her girlfriend/boytoys fiancee but everyone else dies in this massive explosion that just completely destroy a good chunk of the town. And then Feyre and her new gf have sex in the rubble, i think? Idk, and then after that they decide to travel a bit and live a quiet life and maybe try the whole entrepeneur thing somewhere far away from the town that feyre just exploded

and thats my pitch for an acotar au based on the hit tv show Dracula (2012)

[jackdaw-kraai]

For everyone looking for more things related to me and my creations, I present to you: The Short List.

The Guides Discord Server, where you can join up with other fans and discuss all manner of things, as well as talk to me, and be privy to a whole host of behind-the-scenes stuff! Said stuff includes snippet previews from upcoming works, me rambling about lore and answering questions, and general tomfoolery.

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My Kofi Page, where you can support me monetarily. Nothing is obligated and everything is voluntary, but with the time, effort, and heart that goes into producing stuff for you guys it’s nice to sometimes find a tip in the ol’ tip jar. 

If you want to send me stuff, I have a PO box as well. Feel free to DM me for the address, as well as the rules I put in place to ensure that packages reach their intended destination.

I've had many people ask me this before, so I'll just put it here for ease of location: I operate under a general blanket permission for people to adapt my works, or use elements of them, or honestly whatever, in their own works. As far as I'm concerned, the Guides Verse is a sandbox, and while my sandcastle may be the oldest and biggest one in it, that doesn't mean there isn't room enough for other people to create their own from the same sand. The only stipulation attached to this permission is that proper credit is given to me for the elements you use, i.e. "This work/these elements/this version/ect. was inspired by the Guides Verse as written by Jackdaw_Kraai on Ao3" preferably with a link back to me, or with an @ to me depending on the site it's posted on. The @ part isn't mandatory if proper credit is given, but I love seeing what other people make from or with the Guides, and generally love to show it to my followers too. So if that's you, and you were wondering about this: go right ahead, I don't mind in the slightest. I may or may not be a fan of the thing produced (think squicks or differing opinions on style) but that's no reason to deny someone their fun, no? I look forward to seeing what you make!

My fanart tag is "fanart that might make me cry" where you can see all the other brilliant and wonderful stuff people have made with the Guides as a muse.

[usagi-mitsu]

Werlyt & Gaius - a bunch of thoughts.

I am a little late to the party. I know. But I just finished the Emerald weapon and before I go to try out the „not Zenos“ weapon as in „Diamond“, I need to get my thoughts on the story straight.

Perhaps I have been spoiled by 5.0s brilliant MSQ and cannot appreciate the inherent beauty of at least decent writing any longer. But this felt so wrong and out of tune with the rest of the game. I started writing this 2 hours ago! I wanted to one in bed by now! XD But I had to get it out of my system… so….

Spoilers for the MSQ and Werlyt incoming??? And no I did not re-read this so not just spoilers but also writing errors incoming. -.-

The good

These fights are epic! I have only ever cleared the normal versions, but I loved those. They are amazing. The callbacks to Eula (her being a woman here! When did they discover that???), Regula (may he rest in peace) and Gaius himself in his prime were delightful. But I could do with a little less rotating, ok? A dragoon has positional, you know? And being allowed to pilot my very own mecha was like *chefs kiss*. On that front? Well done Square Enix!

I am also glad they were able to get another use out of Porta Praetora! That place looks amazing with the wide open field and the lake – and Ala Mhigo across it. It was one of my favourite Stormblood areas and I am always glad to return there. And of course… being able to visit the allied camp again… And Werlyt itself. It’s simply a beautiful place. It reminds me very much of southern Greece. If you’ve watched the movie Mamma Mia you know what I mean.

The music too was really nice. But I don’t think I’ll… you know… listen to it on repeat as I am doing with other parts of the soundtrack.

I’ve also loved how much amazing lore we got about Garlemald and especially the garlean military. And the military abroad. The way soldiers not from the mainland get treated. I love learning about these things.

Gaius

The man. The legend. The guy yelling in Prae.

He’s so very boring here. He has so much potential as a character and maybe I’m missing something, but all throughout this story he has been nothing but passive. He’s a reactive character in this storyline. You know. The guy who made deals with Lahabread (the d is intended), tried to take over Eorzea, lead a whole army, stood idly by as the moon dropped, almost died but then decided just not to die and then though „hm… I’ve got so much freetime now. How about I go and hunt some ascians?“ That guy is NOT a reactive character. He is active. He goes out of his way to make shit he wants happen. And in here? He seems too starstruck and devastated by his adopted kids actions to actually have one clear thought.

The only explanation I have is that he might have gotten hit in the head by something on his way to the ruby weapon. I get why he would rely on Cid for help, but the WoL??? The alliance? If you wish to be an ally and help or something, fucking act like it. You were a former legatus and I expect you to live up to your name – even after retiring.

And yeah.. I guess it’s hard having to watch your kids willingly, knowingly dying. But you fucking raised them. You are a big part of the reason to why they are in that predicament. So like… Aside from that I don’t even get why you are in this story at all.

And for the record: I’m not sorry for him. I’m just flabbergasted by all the bullshit we’ve been learning about him.

To be quite honest, I think this story could have worked just as well or maybe even better, if we got another man as the „hero“ of the story. I am talking about none other than our engineering, hammer-swinging, ex-enemy - of course talking about Nero!

The MSQ has long established that his research into the Ultimate Weapon had been taken, twisted and turned – Estinien had to experience this first-hand. I’m not saying that Nero was in need of a redemption arc and I cannot remember if these weapons were of his creation or even stem from anything he did, but it would make so much more sense for me, to have him confront his past in the garlean military like this and be responsible for the death of his former colleagues. Soldiers that he served with, whom he faught with. Give me Nero and them working together to get the weapons going and him bonding with them as his pilots to a degree. Comrades. Not that strange familiar bond that Gaius appareantly has with them. … Scratch that: Let Gaius be the father figure. Him being that wouldn’t change Nero’s relationship with them, but maybe his with Gaius as his superior.

The story wouldn’t even need to try and redeem Nero: He has already gone through major character development with the MSQ and the Omega raid tier. It would simply be Nero, confronted with the things he created, hopefully instilling more morals and a sense of responsibility for his creations. Heck: Let Cid yell at the guy! Seriously! Cid sticking around to help out would make so much more sense if it was Nero instead of freaking Gaius! Cid hated the guy! He might be a professional, but he is not one to torture himself by staying around a guy he (as far as I know) detests.

Make Nero the central figure and give Cid and Gaius the roles of „angel and demon“: One desperately trying to reach out to his old friend, reminding him why they became engineers and trying to make him realise that he can’t just run around designing weapons and leaving the scematics for everyone to read; while the other has trouble letting go of his imperial past and is struggling to see the errors of his ways – if Nero was wrong, than he (Gaius) was wrong too -and of course they did all of this for their home, to further their cause, and to bring peace to the savage lands of Eorzea, who had been fighting amongst themselves for so long… You get the point.

And you could still have these gundam themed fights. But I think everything would make so much more sense in general.

But speaking of which-

The children

I do not truly care for any of them. And that is a shame: I do think there are great characters and dynamics hidden behind these very few cutscenes. When they were first introduced I was wondering why I was suddenly watching „heartwarming“ cutscenes of my foes as children – until I realised that I was supposed to care and that they were supposed to make me feel pity for Gaius. I was supposed to feel bad for him, because they died and he blames himself. But while their fates so far have been gruesome, I cannot say that I am sad they died. They chose to die as they did. There were a myriad more options. And they chose that.

Actually. Their whole story makes me feel like they were huge masochist from the very beginning. They could have just run away and gotten help from someone more competent than them, but they stayed in an abusive military arrangement just so nobody else got hurt?? Please. Use your brains next time. And for the Berserk-like torture scene? I mean. I get what was implied here. But was it necessary? As a writer myself I follow the rule that torture and sexual violence should never be used in a story, unless it must be in there for the story to work or to bring across a vital point important to the story or it’s moral (or if you are writing porn and you are into it – but we are talking official in-game content here). But the violence towards these „children“ seems unnecessary for the plot and the violence of their deaths by piloting the weapons is already gruesome enough. Sometimes it’s better to leave things like this out – the emotional torture of feeling stuck and having a martyrs complex would have been enough here, I think. If the rest of the story had been well written at least.

(I believe my utter lack of sympathy shows how little character developement they had. I love tragic characters, who choose to suffer for the good of other people – even better if those people don’t even like them. It’s just my thing. And those kids are just… well.)

Their reasons and especially why they were making Allie out as the one who would need to survive was also just… weird. Like. I feel like 75% of what happened would not have happened, if they actually talked to each other, used their brains and had done something about their problems. But no…

These characters are also so exchangeable with basic anime/j-RPG character tropes… I only remember Alfonse, Rex and Allie – because I just did the Emerald weapon. And right afterwards I thought, „huh. So… Fullmetal Alchemist?“ Which brings me to my third point …

…the story at large.

„Pacing is a virtue“ or was it patience..? Anyhow: The author of this story should have had more patience with his story and characters and taken a bloody break! And I am not talking about the obvious blunder of „How is Allie feeling?“, „she is in shock and you cannot talk to her“ turning to „oh yeah if you are careful you can talk to her now“. I mean. WTF. That was MAYBE 10-20 in-game minutes of dialogue.

But everything was moving so very fast – and not even in a good way. There are few things better than a fast paced, action rich story about a group of young people trying to safe (their) world. But if you try to cram in two expansions worth of character development and story telling into about two hours of content each patch.. Well, then you get whatever the hell this is.

Gaius is a very interesting character and while I did not understand why they needed to bring him back in 4.4 (?), I do see how he could be a good asset for endwalker. And his involvement in 5.0 with Estinien was just a dear delight. So I am not opposed to learning more about him, to watching his character grow and changed with time. But I am not ready for badly written content of which 50% get told by suddenly induced echo-sequences. I mean – weren’t there rules for the echo at some point???

I’m not sure which one of the devs said it, but the feature that let’s you play an NPC is super convenient for them to tell the story, because before they could only show what happened where the WoL was.

And that’s just it. Rule number 1 in writing anything is „Show don’t tell“. It feels like they literally turned this one around for these cutscenes. While Valens torture and diet-Fandaniel-routine were very much „show“, the rest of the story was one long cutscene of exposition: We get exposition by Cid, by Gaius, by echo, by Gaius and his crew again, then by Allie. Before having to watch scenes we are not there for.

BTW. Dear square Enix: Your writers are capable of writing amazing villains, antagonist and despicable assholes. You don’t have to write „asshole, must die“ on Valens name card. And I also think the „WoL, strike here“ sign above his head was a tad bit too much. Nuance, dear writers. Nuance. Or perhaps I just got spoiled by these last few foes in the MSQ.

When I said I wanted to just be able to punch a bad guy for once and not feel bad about it, I did not mean this! I meant that I just wanted to play training dummy with Danny-Boy.

(Oh! And as far as I’m concerned you can just… sideline Gaius … „would be killer“ and the lady? Make them targetable NPCs with Dialoge to read. Let them stand somewhere accessible and comment on the latest developement. But ffs don’t give me hour long speeches about how you are going to kill Gaius if he does something you don’t like. The guy could and would wipe the floor with you if he felt like it. -.- So. Please. Shut up.)

Conclusion

Basically. I have to finish the Diamond weapon. But I doubt it will change my perception of this story line even in the slightest.

To be perfectly honest though … bringing Gaius back, having this story with and about him, forcing a sort of redemption ark here. It feels like they are really „grooming“ him to be a morally grey ally in Endwalker, with perhaps a big part to play in the endgame. At this point I wouldn’t even be surprised if they pulled a GoT and made him „King in the North“. Or if they had him die a heroic death to save the world, but especially his country. And to do so they need us to think his sacrifice means something. Or that he is the right person to lead Garlemald into a new future (I don’t think he is). But: For one, neither we (the players) nor the characters need to find him worthy of throne or death by heroism for his sacrifice/ascension to work. To be a useful tool for the story, only the other garleans who might oppose the alliance and scions need to deem him or his sacrifice „worthy“. And only they. And Ishikawa-san has all of 6.0 to accomplish whatever the hell she needs him for. He did not need to be the center of his own botched redemption ark. If that’s what they wanted to do. Or maybe I’m looking at this all wrong and all they wanted was to give the writes in training some literal training grounds to test their abilities.

But! On a positive note: I have yet to be told that raids and other side content are canon to any degree. So when playing the next story quests I’ll blissfully ignore all that happened in Werlyt and if it get’s mentioned (because they do that sometimes when you’ve done certain content) I’ll just ignore it.

Happy ignoring! Also: GIVE ME MORE NERO CONTENT!

[phoebehalliwell]

Asking the important question about Bianca x Chris In the change!future : who fall in love first ? And who say i love you first ?

Because we got Chris, who believe in soulmates and destiny but also who probably think no one will love him like that because, insecurity. And Bianca, who simple does not believe in love. A great match, full angst / unrequited love potentiel

i’m gonna like. link my entire chris/bianca anthology just because i love talking about them

chris + love a, b, & c

bianca + general phoenix lore a, b, c, & d

chris & bianca: a, b, & c

it’s under a cut 🥰💞💕

i mean like short answer is i think they both say i love you about a million different times a million different ways before either of them kinda drops those words like. like i think for chris i love you is a really common phrase for him like growing up it's just like all around his household he has about constant exposure to three health marriages everyone in his family like they all like each other for the most part. well like um. they all love each other, that's guaranteed. the like can sometimes fluctuate. so it’s not like he’s uncomfortable with the phrase it’s just like. it’s big. real big. and you know i don’t know but you grow up around wyatt and you grow up around cupids and all these really grandiose ideas of love and love is all around us it’s the air we breathe it’s the crucial tether of human existence love is epic love is iconic love can stop the rotation of the earth like that shit. like i mean he looks at his parents (and at the versions of paige/henry and phoebe/coop that live in my head) and like. love was a fight. it was this epic pull that caused them to go to the ends of the earth for each other you know hell they were ready to risk death to get married you know that must be like this epic heartstring tugging feeling in your just red string of fate yanked so hard it almost hurts and like. that’s just not what chris has. it doesn’t feel at all like that. it’s just comfort. nothing more, nothing less, really. he just feels 100% wholly comfortable and safe around bianca it’s not like. it’s like he thinks in order to be In Love in love it has to hurt a bit you know nothing comes for free and being with bianca just isn’t. it doesn’t hurt. just spending lazy slow time with her it doesn’t feel much like anything it’s just nice. it doesn’t like. move stars rip a hole in the earths crust. he doesn’t feel this burning ache. it’s just. being with her. it feels safe it feels normal it’s just like it’s normal!! this is what normal feels like not the constant nagging voices in his head own insecurities playing on a loop not you know the constant ever-present knowledge of the next demon battle there’s always gonna be another one not who is he as the son of a charmed one what will he do what will he be. like none of that’s there with bianca. it’s just normal.

and of course all the cousins draw straws on who gets the honor of whacking chris on the head with a hollow tube saying that is love dingus because like. again he’s probably aired out his thoughts to like wyatt or somebody maybe melinda if she pried maybe henry if he pried where like. because obviously they’d be interrogating on hey what the fuck’s going on over there because like. soulmatism all that everyone’s watching like you get it right you’re in love and chris gives his whole stance on like blah blah blah it’s gotta hurt i don’t feel that i just like bianca. and whoever they’re talking to. maybe kat? if just thinking about all chris and bianca have been through together all the times they like nearly died in each other’s arms like are we not counting that?? is that not enough for epic love right there? this is a really long yarn to basically say i think chris would be in love with bianca for a really long time and just genuinely never have the word for it you know just like stupid but are we not all fools in love?

i think bianca would say it first because she definitely picks apart their relationship in her head a lot more that him because like that’s just the person she is because like phoenix are not supposed to fall in love. you’re loyal to your family. you respect your family. and by extension, they are who you love. because you have no one else to love. no one else knows the true you, and no one else would be capable of knowing and loving the true you like your family. everyone else would rather see you dead. so i think she picks apart the concept of love and what it means to her a hell of a lot more than chris ever does. because i think from the start. you know it’s kind of an enemies to lovers situation.

okay so here’s my current sketch of what i’m doing with them in the light timeline because like. let’s face it. killing a charmed one is impractical. it’s an immense risk, one i think the phoenix would never take. also like. if bianca was sent to kill chris i really think she could do it respectfully chris is powerful he’s talented he’s smart i still think bianca could kill him. and then, of course, if you kill a charmed one, then you have the rest of the family after you and at this point it’s a really big family. and yes you could plant evidence throw them off the scent but again you’re dealing with like. 10 whole ass experienced trained powerful witches? how long does that last? and for what. what price could that ever possibly be worth? i get wanting to kill a halliwell on your own your own personal business risk v reward, but the phoenix are a neutral power they do not care. the only skin they have in the game would be the price on chris’s head an i literally can not think of a single thing that would be worth the wrath of the warren line, a family that presently does not give a shit about you, you know?

okay i’ve aired out that opinion. so that being said. what do? so you remember the evil cult from prince charmed and they thought wyatt was their leader and they wanna flip his morality but they failed? yeah and they didn’t all die right. like some of them escaped. the Point is: concept is they’re going for round two, but they don’t wanna make it obvious because if they flip the morality then everyone kinda knows who did it and how because it’s happened before. so hear me out they are casting or they are contracting the phoenix to cast that basically wipes any memory of them ever existing off the face of the earth. phoenix, of course, will be immune, as will their library collection on them because fuck you that’s why and then the members of the cult will be immune tho gotta say. would be hilarious if they forgot that part and then everyone just went home in their funny lil robes like huh wonder where that came from. the issue is chris. cuz he was there. but he’s not him. you know? i don’t think the cult fully knows what’s going on right but like. that’s definitely chris who definitely like single-handedly thwarted their plans. except he wasn’t even alive yet. so they need chris’s memories resurfaced so they can wipe them, otherwise they run the risk of the memories resurfacing at a Very inconvenient time. so that’s bianca’s job. the how they do not know or care about they just need him to have memories of season 6 so the can promptly wipe them. no murder necessary.

but still has weird shit magical invasion of privacy happening and probably a witch fight. blah blah blah i have ideas that i shan’t expand on right now bianca doesn’t lose but chris doesn’t win. no i will expand on actually. i think lynn bianca’s mother knows kinda what’s going on here with the cult’s scheme to create evil!wyatt and the phoenix have done their research and then know that they can survive perfectly fine in a evil wyatt regime and the cult has promised them immunity + powers in their new world order or whatever. so on paper, fine. but lynn’s way overprotective overbearing mother knows best types you know like she will do about anything for her daughter so when future bianca came she definitely used a scrying bowl kinda like what we see the stillman sisters use filled with kid bianca’s blood because that’s really the only way she has to see where bianca’s going what she’s doing and she gets to see evil wyatt kill bianca. so lynn’s actually very much not game for this actually. and i think she if not explicitly tells bianca what’s up at the very least plants seeds implying that she should not go through with this plan.

so when chris proposes instead her teaming up with him to take down the cult, in exchange offering the protection of the charmed ones (which is really the best thing he’s got to offer besides like. a punch card for a free sandwich at ike’s that only needs two more punches.) and bianca takes the bet. and they already have one fist fight under their belt between the two of them that ended in a terse treaty and not they gotta go complete a mission together. and i think that’s kind of like the jumping off point for their relationship is assorted missions together but before things can get Too Chummy chris has an innocent or something to protect and who is trying to kill them well um bianca. zoinks.

basically i think every time bianca aligns herself with chris, in doing so, she aligns herself against the orders of the phoenix. and every time she has to ask herself: is it worth it? and usually like in the case of Murder, the answer is yes. honestly, she’d rather not take an innocent’s life for some rich asshole. but in the case of the initial cult, that was a selfish move. she doesn’t want to die. is that so wrong? and there’s kind of this repeated team chris or team phoenix motif going on where the actual answer does not lie with either of them again the phoenix are on contract that’s not their motive you know they don’t personally care about what happens and then. she’s never picking chris per se it’s not like she’s choosing him she’s choosing and innocent or she’s choosing herself but that just always happens to be the side where chris is.

and also like. they work well together. they just do. so once bianca kinda like. needs to do something dangerous and her first thought is call chris then she kinda has to take a step back and go hmmm. because chris knows who she is right he knows she’s a murder cold blooded killer phoenix (chris, actually, has not seen her murder any innocents in cold blood in fact he has only seen her opt Not to do that but like. bianca has her own vision of herself) and she’s just not. friends with anyone who knows. again not that she would consider her n chris friends but he is like literally the only one who Knows her outside of the phoenix. and that’s weird. Even Further Step Back when she has to do something dangerous and at this point that’s all she does with chris but she Doesn’t want to call him because hey that’s dangerous and i don’t want him to die. which she justifies under the same Death of a Halliwell rule in that the charmed ones might go after her but even she kinda knows that’s bullshit but like. does she really wanna face the music on this one?

so basically while chris’s relationship is very in the moment he’s goin with the flow here he doesn’t know what’s going on where this is going he only has what he feels Right Now. bianca on the other hand is like how does this tie into the past what does this spell out for the future and it keeps circling back to the question is he worth it and bianca kinda hates but the answer every time is yes. she would rather spend time with him be with him fight alongside him than any other option. but to her, that’s still a long way out from love because like. it’s alliance it’s strategic they work well together they care for each other which is more than she can say about like most other people she’d bring to a fight and at a certain point yeah they hang out because they enjoy each other’s company but like. they like spending time together. is that a crime? you can enjoy spending time with a person. but then it’s like more n more time and now yeah look at it you’re in a relationship this is a relationship but like. love?? idk. i mean it’s not like...... you know like in... hmm.... so like... okay so if i Were in love....... okay. okay hm. okay. alright. okay might actually be in love.

i also think bianca would be the one to have the notion of like the finite resource of “i love yous” and even after she’s accepted that okay she can say that she doesn’t wanna waste it she does want to save it for a moment when it means something a dramatic reveal i mean they are in a lot of life or death situations surely she can just like. drop it then. but then like idk she accidently just ends up saying it at like the grocery store. chris on the other hand says i love you all the time like once the floodgates open They Are Open and it’s like. you leave the house okay bye i love you i’m going to bed goodnight i love you i made you dinner i love you like. constant.

[ohthatsviolet]

Liar, Liar - Cryptane

(1,721 words. Ao3 link will be in the RBs as usual). 

Octavio knew him as Hyeon Kim, and he was fine with that...until he wasn’t. 

He wasn't expecting to get attached. He wasn't attached. Not really. It was just a way to pass the time. Octane liked to talk a lot, and Tae Joon tended to like that in people, because it meant he didn't have to. He introduced himself as Octavio Silva, but he was positive that he "would have already known that," because he "was probably the most famous person here." The hacker did already know who he was, but not for the reasons Octavio thought. It wasn't difficult to do a little snooping on the Legends, to see who might be the best asset to him if he was forced to align himself with some of them, to keep up the facade that he was just a regular competitor like the rest of them. Octavio made it almost too easy, seeming to enjoy posting most of his life on social media. 

"You shouldn't post so many personal details about yourself online," Tae Joon had told him, only to receive an obnoxious snort in response. 

The speedster's attention was focused on the Rubik's cube in his hands, while he lay back in his beanbag chair. 

"Whatever, amigo. No one has tried to kidnap me yet." 

Conversation with Octavio seemed to always come easily. He liked to talk about himself. 

"Do you like puzzles?" he asked, listening to the quiet clicking of the plastic as the runner rotated it in his hands, failing to get the coloured squares into a desirable pattern. 

The younger legend signed somewhat dramatically, and tossed the cube over his shoulder, hitting it against the wall with a dull thud. 

"No. I fucking hate them." 

The corner of Tae Joon's lip curled into a small smile, at the remark. It seemed to happen a lot around Octavio. It was difficult to not find him amusing. 

He wasn't expecting for them to continue spending time together like this. The only reason they'd gotten talking in the first place was because Octavio was having issues with his computer and the hacker had simply gotten tired of listening to him complain about it, so he decided to help him out. The speedster's desk was a mess; covered in candy wrappers, empty energy drink cans and crumbs. It was pretty gross if he was honest, but as his eyes traveled over the small piles of trash he spotted a figurine of a character he instantly recognised from one of his childhood favourite video games. He couldn't resist the urge to reach out and touch it. It wasn't possible that Octavio was a fan of this franchise. It would be far too obscure for someone like him. Right? 

"Careful, compadre," the runner warned, glancing up from his phone. "That's signed by the developers. You break that, I break you." 

Tae Joon turned the statue over in his hands, checking the underside of the base. A cocktail of childlike excitement and jealousy pooled in his stomach. He wasn't lying, it was definitely signed. Holy shit. 

"You're a fan?" the hacker asked, feigning nonchalance. 

"Yeah, dude. That's like...only the best RPG I've ever played." 

"My sister used to make fun of me for liking it," Tae Joon continued, with a small laugh. "She used to say it was only for 'mega nerds'."

"I could never keep up with all the lore," Octavio admitted, shoving his phone into his pocket, fully engaged in the conversation now. "But I heard there was a really cool story part that was only available in the co-op mode. I never got to play it myself, so I had to watch videos on it." 

"Really?! I...never knew that. Now I wish I convinced her to play it." 

The space between them fell silent, but Tae Joon noticed the way Octavio looked him up and down as if he was doing some sort of appraisal. He shouldn't have mentioned his family. That look made him feel paranoid, and that maybe he should consider leaving soon, until the runner spoke up. 

"I...probably still have my copy lying around somewhere," he began, fidgeting with a loose thread on his shorts. "If you wanna try it sometime. None of my friends liked it either." 

Despite his better judgement telling him not to, he agreed to play through the co-op campaign with him, and it ended up being more pleasant than he thought it would be. Octavio was actually pretty good at the game, and seemed to appreciate him pausing at certain points to explain the plot points he found confusing. They would meet up most nights to play, and these hangouts continued even after they'd completed the game a few times on different difficulties. It turned out Octavio had lied about his friends not liking the game, and the truth was he barely had any friends growing up; something he'd confided in him after their first few sessions. It was something Tae Joon could relate to, especially around here. He wouldn't consider any of the Legends his friends. Except Octavio of course. Were they...friends? Octavio had begun to confide in him, but due to the position he was in, he couldn't really do the same. The speedster told him short stories from his childhood and teenage years which, if Tae Joon was honest, sounded very sad and lonely. Part of him wanted to share similar stories to perhaps comfort the speedster a bit, but as soon as he opened his mouth to begin, he stopped. It was too dangerous to share too much, especially with someone who shared so much of themselves with the entire Outlands. He felt conflicted, though he knew he shouldn't. 

"Hyeon, man! Come on!" 

The call of that name snapped him from his thoughts, and he realised he was still lingering near the entrance to Octavio's room. Sometimes he still managed to forget this was his name now, or at least what some of the people around here knew him as. He didn't mind normally, but hearing that name come from Octavio's mouth made something in his chest shift uncomfortably. Tae Joon tried to shake it off, quickly finding his way to the small sofa that the runner was already making himself comfortable on. 

"Did you finally manage to pick a movie?" 

"Yup!" Octavio replied, taking the opportunity to remove his prosthetics, allowing them to collapse to the floor with a clatter. 

Tae Joon looked him up and down, observing how he rubbed his hands up and down his thighs. 

"Pain?" 

The speedster seemed to think about his answer before responding. 

"Nah. It's not too bad today." 

"Good." 

"Thanks for...not telling Ajay about it," Octavio continued, turning to face him more directly. "She'd just...overreact. And it's not a big deal."

The hacker merely nodded casually in response, but as Octavio began to play the movie, he couldn't quite focus on the plot. He was suddenly overwhelmed by an intense feeling of guilt. How could he continue living like this? They'd been spending time together for a while now, and Octavio knew almost nothing about him; anything he did know was a fake or vague answer he'd given him to get him off his back. He wanted to tell him things. He wanted to tell Octavio how he grew up, his favourite food, and take him to his favourite hangout spots before his life got turned upside down. He wanted to tell him how he couldn't sleep at night, how he missed his family dearly and how he always wanted a pet cat. He wanted to tell him that the time he spent with him was the only time he'd felt the slightest bit happy or normal in years. Fuck, he just wanted to tell him his real name. But he couldn't. He couldn't risk everything he'd worked for. He couldn't risk losing whatever this relationship with Octavio was becoming. 

Why was he thinking so much about all this? He kept trying to tell himself, the moments he spent with Octavio was just a way to pass the time. He kept trying to tell himself that he didn't care about him. But he did. And it hurt. Tae Joon stared at his bedroom ceiling that night, thinking back on the evening they shared. Octavio made things feel easy, even if it was just for a few hours. Would everything become easier if he just told him the truth? He shut his eyes tightly, trying to force the intrusive thoughts from his mind. He felt like he was going crazy. How could he ever consider telling Octavio who he really was and what he was really trying to achieve by being in the games? He remembers watching the footage of the Repulsor tower collapsing and how Octane had almost been crushed to death in the chaos. It didn't matter much to him back then; one less Legend was one less person to stand in his way. He felt sick to his stomach, thinking back on it now. How could he ever have felt that way about Octane - about Octavio? He wasn't disposable, though part of the hacker was beginning to wish he was, because it would make it easier to get him out of his head. How was it becoming possible, that he cared more about being rejected by him, than he did about being exposed, if he came clean? He could be thrown in jail, framed for more crimes he didn't commit, or worse. And somehow that didn't compare to the possibility of never seeing Octavio's scarred lips smile again, or the apples his freckled cheeks when he laughed. Tae Joon hated feeling this way, he was usually so focused but now his attention was being directed elsewhere. He wanted to hate Octavio for this, but he couldn't help but smile, his stomach fluttering, when he received a text from the runner, sending him a screenshot of a movie synopsis asking him if he'd be interested in watching that one next. Tae Joon fell back against his pillow, with a sigh, rubbing his tired eyes with the balls of his hands. He could keep lying if it meant they could spend time together. 

It didn't matter who he was; Tae Joon Park, Hyeon Kim or Crypto. When it came to Octavio Silva, all three of them were thoroughly, thoroughly fucked. 

[setsailslash]

I love your writing, I used to be able to enjoy it with your pacifim rim fanfics but you're in another fandom now and I don't know where to start with DCU so I can read your new things, Kuro could you recommend me where to do it? movies, comics, series?

so i’m totally not the person for this because i frankly did not get into DCU until Batman v Superman (2016) movie where my biggest take away was: ohh fuc ALFRED HOT 💦💦💦 between that and all the subsequent dceu movies (which were just alright to me but fun enough to have me show up at the theatre to enjoy), most of my interest largely came from fics actually.

because i consumed a fuck ton of that in those following days and have not stopped since. i’m a multishipper, i also like gen, and DC has been around fooorever so there is a fic for every need out there.

i knew enough about the general lore surround bat and friends that i could read most batfam/batship fics with no glaring problems (and sometimes i will gleam new canon facts from fics like tim has no spleen??? or more earlier on, bruce wayne has more than 3 kids???). and then i discovered jason todd as a character and my one brain cell mind clutched on and never let go.

most of my fics focus on jason todd and basically how i want everyone to have a good time with him (he is the herc hansen of my dc fics). and i'd easily admit, not a lot of my fics actually need much dcu knowledge 🙈 and the fact that  you are willing to try a new fandom for my stuff makes me bAWL in the best way.

i’m not really a comics reader because frankly, i don’t like the way western comics have this rotating roster of artists so going from one issue to another feels like whiplash to me. and i can never stand it :’(((

but here are my limited comics recs, notably all jason focused:

Arkham Knight Genesis (good art and good story and packed full of heartbreak jason galore)

Batman: White Knight (can be a bit long-winded but i love the premise and the art is Lovely)

Batman: Under the Red Hood (mostly for jason’s return from the dead knowledge)

the first 25 issues of Red Hood and the Outlaws Rebirth (and then dexter soy, the artist, left and the series crumbled for me :((()

not comics but: the animated movie Under the Red Hood (2010) (i haven’t watched batman the animated series or batman beyond but i’ve seen that rec’d by many people, seems to be THE cartoons that most dc fans watched and fell in love with as a kid)

not comics but: Titans 2018 (both seasons now on netflix, i cringed at some parts but enjoyed some parts too so i think it deserves a spot on my list given i watched the full thing lmao)

i’d admit, dcu is big and daunting. and i might be writing fics for dcu for the majority of like upwards of 3 years now but i still have no idea what’s actually going on 😂 and all this probably doesn’t answer what you’re asking but i hope it helps in some way 🙏 (and if it didn’t, well, i get it too)

ps: if anyone sees this and have good comics/movies/whatever else dc content recommendations, feel free to add in the replies/reblogs! :DDD

[oodlyenough]

aight... here’s a pretty long yet tip-of-the-iceberg collection on my overall thoughts on bl3 now that i’ve finished the damn thing, every main mission & every sidequest (dynasty dash don’t interact). 

obviously mega spoilers

the good

aside from that one infuriating difficulty spike when i arrived on promethea, i had a lot of fun playing. i found the gameplay a lot smoother than the others in the series (as it should be), i liked being able to climb stuff, i liked having an easy mode tbh!!

i really liked playing amara and i like the flexibility of action skills and being able to swap on the go without having to respec. the brawl tree ended up being very well suited to my type of play, it hindered me only during boss fights and even then at least i could switch to phasecast y’know

i had a lot of big fears about what this game would do and it managed to not do anything that makes me want to, like, burn and salt the earth, so that’s a win

i thought it was pretty funny! or at least on par with the other main games, which always kind of ride the line between funny and obnoxious and sometimes misstep

i enjoyed a lot of the cast, both new characters and characters who were returning but who i had no particular feelings about before, hammerlock, zer0 and ellie as particular examples

hammerlock and wainwright were cute af and it’s nice to see a gay couple in a triple-a game 

thought the twins were fun and funny af i liked them. because fandom is Like That i was a little exhausted by troy before he even showed up but even then, like, idk i liked them as a duo and i liked the break from jack honestly 

a lot of the new gun quirks were fun. i’m not like a big... gun person... but i found some cool ones i enjoyed playing with. 

loved getting to see different planets, it was a nice break from pandora all the time. and skywell was super fun! love the low-grav playfulness from TPS without the infuriating oz kit nonsense

the little quality of life improvements from previous games were great, like fast travel from anywhere, auto-refilling ammo, etc

some of the side quests were really fun. i liked the ratch quest for rhys, the birthday party quest for mordecai, the claptrap dancing quest was sweet, the buff movie buff quest was fun, the quest where i killed grandpappy 2 seconds in and got a reward was funny as hell esp because i drove off a cliff by accident, etc

lots of people had really bad glitches and stuff but... honestly can’t relate the game ran very well for me. advantages to not marathoning it before they’ve released their first couple patches, i guess, lol 

the less good

i played a solo amara and there are some bosses that seem like they would’ve been pure hell to do alone... i was lucky and able to phone a friend for a lifeline in those scenarios (shoutout to @heavybreathingcatt and @valoscope) but if i couldn’t do that idk i would’ve just broken my controller in rage i guess lmao 

why is resurrecting each other so hard? i don’t think i’ve ever done it successfully, because it takes too long and more importantly bc while i’m doing it some enemy will just toss a grenade or punch me and i get knocked away from the ally, rendering it useless

rest in peace maya, the best res AI in the whole damn game, got me through the rampager fight her damn self

there were a lot of characters and themes and ideas that i liked in theory more than in practice... because in practice they felt like a first draft. very often i felt like i liked a thing, and then on reflection thought about nine hundred ways it could’ve been better, deeper, more emotionally resonant, more developed, whatever. 

the angel stuff was kinda nice but... also... my longest deepest sigh ever @ Poor Sad Jack Some People Terrorize Entire Planets And Abuse Their Daughters To Cope With Their Fridged Wife

like the siren lore... wish i coulda heard it without having to backtrack across every map post-game

while i found the game generally pretty funny,  almost all the emotional scenes fell completely flat for me and there were a number of scenes that SHOULD have been emotional that just were not 

for eg i am actually not upset about maya or lilith dying (or turning into the moon as it were) -- i am ok with those beats for those characters, especially lilith getting a heroic sendoff. however... both of those scenes could’ve been more impactful than they were. maya’s i think was better than lilith’s, but both of them felt flatter, either in the moment or in the aftermath, than those characters deserved. 

related: NPCs reacting to major events is fun. i liked to do the tour and check in with all my buds to get their couple custom lines after a big plot thing happened. HOWEVER... those lines are obviously timed which is *mostly* fine but in some cases really, really weird? the lines about maya should stay in rotation for a lot longer. ava shouldn’t go back to LOL LET’S STEAL two seconds after maya’s gone. i missed zer0′s maya lines entirely bc i didn’t track down zer0 on time lol. stuff like that 

the bad

i miss my girls :( we really did keep only the white men huh

the last act felt severely underbaked. i have to wonder how many rewrites this game went through, and how much the back end was slapped together last minute, or cobbled together from various drafts. a lot of this felt very first or second draft, where the characters and themes are *there* but not refined at all, or they contradict each other. the family theme that goes basically nowhere and says nothing. the way the story handles atlas vs the way the story handles jakobs vs the way the story handles corporations writ large. 

for the twins -- lack of proper emotional resonance or development for them is one of the biggest failures imo, because i think they WERE very enjoyable villains and the core concept of like... evil video game streamers is honestly on-brand and funny af for the franchise... but as soon as troy died everything went downhill? tyreen’s non-reaction to her brother dying isn’t even a reaction, it’s not even “tyreen doesn’t care she’s evil lol” which would’ve been a boring direction to take anyway) it’s just.... “we barely wrote a response don’t worry about it”. her endgame is to be a big monster because... she’s ... fame hungry? huh? her motivation fell apart.w whether they went with “troy and tyreen are shitty people who get caught up in a power struggle but ultimately love each other” OR “troy and tyreen are shitty people who turn against each other in individual bids for power” could both have been interesting stories but they did neither. 

i’m def missing some echos on the twins which brings me to another thing i hate although it’s endemic to the series and not to bl3 specifically -- hiding important lore and characterization in random echos in random places on the map without even an indication of how many there are total, how many you’ve collected, where to find them... frustrating as hell. a lot of those echos are some of my favourite material in the game! at LEAST tell me “1 of 5 echos on this map” if you don’t wanna tell me where they are! why is major lore like the twins’ backstories hidden?????? 

and bc i haven’t heard them i don’t know if it’s fandom doing what fandom always does, or if it really is the game implying tyreen is The Evil Mastermind and troy is poor manipulated brother, but either way fuck that entire noise lmao of course the women of colour in the series are just Born Evil but jack and troy and whoever else are just Sad :( fuck off actually 

typhon... sucks... what an irritating character. irritating to retcon him in as The First Vault Hunter, irritating to have him talk about shit and sex all the time, irritating to have every established NPC be like oh wow my HERO typhon deleon what a HERO i LOVE him, irritating that we skate over his parenting failures, irritating that he has a fridged beloved wife, ESPECIALLY irritating he gets a memorial sidequest and maya didn’t . just. bad.

aurelia is evil now cause reasons... bad... 

vaughn also bad lmao i can’t believe they made amara yell “blood feud”... disgusting... 

the playable had no role in the story. they’re just a fly on the wall in every cut scene. this is whack in general, and a crit i can apply to all of the main borderlands games, however it is extremely jarring to play amara in a siren-heavy game and have no one acknowledge it. 

OVERALL... I guess like a B-? Maybe a B. I had fun playing it and I’m still having fun running around in Mayhem Mode and I am def looking forward to the DLCs. Gameplay is great. But while I had hoped this installment would take the storytelling of the main games a step further, it actually felt like a step back in virtually every respect. 

[reflectionsofacreator]

Get to know me meme

Tagged by: @autumnslance​ 

Favorite colors: generally cool colors, like purples, blues, greens... I think right now it’s a green/blue mix. 

Last song listened to: Listening to Sugaan Essena right now, by The Hu. I’m also technically listening to Eden Verse while I farm drops in FFXIV

Favorite song: uH-- fuck. Um. Shit. How about I just. List a couple. 

Fractals -- Seven Lions Temperance and Vengance -- Mick Gordon (Killer Instinct OST) BangBangBUR!...n? -- Hiroyuki Sawano (Promare OST) Return to Oblivion / Twice Stricken -- Masayoshi Soken (Final Fantasy XIV OST) Take Me With You -- The Glitch Mob  I Just Know (New Immunity Remix) -- Jacob Lee  Runaway -- Krewella 

Hm.... most of this is ... EDM... or some variation thereof... 

Favorite musician/singer: MASAYOSHI SOKEN YOU MADMAN. Also The Glitch Mob -- I pretty much consistently always jam out to their music. 

Last film watched: Last I saw in theaters was Rise of Skywalker, which ... i kinda want my money back. I think the last film I watched in general though was ... John Wick? I think? 

Favorite TV show watched: Ergh I don’t... really... watch things. Like at all. I could just cop out and say Stargate SG-1 or Stargate Atlantis, but like. That’s something I grew up with, not really a favorite by deliberate choice. I’d say Gurren Lagann, maybe, but hmm. It was The 100 right up until they killed Lexa... that was a couple years ago... Neon Genesis Evangelion was extremely formative for me, but I’m not sure I’d say it was a favorite. 

Favorite OC: [nervous laughter] I thought I had this figured out. Uhhh okay so it’s ... kind of a toss up between about four, given my mood. 

Karla is my oldest OC, who’s had the most extensive work done. She’s actually about 14 years old now, and the most growth. She’s for an original story that I’ve had bouncing around in my head for just as long. She’s the Soul of a World, given human(ish) form. A lot of her character arcs revolve around her learning to care again, and realize that life is worth living, and that life is worth loving too. She’s quiet, but also sarcastic and funny, and kinda relentless in her kindness. But she also falls under the “good is not soft” category. 

Strikefire is Karla’s lover. Originally she didn’t have much depth, as she existed mostly in conjunction to Karla. She was actually killed off a few years before the story starts, and then later it’s revealed that she’s the goddess of Death, simply taken mortal form. Aaaand that’s about as far as I got. It wasn’t until I started Triptych with two of my friends that she really started being fleshed out into a character. Strikey is a woman who is, largely, defined by her grief and loneliness, of losing those she’s cared for, to war or famine or time, and firmly believes that every life has value. She’s this cutsey tiny woman who intentionally puts on facade of being not as invested in what’s going on as she actually is, and she’s also a bit of a troll just for the sake of it. 

Aiden is kind of ... my oddest oc? I specifically designed him to be able to fit into any world, any universe, whatever. He’s a danger magnet, generally voluntarily mute, long raven black hair, and bitingly sarcastic. He was an Angel of Silence in the heavens, in service to the god of Silence, but he was cast out of heaven when his lover made him laugh. Ever since then, he’s been cursed to wander the cosmos, constantly reborn.  He has a mark on his soul that labels him as an oathbreaker, basically forcing his random encounter rate up to 85%. In universe people don’t like him, generally. Right now I’ve been having a lot of fun sticking him into Assassin’s Creed and seeing how that works out. It’s great. 

Helisent is one of my three main ocs for Final Fantasy XIV, and I talk/post about them a lot over at @thecat-inthehat​ so go give that a look. As for why she’s one of my rotating cast of faves-- she’s like. Just a fun oc to work with, with lore and shipping, and I can comfortably throw her into almost any situation and have it turn out great. She’s a fun loving person, with a care free nature, but also has her own issues to work through. She’s kinda similar to Karla, now that I think about it, but she doesn’t have the cosmic destiny weight behind her, she’s just.. a person. 

Sweet, spicy, or savory: Spicy!!! I love spice, and I’m annoyed that where I live now doesn’t have the right kind of spicy. I also like savory, but generally if I have a choice, I’ll go for spice. 

Sparkling water, coffee, or tea: Uhhh I drink coffee and tea on the daily. However the tea I drink is iced, sweetened, so I’m not sure if that falls under the category. Of the two, I generally prefer coffee tho. Eyes my triple toffee nut lattes. Basically if it’s cold, iced tea. If it’s hot, coffee. 

Pets: This is Mittens! She’s got scar freckles on her nose and eyes, and she’s a Certified Diva. She likes to cause trouble, and she climbs under the covers to lie between my legs every night, and if she can’t, she’ll claw at my blanket until I lift it up. She’s kinda chunky, but I’m working on slimming her down some. Thankfully feeding her wet food seems to help. 

whoopsie this got. long. sorry. 

I’m supposed to tag 8 people but hhhnnngh do I know 8 people, y’all don’t have to do it at all: @alphacactus​ @leavingsofthewolf​ @ivaan-ffxiv​ @beefbroganoff​ @yunkinko​ @589ish​ @barbariccia​ @yourdeerestnilion​ @quartercirclejab​

[hillywooddestiel]

Stranger Things Have Happened- Chapter Thirteen

Chapter 13: The Battle at Byers

Characters: Y/N Winchester, Nancy, Jonathan, Steve, Sam, Dean

Warnings: angst, language

Word count: 1.9k

Series description: Hawkins, Indiana, November 1983. The Winchesters got out of hunting and decided to settle down in a small town. The youngest of the three, Y/N, just wants to get on with her somewhat normal life and go to a good college. But that’s a little tricky when disappearances start occurring, including her friend Barbara Holland, and there’s reports of a mysterious new girl in town. Can she balance boyfriends, teen drama and monster hunting?

A/N: Hello again! This series has been picking up a lot and its been lovely watching people go through chapter by chapter in my notes (thanks for all the reblogs) I’ve nearly finished writing this and that actually makes me a little sad. I’ve loved coming up with this series and tying Supernatural and Stranger Things together in this way. And my brain may or may not have been prodding me with ideas for a sequel. I don’t know if I can commit to starting it until things are a bit more organised around here. Anyways enjoy xx Series Masterlist  Masterlist

Story:

“It's here, it's coming.”

“Where is it?”

“Wait, what's here?! What's here- whoa easy with that!” Jonathan and Nancy rotate themselves back to back around the room while Steve panics over the lights, the gun, the bat full of nails- he's just in full panic mode over everything going on right now. Nancy has the gun close to her chest while Jonathan has his homemade bat thing up like he's prepared to hit a home run. Steve finches away when he swings it around and rightly so; that thing looks lethal! Man, I want one. 

“I don't see it!” Nancy frets, still spinning in their little formation. Meanwhile, I'm just stood next to Steve trying to listen out for the damn thing which is a little tricky with all of this noise.

“Where is what?! Hello? Will someone please explain to me what the hell is going-” a huge smash from the ceiling cuts Steve off. Plaster and wood fall to the floor as an enormous slimy creature falls through the roof. It stands tall, much taller than any of our squad, opening its mouth hole/ face (if you can call it that) and screams at us at a shrill volume. Nancy fires 3 shots at it that barely do anything. I just stand on the spot staring at the thing in half horror, trying to remember all of my lore to work out what the hell it could be. I have nothing.

“Go, go! Run, go!” Jonathan turns around to myself and Steve, ushering us in the direction of safety, “Get out of here! Jump!” He warns us just in time to vault the fucking bear trap he has nailed to the floor. What the hell Jonathan?!

“Oh my god oh my god oh my god!” Steve panics aloud, looking at all of us with eyes the size of golf balls, “Jesus Jesus, what the hell was that?!”

“Shut up!” Both Nancy and Jonathan shout in unison. I agree; he was getting really annoying. I had enough of worriers back in the hunting days. With all of the screaming done with, we listen out for the creature outside the door making it's strange, alien, purr-like sound. There's a yellow yo-yo with a happy smile on it strung over the back of a chair by the door, presumably linked up to some Scooby Doo style trap- the bear trap! My respect for these guys just went up by a lot. 

“What's it doing?” Nancy asks, keeping her eyes and gun on the door.

“I don't know.” Jonathan glances to all of us. The lights stop flickering, going back to normal and the strange noise coming from outside stops. It can't be gone, surely? For a creature that came through the ceiling like it was made of Lego, it gave up very quickly on killing us.

“Do you hear anything?”

“No…”

Taking tentative steps, Nancy and Jonathan lead the pack into the living room again. Steve brings up the rear, muttering incoherently like a crazy person.

“This is crazy. This is crazy.” He runs his hands through his signature big hair, trembling as he spirals out of control, “This is crazy. This is crazy! This is CRAZY!” He grabs the phone from the wall and jabs 9-1-1 into the keypad. Nancy snatches it away from him and ends the call before anyone picks up. “What are you do- what are you doing? Are you insane?!” 

“It's going to come back.” Nancy growls, “So you need to leave. Right. Now.”

“Do you two want to explain to me what the hell is going on?” I put on my best mom voice when the door slams behind Steve as he flees the house, “You left me at school to babysit because what? You two know what you're doing?”

“I'm sorry Y/N/N, but this is something I have to do. For Barb.” 

“And I don't want to do that? Nancy, I know it wasn't long but she was my friend too! Out of everyone here in this town, I am the only person who knows about this stuff. I hunt monsters, that's what I do. It's what I'm good at.”

“I know that. But just because you've done before, doesn't mean you have to now.”

“Yes it does! If something happened to any of you guys and I did nothing… I would not be able to live with myself.” I realize, as I speak, that I sound so much like Dean when we were deciding whether or not to really leave everything behind. He went on and on about the job and our duty and how, by quitting, every death caused by the supernatural would be on us for not stepping in. It all came from Dad really; he always instilled in us that hunting was in our blood. It was our destiny, almost. 

“Barb is not on you Y/N. None of this is on you.” Nancy hugs me tightly nearly sending me into tears. But when the lights begin to flicker once again, we quickly spring apart. Shit shit shit shit SHIT!

Cocking my gun, I opt not to join the others spinning around the room and instead train my gaze on the ceiling where the bear dropped from before.

“Where is it?”

“Come on! Come on you son of a bitch!” Jonathan riles himself up- subtlety is not his strong suit I see.

“You see it?” 

“No, you?” I answer Nancy, glancing briefly at the flashing fairy lights to see them turn off completely. We're plunged into almost complete darkness. I blink. The creature from earlier rises up behind Nancy and Jonathan making it's weird sound again, unbeknownst to them. “Guys…”

“Wha-” they barely get the chance to speak before the thing attacks Jonathan and pins him to the ground. Watching him get covered in goo from the creature is oddly reminiscent of Cujo. But now is not the time.

“Jonathan!” Nancy shouts, not phasing the Demogorgon at all, “Jonathan! Jona-”

“Don't just stand there, shoot it!” I cock my gun and fire the first shot, not really aiming for any part in particular since I know nothing about the damn thing. I fire twice more with no effect while Nancy fires five times. After the fifth bullet is fired, the Demogorgon turns and screams in our direction.

“Go to hell you son of a bitch!” Nancy fires again and again until she pulls on the trigger and all the gun does is click- she's out of bullets. They don't seem to be working anyway so things could be worse. Well, they are worse. The Demogorgon comes towards us, angered by our efforts to harm it. I take a step back and find my footing unsteady, falling quickly to the floor and hitting my head on something solid. 

“Ah fuck!” I wince, a sharp pain so spreading through my skull and dancing behind my closed eyes. That's going to leave one hell of a bruise. 

“Y/N/N, you okay?!” Nancy helps pull me back up.

“I will be… what about…” the ringing in my ears subsides and I can hear what sounds like Steve screaming. It is Steve screaming. He has the bat full of nails and is in the middle of an assault on the monster, pushing it towards the bear trap. It snaps around it's ankle causing a shrill scream to come from the weird hole in it's face.

“He's in the trap! He's stuck!” Steve declares.

“Jonathan, now!” Nancy urges. Jonathan flicks the lighter on and chucks it onto the trail of gasoline. It ignites and travels swiftly to the trap, sending the creature up into flames. The inferno continues to grow to an unsafe size for which Jonathan luckily has a fire extinguisher at hand. Plumes of smoke fill the house, clouding my vision and entering my lungs making breathing rather difficult. Combine with my head injury, I really don't feel good right now.

“Where did it go?” Nancy sputters, staring down at the bubbling goop left behind on the trap. 

“No, it has to be dead… it has to be.”

“Umm… hate to be the one to break it to you Jonathan but we don't know for sure. Bullets weren't working, who's to say fire does?”

“If you are saying you think it could survive that, you're crazy.” Steve buts in (I was forgetting he doesn't know everything). 

“That's exactly what I'm saying. Other creatures have done it.”

“You mean like roaches?”

“I mean like shapeshifters and skinwalkers.”

“Skin what? What are you talking-”

“Hey look!”

We all look up to what Nancy is pointing at. One of the string lights is lit up. And then another one. And then two more. We follow them along the corridor to the front door, mesmerised by the colourful little bulbs as random ones come to life to form a trail. 

“Mom…” Jonathan focuses on them, whispering under his breath so quietly I barely hear him. “Mom, is that you?” He receives no reply. Whatever is causing the light display continues to travel, taking us outside to the front porch. In the near distance, the street lamp light flickers gently. It's the last sign of something in the alternate dimension before the track goes cold.

“Where's it going?” Nancy asks, watching down the dark road as though he'll see something any second now.

“I don't think that's the monster…” Jonathan says rather ominously.

“Yeah, it probably would have come back already.” My comment gets the stink eye from all three of them, “What? It's true.”

“Is anyone going to explain to me what the hell is going on?” Ah yes, Steve. Prepare for a shitstorm of a story my friend.

I repeat a shortened version of the tale I told everyone back before we went to the school and I also fill him in on the whole situation with Will. Nancy and Jonathan but in with extra details where needed, making it very clear to Steve that nothing was going on between them. Smooth guys. 

“So… you did this for a living?” 

“Not exactly- we didn't get paid. There was a lot of credit card fraud.” 

“Cool.” Steve remarks, his face changing to a frown when he catches Nancy's glare. 

“It was only small amounts, we never took more than we needed. And it was always with the shady banks.” I clarify. 

“This is insane! You guys could have told me, I could've helped you Nancy.” 

“We didn't want to just go telling everyone. And… I didn't want you to get hurt.” Nancy takes Steve's hands as reassurance. Jonathan swallows hard and tries to look away, fiddling with the cuff of his jacket. Methinks there are some feelings there. And unfortunately they are one sided.

“Right, well we should probably get back to the-” BANG! The front door flies open startling us all. Steve grabs his bat while Nancy and myself grab our guns leaning Jonathan to take a lamp as a weapon. I relax when the two blundering giants come in with their guns raised.

“Guys, it's okay. It's just my brothers.” I gesture for everyone to put their weapons down. Dean flares his nostrils, glaring at me- here we go!

“You have got a lot of explaining to do Y/N.”

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