#i played some fallout 3 for the first time and am enjoying it!! i never have enough fucking AMMO

[sarsaparilla-star]

I LOVE FALLOUT!!!!!!!!

[rationalisms]

sorry to whack a wasp's nest, and i am prefacing all of this by saying that i enjoyed the game and think there are a lot of good aspects to it, but!

i am genuinely so sick of the way people talk about baldur's gate 3

i don't think it should have won game of the year

it's so, so irritating to see people claim over and over that bg3 is somehow groundbreaking for the genre or some sort of trailblazing star in a charred wasteland that has seen no good release since dragon age: origins. and like, it's not just idiots in the steam reviews and on reddit who are talking like this (though they are fucking everywhere on both. one of the highest rated posts on the bg3 sub for months was some dude literally going "i've never played a ttrpg or crpg and i believe bg3 is a game changer" fucking lol). it's also like. professional video game journalists and reviewers. a lot of them!

and like. dragon age: origins is really not a particularly good game compared to many of its contemporaries and i seriously do not understand the chokehold it has on people but that aside, since it was released we've had so many incredible and amazing crpgs that featured outstanding writing, game design, art direction, music, voice acting, etc. the pillars of eternity duology, underrail, the wasteland series, tyranny, atom, the shadowrun trilogy, the pathfinder duology, even the fucking games larian made before this, the divinity: original sin duology are all doing what bg3 did, and often better than bg3 does it. and that's not even getting into the many, many games that came out before either that still hold up as masterpieces that leave both bg3 and da:o in the dust like planescape: torment or fallout 1 and 2!

in fact, it's really easy to compare larian's previous game, divinity: original sin 2, to baldur's gate 3 because they are incredibly similar in many ways down to the inciting incident being almost a 1 to 1 copy (you wake up captured on a ship and realize you've been shackled in a way thay suppresses your powers and harms you and the first act is dedicated to finding others who this has happened to and getting rid of it). except that dos2 handles a lot of the things bg3 also contains a lot better, like e.g. companion story progression. (it's absolutely baffling to have story progression tied to rests especially when the game goes out of its way to instill fake urgency in the player that can very easily lead to them avoiding rests and makes especially many early game moments permanently missable if you don't happen to rest enough times at the right time. my karlach romance got bricked in my first playthrough for this reason. also compounding this is the fact that even on tactician the game is so easy that you can go ages without needing to rest organically.)

dos2 also unquestionably has the better combat experience because the system was designed specifically for the game and around the games capabilities and limitations, whereas bg3 had to contend with trying to make d&d 5e work in a video game format when that's patently not what it was designed for. the amount of changes larian had to make to the ruleset to make 5e work for a video game should have been a sign that using 5e was probably just not a good choice. (and ftr i felt the same about the game solasta which also uses 5e.) and even with the rule changes and the way larian went out of its way to buff the extremely underwhelming and underperforming 5e martials, character building and progression is still nowhere near as versatile and exciting as it was in dos2 or other crpgs and you still have a lot of empty level ups or repetitive gameplay because you can only put so many rhine stones on a turd.

let me be clear: i don't think bg3 is a bad game. again, i liked it! i think it has some instances of really good writing (mainly in companion narratives and side stories imo, the main story is underwhelming as whole). the voice acting performances are fantastic. larian tried their best to make non-linear problem solving possible in a lot of places which is neat (but also makes the lack of them in other places really obvious and more annoying than it otherwise would have been tbh lol.)

i just hate the way that bg3 is treated like some sort of gold standard when it stands on the shoulders of predecessors who are just as good, if not better, but who get ignored because they don't have fully mocapped and voice acted character models or a 3D camera. there seems to be this complete reticence from so many people to play games that still utilize things like an isometric pov, despite the fact that the games which do so are designed around this. e.g. pillars of eternity and the shadowrun games are some of the most beautiful, artistically impressive rpgs i have ever played and make full use of the isometric perspective in its fullest to create absolutely stunning environmental design which wouldn't have been possible with a rotating camera. just because a technology is older doesn't mean it is worse! people absolutely should get out of their comfort zone more because they are missing out on so many gems otherwise.

also re: bg3 winning game of the year specifically: look, here's why this gets me so tilted. on release? vast swathes of the game were legitimately unplayable. act 1 was mostly alright because it had 5 years to cook in early release with constant community feedback and bug reporting. this was absolutely not true for act 2 and 3. act 3 in particular was legitimately just not working for me (and multiple of my friends). i have a soupy gaming PC that can play other contemporary games on ultra settings just fine, and yet i got as few as 2 FPS and frankly ludicrous amount of stuttering and lag on even the lowest settings while my poor CPU sounded like she was preparing for space flight. it's clear that they just did not optimize later acts at all. they did eventually fix the memory leak issue somewhat in later patches, but the performance in act 3 is still markedly much worse than the rest of the game. (also why the fuck is it like 200GB good fucking g-d learn to compress your shit larian!) and that's not even getting into how many quests were bugged and as a result not able to be completed.

in summary: i paid 60 bucks for something that released in an unfinished state that put my hardware at risk. i spent a lot of money on a game i was unable to complete in the state that i bought it in and that took several months to get to an actually playable state for many people. that is not fucking acceptable.

i am willing to cut larian a lot more slack than i would say, e.g. bethesda, on releasing buggy and poorly optimized games. which is why i was willing to patiently wait for a performance patch to replay it. i am not, however, willing to accept handing something that was patently not finished and did not give customers the product they paid for an award for game of the year.

that's a symptom of an industry that has gotten too fucking comfortable releasing unfinished games and putting the onus of bug detection and quality testing on its paying userbase. that's not my job! i paid for this because i expect a product that has already successfully underwent this process! but apparently games these days don't need to bother with that anymore because it doesn't matter if it's playable on release or not, they can still get a coveted industry award for it anyway.

tl;dr: bg3 is literally fine but i am begging everyone on my hands and knees to broaden their horizons and also the things we deem to be acceptable from gaming companies nowadays are shocking. ok. i'm done. sorry.

[openworldadventurer]

I'm really sorry if this is rude or something, it's really not intended to be, but do you have any proof of your work at Bethesda? I'm writing something for school about how casual a lot of the abuse/mismanagment in the games industry is and want to include some of the things you've talked about in the past, but I can't seem to find anything that actually validates your accounts. Even just an article from a credible source in which your mentioned or smth would be fine, genuinely.

Sorry again if this rude, thank you in advance if you decide to respons!

That's a perfectly reasonable thing to ask, so no offense taken.

But first things first: there are larger and more egregious abuses out there with much more proof than some tales from the trenches on Tumblr. I recommend Jason Schreier's Press Reset (not just because I was interviewed for it about two separate studio closures, Big Huge Games and 2K Marin), but there's no shortage of good reporting on a variety of abuses. (And as for "mismanagement", I wouldn't call any of the cut stuff from Skyrim a sign of mismanagement at all -- that's just what happens in any big open-world game. Every developer plans about twice as much stuff for a game as actually sees the final version -- there are always cuts when we see what we'll have the time and devpower to achieve.)

So please, don't quote "some guy on Tumblr said his name was struck from the game" for your school article -- it'll look like gossip reporting, and it won't even be very exciting. There's real horrors out there with solid sourcing that you can draw from, instead. As for my own credentials: I'm listed in the credits for Fallout 3 as "Fred Zeleny" (you can see me listed in this video of the credits at 2:51), and the various Fallout fan wikis have archives of my "Inside the Vault" internal blog interview I did while working on it.

As I've said elsewhere, I'm not listed in the credits for Skyrim, because they stripped my name along with a few other developers for going to work at different game studios before the project was done. I'm not sure what I can do to offer proof that I was there for that time period, short of sharing my design notebooks or pictures from the company parties, all of which might well be legally-actionable breaches of my NDA. I suppose I could point out which characters are named after friends of mine, but that wouldn't prove much if you don't know them. (Although it's a sweet story: they had just married at the time, and I added them as a little surprise wedding gift. Now their two kids play Skyrim on the Switch and are delighted to see their parents immortalized in Darkwater Crossing.) Now, that sort of professional erasure might not fly nowadays (particularly with a union there!), but that was 15 years ago. And sure, that was frustrating back when I was a young dev. But in the decade and a half since, it's never been a professional impediment, because everyone else in the industry knows that sort of pettiness was/is done all the time. And it doesn't hold a candle to some of the real abuses and horrors I've seen in the industry since leaving Bethesda.

So... yeah. I am who I say I am, but I really hope I haven't given the impression that Bethesda is a uniquely bad place in the game industry. If anything, it was fine in hindsight, albeit a little frustrating how things ended. But I tell tales of what almost happened in those games because those are the games people are familiar with, and because those tales are amusing rather than just horrifying.

Trust me, "here's a funny thing I almost did with Sheogorath!" or "the Bard's College quest was almost way more complex!" are much more enjoyable stories from game development than the real horrors I've seen. You probably wouldn't enjoy reading "that season I slept in the office multiple nights a week to meet deadlines and then the parent company failed to make payroll and laid us all off with no severance and we all cried and my coworker wrote a sad note to the movers who came to take everything away", or "the guy who made us completely retool our game to be more mainstream just stepped down after being arrested for a longstanding pattern of sexual harassment and abuse of employees." Trust me, those are real bummers. So it'd probably be better for your article if you focus on the sort of actual abuse and mismanagement I've shared links for here, rather than the minor stuff from my posts.

Gotta keep a proper perspective, y'know?

[mrbexwrites]

OC 15 Questions

Tagged by @duckingwriting to answer some questions about my OCs.

Gently passing the tag onto: @queen-tashie @kaiafosterwrites @deanwax @writingamongther0ses @tate-lin and anyone else who would like to take up the mantle of the open tag!

(Sorry, this has been sitting my drafts for so long, and then in queue purgatory before it's even seen the light of day!)

I've done a couple of these for characters in Memento Mori, so figured it's time for a shift in focus to Blood Harmony.

Answering for Arnauld Beaufort, Mave's nemesis.

Are you named after anyone?

No

2. When was the last time you cried?

I haven't cried in a while. The last time would probably have been shedding a single tear over the rubble where I thought Mavis had died. A good opponent is hard to find.

3. Do you have kids?

I have over a thousand demons at my beck and call. They're hard enough to handle; I wouldn't add children to my workload. Unless you count Connor? He's not my biological son, but I look out for him nonetheless. He'd walk into traffic otherwise.

4. Do you use sarcasm a lot?

Moi? No. Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, after all.

5. What’s the first thing you notice about people?

How short their lives are. When you live for several centuries, people come and go in the blink of an eye. Although, there are several mortals who have piqued my interest in them over the years. They leave lasting marks...mementos...

6. What’s your eye color?

Blue, like my mother's.

7. Scary movies or happy endings?

I don't find movies to be particularly scary, being a demon.Happy endings are too contrived. I prefer psychological thrillers myself.

8. Any special talents?

I'm difficult to kill. Just ask Mavis; Hell knows she's tried hard enough.

9. Where were you born?

The province of Alsace in the Holy Roman Empire. Where I was born has been many countries over the years, and it's currently near Strasbourg, France.

10. What are your hobbies?

I've been many things over the centuries; a sell-sword, mercenary, politician, musician, smuggler, pirate...

I enjoy model ship making. I particularly revel in building windjammers and clippers for display in my library.

11. Have you any pets?

Would Mavis count if I compare her to a feral cat who continually tries to hunt me?

12.What sports do you play/have played?

Sword-fighting, jousting for a brief period, general marksmanship... I've tried my hand at badminton, but it's not for me. Any sport that involves a ball, apart from basketball; too undignified. I'm excellent at billiards.

13.How tall are you?

5'11" or thereabouts

13. Favorite subject in school?

I never went to school; my mother paid for private tutors for me. I enjoyed History the most. I've found, that over the centuries, it often repeats itself. Mortals often fail to learn from their mistakes, but I've lived long enough to see the patterns, know what is coming, and can then avoid the worst of the fallout. You just have to look at my portfolio to know just how good I am as a student of history.

14.Dream job?

Benevolent Dictator, which I suppose I already am, as the head of a law firm. I'd just like to expand my reach from the moral realm, in the infernal!

[jokest3r]

Tagged by @g0giro ! Tyy, I hope these facts people find interesting

Three (+1) Facts About Me

1.) I first got into art as a little kid, 4 or 5, but eventually stopped practicing once I was around 7 or 8. Though I would still doodle little characters on paper and things like that. I only truly got back into art when two people(who are now my closest friends) pushed me to get back into at 12 or 13. I still have drawings from back then that have been accidentally archived, which I'm embarrassed of but still hold some nostalgia for. I also joined tumblr around that time, as I was obsessed with Voltron and Homestuck(embarrassing but I still have Homestuck somewhere in my heart.) I'm thankful I never posted my art back then as much as I think they are good to look at to see how far I've progressed as an artist though I doubt I will ever post them. If, however, people are very curious, I may post one or two.

2.) My first ever forays into video games was Pac-Man on the Gameboy. I LOVED the shit out of that game as a kid, the next few games I got introduced to was World At War and the original Modern Warfare Series, something my sibling enjoyed and I would watch them play Zombies as they always hogged the console lol. I was also introduced to San Andreas for the Original XBOX along with Saints Row 2 for the XBOX 360 and Fallout 3. I played Saints Row 3 and even got my parents to preorder the 4th one in the series when I was 8, and could barely stand over the Gamestop counter. I think also my first case of gender envy was probably when I played Origins in Black Ops 2 and saw Rictofen in the beginning cutscene. I LOVE POST-APOCALYPTIC GAMES.

3.) I love reading, writing, and watching horror movies in my free time, my first ever horror movie was actually "Ghost Ship" and I was also extremely interested in the SAW movies and still am years after. I would like to think my favorite movie genre is Horror, as I can't find myself interested in anything else. I love sci-fi books and fantasy romance. Though for writing I mostly keep myself to Fan-Fiction rather than my own works, just isn't as fun and interesting.

4.) Bonus Fact, I go by Cat mostly as a pseudonym for my real name which is far away from Cat. My real name compared to my screen name would probably make people laugh in all honesty. The name cat comes from the mob you can discover in Final Fantasy "Gimme Cat" who asks you for a diamond and when given runs off with it without giving anything in return. I fell in love with the mob as my friend streamed it and decided to make it my new name on Discord as as soon as Discord forced everyone to make a new user/rename themselves someone had taken my original name. Though I find this one, much more fitting.

Tagging: @welldonekhushi @applbottmjeens and anyone else, no pressure !

[sbrn10]

Post-weekend thoughts: 24/01/02 edition

1. I am back at work. This is the worst.

2. However, it's pretty slow today so at least it's not the worst. I am thus on tumblr on the company dime.

3. Bought myself a Legion Go as a self Christmas present: I can now play AAA PC games away from my desktop (for about 1.5 hours at a time if not near a power outlet, admittedly, but still!) which really means mostly on the bus to and from work, but given that this is roughly a 1.5 hour trip each way it works out fantastically. Also, since I have a trip to NY coming up next month I will take this instead of my laptop and it will be the best of all worlds! Yay capitalism.

General thoughts: It is pretty heavy - playing it in bed or on the go is a significantly less comfortable experience than something like the Switch. However, the screen is gorgeous and it plays the games I want to play on PC, so. Worth it.

The controllers are a little weirdly sized and shaped for my hands, but not terrible. Would say I prefer them over the Switch joycons but obviously normal Xbox controllers or DualSenses are superior if you have the choice.

The vertical mouse mode I do not think I would use for FPS games, tbh, but for general desktop use or less performance sensitive games that don't have good controller support it's actually pretty good.

So far enjoying it; ask me again in like 6 months.

4. Signed up for a month of gamepass (which I should have done AFTER I bought the Legion Go because it comes with a complimentary 3 month pass, but alas, planning was never my strong suit. The pass is claimable until some point in 2025 though so I can use it later.) and am going through a bunch of games I wanted to try but did not get around to:

5. Starfield: Finished with about 50-60ish hours.

The beginning is rough -- just the worst hook into one of these that I've seen in a while, mostly in the sense that the main plot surrounding the Artifacts is dogshit boring and the missions for the main plot are ALSO dogshit boring (the temples are fucking terrible and a waste of time).

The rest of the game also feels... mediocre in basically all respects. Like, not bad. Just mid. Nothing feels very new and everything that exists feels so... paint by the numbers. Like, here's a planet whose surface looks procedurally generated (I don't know whether it is or not, but it looks that way) -- it doesn't look bad, but it doesn't look all that good either. Here's some RPG skill progression, except there's no way to respec your character (it's fucking 2023, Bethesda, what the fuck?) and every suboptimal choice you made early on (because you didn't know what the fuck you were doing) makes you feel incredibly annoyed at the game. In particular, character is nonexistent -- all your companions feel incredibly boring, and I fucking married Sarah just to see what the romance was like. Like, coming off of BG3 this year (which, tbh, is also not the strongest cast of characters, compared to, e.g., the heights of golden age Bioware, but still very obviously has had a lot of love and care poured into the character writing) into Starfield is just... tragic. I think I spent the first like 5-10 hours mostly thinking "wow, I am so glad I did not pay for this game."

Sidenote: I did not touch the outpost or crafting stuff because guess what I didn't pick those skills in the skill tree :) But also remembering Fallout 4's base building part, none of that seemed particularly engaging. I built one outpost that was a couple buildings just to see what it was like and the building UI was so fiddly that I immediately quit that and never touched it again.

However, the UC Vanguard quest was actually really interesting (highly recommend beelining for this tbh) and once I got a little invested in that the rest of the major faction quests (Freestar Collective, Ryujin, and Crimson Fleet) were all interesting enough that I did not quit after 10 hours and did in fact finish the game.

tldr: 6.5/10, would not recommend unless you also have gamepass and are bored. That said, I did play like 50 hours of it, so. Make of that what you will.

6. Hi-Fi Rush:

I'm actually very bad at these type of combo brawlers (mostly because getting the muscle memory down for the combo variety just takes forever and I always default to using only a handful of moves, which makes me feel bad :( ) but enjoying the presentation and music a lot. It is the most anime, in the best sense.

Also, voice cast. Robbie keeps throwing me for a loop like, hey, I know that guy. Damn you, Critical Role, you have ruined games for me! (Shoutout: Aabria as a background NPC in Starfield - you were a highlight of the entire game, baby.)

Kind of bummed that I started this on gamepass honestly - I should've just paid for it on Steam so I could keep my stats and achievements and stuff. I mean, I COULD buy it on Xbox Windows but that app is garbage 🙃

Yet to finish - but 9/10 would definitely recommend.

7. (Not gamepass but from my winter steam sale haul -- yes, I spend too much money on games) Griftlands:

Klei does not miss. Very solid 10-ish hour game with really good character writing (hi, Bethesda, please take notes). I have beaten all three characters, with only two failed runs on normal difficulty so it's, you know, a decent challenge but nothing too difficult. Still going through and trying out other builds and choices. That said, I'm not usually a deckbuilder player so I couldn't tell you how it stacks up against other deckbuilders.

8.5/10, would definitely recommend on sale.

8. My general next to-play list:

On Gamepass so higher priority during my one month:

Pentiment

The Lamplighter's League

Against the Storm

Slay the Spire

Jusant

Cocoon

Like a Dragon Gaiden

Steam backlog (including things I bought like three years ago and still haven't played/finished...):

Life is Strange 2

Marvel's Midnight Suns

Tales of Berseria

Great Ace Attorney Chronicles

9. As you can tell, I did not do much of anything that was not gaming in the liminal period that is the last week of December. I had a brief thought that maybe I would write something about Laudna and Ashton and what the fuck is up with them during the 3 week BH break, but no, creative brain is out, mindless consumption brain is in! My god, there are so many games these days. I haven't even played Diablo 4, FF16, Alan Wake 2, Super Mario Bros Wonder or Spiderman 2 yet -- admittedly, I am unlikely to ever play Diablo 4 or Alan Wake 2 (I did not finish Alan Wake 1 -- at one point they turned off the lights and I put down my controller and said nope!) but I do theoretically want to get around to the others! Even FF16 which people have also said is mid, I still want to see its midness for myself! Yes, these are very first world problems.

10. Do I plan to do anything that is not gaming through any part of January? Debatable. Such is my life these days.

11. Anyway, happy new year to everyone. Hopefully 2024 is less miserable for the world in general.

P.S. Tumblr rich text editor's treatment of unordered lists and ordered lists is so fucking stupid.

[makahimetenshi]

Two separated ways - Arthur Maxson x Female Sole Survivor x Paladin Danse Fallout 4 Fanfic

This fic sets in a universe where Blind Betrayal never took place and Nora destroyed the institute with the Brotherhood of Steel. I don’t know if im going to make a new story of this couples, like Arthur x Nora, Danse x Arthur, Danse x Nora since I already finished playing Fallout 4 and I am playing the 3 one and at some time I gotta go the obsession but I feel like writing things differents from Follow me inside the wastelands

If you are very very very delighted with one fic and want a continuation I didn’t write or post you can donate me at least $5 bucks, most of this fics have next chapters I don’t finish because lack of motivation but hey a $5 is a $5, I see a few reviews and coments that fics that are abandoned months laters receive coments of wanting to know what happends next. Here it is, I finished my handling with you all, enjoy the fic

-Ah Paladin Danse, what do I own the pleasure of this call?

For Danse it was difficult to talk to the elder of the commonwealth chapter since “that” happened…but at least his old friend was slowly taking it better and better, the young man was mature and reasonable, the resentment weren’t directed towards him at least…well…a bit…more than a bit…it was understandable since well…

-Nothing new to report about our job in Washington but…Arthur we need to talk –the elder open up his eyes stopping the hand that he had on the needle where he was mending one of his little daughter's shirts

-You mean Elder Arthur or Arthur Arthur? –it was so strange hearing him talking like that. When they meet even when he was only a teenager he wouldn’t talk like that at all, groomed into being a leader to carry the lastname Maxson really build his character like a really serious young man but after officially started dating Nora he change…a lot…and became a totally different person, love change him a lot, now at his 29 he was a totally different person that the 21 when he arrived the Commonwealth for the first time. And after “that” happened he loose himself even more, thinking that for what? What does everything matter? Why bother at all? All that work for nothing! Being the most powerful man didn’t save him at all.

-Arthur Arthur…sir… -heard Danse at the other side of the call and chuckled.

-What is it? –ask the elder, still mending the tshirt, oh he didn’t want anyone else doing this little jobs over his daughter clothes, everybody does it wrong except him! Nora taught him how and…didn’t see anyone else doing it so perfectly like she did.

-There’s a subject I want you to discuss with the sentinel –ohnononononono

-Didn’t expect you to surrender so soon –what? Oh nonono.

-Nothing about that, look since we arrived here on Washington  for our mission she is…

-I just don’t see why you cant solve it by your own, after all you are the new boy –offensive cluck

-You live here for a long time and she needs…

-You live there even more than me, beyond me even! –why they were talking about her? After all the pain and discussions for him to still have to stay after her ass

-Yeah but…

-Then that’s it! You don’t need me at all, deal yourself with the sentinel and whatever bullshit cross her mind this time –Arthur didn’t want to have anything to do with the mother of his two children.

-Look I know you are still resentful –the elder bite his tongue.

-With her for dumping me for my best friend when I send both on a mission to Washington? Nah, who do you think I am? –lets send my best paladin to protect my wife in a land she doesn’t know in the present wastelands, it would be fun they said, she wouldn’t cheat on me, they said…

Silence again, until he heard a breath and the paladin keep talking- but maybe you are more wise in this subject than me

-What subject? –oh talking or even giving some kind of entity to this subject make his mouth sour

-She is severely depressed, at first I thought it was just nostalgia but months keep passing and she is very frustrated and disappointed about the state of Washington

-I don’t get it

-She came with her ex husband Nate for vacations here once and now everything…makes her sad –oh now he understand- the state of the buildings, the new streets and ways to move, the demolished places, the trash, smell, the odor

-You mean nostalgic and depressed like the thing she has with the food doesn’t? –traumas, that was all traumas, psychological scars

-Yeah but here is with all the environment.

-Its understandable, after all there isn’t a fucking nice place in Washington, it’s a shithole, is far much worse than Boston, the commonwealth is such a luxury in comparison

-That aint helping man

-Well im not going to terraform the damn city –a sight at the other side of the call- what do you want me to do?

-Talk to her

-The state of Washington also depress me –this was stupid

-This is serious Arthur, she is severely depressed and this place isn’t helping her either

-Well im happy I was not the problem in the end, and I see  you aren’t the solution either –silence on the other side of the line.

Their second son together left her with a serious post partum depression. So in order to help his wife he send her to the Capital wasteland, have some adventures, fun, enjoy travelling to new places, kick some buts, don’t let the routine of being parents of a 3 year old and a newborn stop you from being the kickass woman I fall in love. Too bad he didn’t tell her nothing about don’t smashing his best friend, the friend he sent to protect her, his bad, he should warn her about that right?

-You have a good life in this city, talk to her

What the fuck? –whaaaaat? Since when do I had a good life in the citadel? –jaja what? Oh gosh people had the most stupid ideas.

-Better than mine for sure, she just needs a boost of confidence and I cant give the example in this area

-I had two complete meals a day, that’s far from a good life –not to mention they were feeding him like a pig so he wouldn’t famish and die with the Maxson line with him. If he gain a thing from being Noras husband for 5 years together was standards, and he understand that the life on the Wastelands was shit.

-Again, im not playing, she needs more positivity and…

-Well im not moving you both out the city because she cant face the reality and stop daydreaming –yeah being cheated on was shitty but damn it's good that he missed the obligation of having Nora by his side, over time he understood that by getting married he had bought himself a bag of unresolved problems that were very difficult to handle even for him.

-Of course not, our mission is going just fine –yeah the mission of banging his wife maybe- we are progressing with the task the elder here is giving us, she neither wants to leave this city but…its harming her –it was true, he was receiving request of that elder to even promote Danse but god damn he wouldn’t be promoting a wife thief

-The landscapes harm her –Arthur clarified. Sitting better on his chair, leaving the needle on the table.

-Yeah, about the daydreaming…-oh not again.

-Let me guess, she is on chems again –he sighted, the only way to keeping her away from chems  was  to put a baby on her uterus, it worked with Arya and the lactancy time, and then with Shaun and the lactancy until he fucking send her to capital wasteland like it was a good idea. Stupid idea.

-Mentats, and im not her commanding officer anymore to even correct –he was interrupted.

-Oh nono now you are her daddy –he laughed, bitterly, biting on his lower lip, gosh talking about this fills him with anger!- I get it, I was her daddy too

-Arthur…-he heard at the other line a tired voice.

-Im not going to make you elder so you can be on top and place a corrective, she is a sentinel –he had so much anger accumulated on his chest, like when you are really really upset and your whole body feels infuriated!

-That’s why Im asking you to talk to her…elder…-Maxson sighted.

-Its it serious like she would…-he whistle twice- at the roof of a building?

Silence, again, he raise up his head to look at the terminal, now worried.

-Maybe, if it gets worse -maybe letting his ex-still-wife kill herself was not a good idea, she was a good sentinel and a soldier who achieved very good results-Im sorry about everything Arthur-and you fuck my wife anyway, what a good friend he thought in the insides, taking his time to process everything- but do this at least because she is the mom of your two children

-She should think on that two years ago, almost abandoning them –funny, she left to Washington when Shaun was like 8 months or something, he surely doesn’t remember her, didn’t see her since then.

-Im sure Arya is not going to be happy if something occurs to her mother –yeah, even if at her 5 years she ask about Nora a lot, misses her.

-You know? I already got what is more valuable from her, our Maxson not radiated offspring, the only reason I didn’t sent an assassin after your butt is because your shrimps are dead –they were still married together, no one is going to dare to make gossip about the elder Maxson being a cuckhold or the sentinel having an affair, plus it gives him high status being married with a sentinel…and a prewar woman- and you cant knock her.

He said that words with hate. It really hurt him to the core the fact that his best friend Danse do that to him.

-Try to give her a call, tell her that life here is not-interupted him again, bullshit, all bullshit.

-There’s no life there Danse, there’s no green even, how can I lie myself to lie to her? –it was true, capital wasteland was a shithole, an horrible place, arriving to the commonwealth was like escaping from there and its horrors, the green and the land were such a change for elder Maxson.

-Well I don’t know what else to do! –the man raised his voice in the call, he heard a bit of desperation on it- I don’t wanna loose her! –he stay in silence- maybe you don’t care anymore and I get it! But I love her! And I don’t know what to do!

He cares, deep down below all the feelings of betrayal and abandonment he cares, for the woman he falled deeply in love once.

-What do you expect me to tell her? –said the defeated elder, maybe, if he keeps caring by then, she can come back to him, but if she is dead…there will be no way to be together again…less as a family…

-I don’t know…-from the tone of his voice he really was…desperate, lost, he really used his last plan talking to him- maybe tell her that life is beautiful? –Arthur laugh, it was audible in the call- You know her better

-But you know her the longest –from initiate to Sentinel at the paladin side, until both sentinel and elder got into a relationship, fraternizing with a soldier.

-Its not working on me –now, the man was crying even if he cant see his tears, Arthur hold his chin on his hands, shutting his lids- love is not saving her on this.

The elder stood in silence, and breathe out –You know this about her…since the beginning

-I know –voice cracked at the other side of the line.

-I learned over time how to deal with that and move forward in our relationship, get through each day, try to make a future for ourselves, it didn't work for me, as you know –in any fucking chance he would have to spit in the face his betrayal to him he will do it- but It was never easy, or less painful, no matter the day

-Yeah

-And its only going to get worse, maybe you aren’t prepared to it, like I wasn’t

-You didn’t send her away because you can’t deal with it –then whyyyyy? If Danse gets it why did he fuck his wife? Arthur cover his face with his palms and breathe.

-Even after everything that happened I know I avoided an obstacle, a hard one, for the rest of my life –the image of Nora jumping off a building cross his mind, he open his eyes to avoid having images- but you are right. Arya will be sad, ill talk to Nora, put a call on her agenda, make sure she see it and…answer the call.

Both stay in silence, until Danse speak with the voice still broken.

-Thank you elder, that will be all

Arthur stood in silence too, eyes getting lost on the terminal.

-Crush some addictol and mix it with her food, look at her eating so she will finish the plate, Mentats doesn’t have secondary effects with other chems so don’t worry-he had the experience with this- you are discharged Paladin.

Both hang up on the call.

[gaygamesstarringmary]

Atomic Wasteland, Sentient Forest, Alien Ocean

‘Fuck You’ Graffitied Across the Wall

My first M-rated game was Fallout 3. I cried when I finished that game. Not because the game was particularly sad, but because I knew I could never go back and play that game again. 

After years of begging for a PS4, my parents got me a PS3. I wanted Fallout 4 but it wasn’t compatible with the PS3, so I settled for Fallout 3. The graphics sucked, even for 2016.

And my mom. She wasn’t sure how graphic this game was, so she watched me play it. Of course, she watched the worst part. My player character entered a building I knew was filled with raiders- post-apocalyptic baddies. But I didn’t know they had littered the floor with mines.

My character exploded into a million little pieces. The camera focused on one piece in particular as the chunk rolled down the stairs. There, at the bottom of the stars, written in blood: FUCK YOU.

My mother was shocked. Never had she been so repulsed in her entire life. And just as she’d given me the game, she took it away.

I begged. And begged. And pleaded. After a few days of my nonstop pleading, and my verbal promise that I would never actually kill anyone in real life (I’m the type of person to spare the scariest of spiders), my mom returned the game to me, albeit begrudgingly.

I recently played Fallout: New Vegas, and I never learn. Never look at the floor. I never even think that mines might be on my path. Now, though, my mom watches me play with glee. She is horrified, yes, but only because I’m so goddamn bad.

2. The Sun Sets; I’m Completely Fucked

The setting sun casts its orange light on the forest. Soon this crooked forest will consume everything. Already, it’s taken highways and villages for its own. In these villages, infected humans lay dying. Some infected humans keep their sanity, but not their human image. And some still lose both mind and body to the forest. The player character, a human who has managed to keep his sanity and his self despite the forest’s universal plague, sprints home. There, he pulls a dresser in front of one of the doors, starts the generator, and hides in a corner gripping tightly his rifle. 

When the sun sets, the infected come. First, they knock on doors. They peep through windows. Then they grow more violent. They tear down barricades and search the homes for the man inside.

Darkwood is a hit-or-miss game for most. I love it through and through. The infected forest is beautiful. The infected people, not so much, but I enjoy screaming and running from them as fast as my poor player character can.

I fell in love with this game during the first night I played. A knocking at my door startled me, but I continued hiding in my corner, and, eventually, whoever was knocking roamed away. The lore of the game is wonderful, as I discovered when I met the Wolf Man. The plague touched him so that he transformed into a bipedal wolf, with the appetite to boot. 

The monsters are horrifying. Knowing that they are- or were- people is worse. Chompers were the bane of my existence while I played this game, and I ran every time I saw one. They are infected people who split down the middle to their chests. This made room for a large mouth of teeth.

I have days worth of time invested into this game. 

But I cannot finish it.

I don’t want a repeat of Fallout 3 ever again, so I never finish games I really love. When I feel Darkwood’s end drawing near, I delete my save file and start anew.

3. Discovering I Have Thallassophobia

I love games, but I am not good at them. I have to play most shooters on easy because I have the aim of a drunk Stormtrooper. Subnautica is no different.

I love the ocean. Before Batman came along, it and mythology had been my hyper-fixations. I still know way too much about yeti crabs and other deep-sea life. While no longer a hyper fixation, the deep oceans are still fixations.

I want to live at the bottom of the ocean. I dream not of whale song, but of bone worms swaying in the current. Before I get started on the real oceans, though, let me introduce Subnatuica.

Subnautica is a first-person adventure game set on an alien planet made completely of water. Your goal is to get off the planet while avoiding being eaten by an apex predator along the way, or being picked off by those annoying little crabs. It focuses on adventure and base building, but I didn’t care about either of those.

I wanted to see the creatures. Specifically, the creatures in the deep dark. So, as soon as I had the necessary resources, I vowed, I would travel to the abyss and gather information on every lifeform there.

That never happened. Again, I’m awful at games. 

Worse, it wasn’t even an apex predator that kept killing me- or even those crabs. It was dehydration. Water was all around me, but not the drinkable kind. And I had no idea how to get water so I kept dying.

I gave up sooner rather than later and watched every Youtuber play Subnautica  I could. Despite having never been to the abyss myself, I have seen through others the creatures that live there, and they are just as strange and fascinating as the deep-sea animals in real life. 

Biolumenisent predators. Long-legged crabs. And sapient creatures that, unlike dolphins (who I fully believe to be as intelligent as humans, unfortunately) aren’t completely fucked up in the head.

And, again, watching the ending of this game, I cried.

[homenecromancer]

tagged by @fishmech

Tag game - 15 Questions, 15 Mutuals

1. Are you named after anyone?

yeah i guess; my birth name was after a member of my mom’s family, and my name + middle name are family names as well, though i go by a nickname most of the time

2. When was the last time you cried?

i cannot answer this question because i literally mist up at sad commercials etc., i don’t keep track

3. Do you have kids?

nope. i would not be a good parent for many reasons, only some of which are “bad family medical history”. it still feels weird to consider the fact that when my mom was my age, she was married and expecting her first kid... meanwhile, right now, i am playing email tag with the surgeon who is going to perform my hysterectomy

4. Do you use sarcasm a lot?

with people i’m close to irl, yeah

5. What’s the first thing you notice about people?

general vibe and body language

6. What’s your eye colour?

green :3

7. Scary movie or happy ending?

depends on what mood i’m in

8. Any special talents?

encyclopedic memory for stupid internet drama. also im ok-to-good at finding things online, but a lot of that is “remembering how to find this thing”

9. Where were you born?

a hospital in the same conglomeration of suburbs i still live in

10. What are your hobbies?

mostly it’s: being online; writing; reading. i enjoy/ed video games, but i have had tendinitis in my right thumb for a couple of years now, and that intermittently makes it hard to hold a mouse. (so now sometimes when i think “i miss playing fallout 4″, the next thought that comes to my brain is “but my hand hurts :(” and then i do not play video games.)

11. Do you have any pets?

nope, never have. i’m allergic to animal dander, as is my dad, so i just... did not grow up with an animal in the house. albeit my allergies have gotten better with age, so i can hang out with other people’s pets

12. What sports do you/have you played?

basketball for like, one season + whatever sports they made us do in school gym. currently i do not play any sports

13. How tall are you?

5′ 3″, or about 1.6m

14. Favorite subject in high school?

i really enjoyed Anatomy & Physiology, though i did not wind up going down the life path i thought i wanted to pursue at that time. Zoology was also fun, as was the part of a demo in chemistry class where: the teacher ran some of the gas for the bunsen burners through a tub of soapy water; i dunked my hand in there; he ignited the suds on my hand; i lost all the hair off that hand

15. Dream job?

doing all the stuff i do at home on my own time, but every two weeks a substantial sum of money appears in my bank account

i am also too lazy to pick fifteen people to tag, so if you see this, go for it :)

[jenniferdiazisatransgirl]

So I’ve recently been replaying New Vegas and I’ve admittedly got a bit bored of it for the time being. Don’t get me wrong, it is a game I love but I have been playing it a lot lately.

Interesting random fact though, before starting HRT I used to game like constantly. Like it was really hard to get me to be bored of a game. I could play the same game for days or weeks on end and not get bored. When I started HRT though, I stopped being able to do that. Like I still love video games but my interest shifted more towards reading books and watching TV. Not sure if anyone else who is trans has a similar experience to this when they started HRT?

But yeah, that was a bit of a tangent. I was basically writing this post with the intent of saying, I always play Fallout and The Elder Scrolls on the normal difficulty setting. Survival which was first introduced in New Vegas just always scared me. Which brings me onto something, I should tell you how I got into Fallout.

So basically, back in 2008 I wanted a PS3 with GTA IV for Christmas. GTA is one of my favourite video game franchises and as a kid it was pretty much the only thing I’d play. I never really strayed away from the games I knew and loved. And that was GTA. I did get The Sims eventually but that was kinda one of those rare exceptions. My Mum couldn’t find a game bundle that contained GTA IV though, so she got me a PS3 that came with Little Big Planet, Fallout 3 and Resistance. Her plan was, I trade the 3 games in to get GTA IV. I’d been brought up not to trade in presents though, so gave each game its fair shot. I hated Resistance so that went in the trade pile, Little Big Planet was fun so I kept it and well Fallout 3. Here’s the story.

Basically, I set up my character and quite enjoyed the character customisation. Beyond The Sims, i hadn’t really experienced something like that and loved that aspect. I loved the dialogue options and feeling like I had a say in the conversations and then I left the vault and things went downhill.

The compass confused me so I got instantly lost and had no idea where I was going, I got attacked by a giant ant and well I just ran. I stumbled on those train tunnels the vampire people who’s name escapes me lived in. I hung there for a bit but then ventured back out and bumped into Lucky Harry. I spent like several in real life days following this dude round the map. I then ended up at Big Town and hung there a bit too scared to leave the place.

I did in time get the hang of playing Fallout and honestly, playing a game where I was terrified due to my lack of skill was actually pretty immersive to the point it was kinda fun.

The point I am laying out here is I wasn’t that good and it took me a while to find my feet in Fallout, so the survival modes scared me cos it would mean finding my feet all over again. I also found Fallout New Vegas way more challenging than I did Fallout 3.

I got Fallout 76 back in 2018 though and with it being a multiplayer game, you don’t get to select your difficulty level and you are playing in what is effectively Survival Mode. It took me some time, but I did begin to get rather good at playing Fallout 76 and it changed my play style. On my replay of New Vegas, even though I’m doing normal mode, I noticed I am using some of what I picked up in 76 in that and I have found this play through far easier. Like I can pretty much 2 shot deathclaws in New Vegas now. Last time I played I was a lot of shotting deathclaws 😂 It took me so long to kill them 😭

It’s taken 14 years but I think I am finally ready to make the games more difficult for me. So tomorrow, I’m gonna boot up Skyrim starting a new game where I play in Survival Mode and I’ll likely do the same with Fallout 4 and New Vegas at some point 😊

I don’t know if anyone will be interested in any of this but hey, enjoy 😊

[acelucky]

2023 - End of year favourite films, books, games & albums

As is an annual tradition for me, I like to share with you all my favourite media consumed and books read during the past year. Though I never include TV Shows and am not sure why, maybe next year!

Normally I make a separate post for everything, but today decided to lump them together - it's more for my own reflection that anything else. I've struggled to name 10 favourite books and felt it was a bit of a weak year film wise... Game wise I mostly played just 2 games. Music is where I struggled. It's been an odd year, a great year with some amazing trips - New Zealand (and Singapore), Budapest and Ireland. Some wonderful comedy highlights, a few comedy lows, a new internal job and many other ups and downs. It's probably why there were gaps in my reading and not so many games played.

Not all of the following were realised this year, some were late 2022 and some even earlier than that, but I just got to them this year.

Favourite 10 Films (by no means are some of these the best!)

Barbie - Greta Gerwig

Oppenheimer - Christopher Nolan

65 - Scott Beck & Bryan Woods

Napoleon - Ridley Scott

Saltburn - Emerald Fennell

No one will save you - Brian Duffield

Barbarian - Zach Gregger

Guardian's of the Galaxy Vol 3 - James Gun

Talk to Me - Danny & Michael Philippou 

John Wick Chapter 4 - Chad Stahelski

Cousins - Ainsley Gardiner and Briar Grace-Smith (Okay this is number 11, I couldn't leave it off!)

Favourite 10 Books of the year

The Mad Women's Ball - Victoria Mas

MilkFed - Melissa Broder

Journey to the Centre of the Earth - Jules Verne

Grief is the thing with feathers - Max Porter

Life Ceremony - Sayaka Murata

Garth Merenghi's Terrortome

Songs of a Dead Dreamer & Grimscribe - Thomas Ligotti

Lapvona - Ottessa Moshfegh

Gyo - Junji Ito

The final girl support group - Grady Hendrix

Favourite 10 Albums of the year

Sleep Token - Take me back to eden

Lana Del Rey - Did you know there's a tunnel under ocean boulevard

Father John Misty - I love you, Honeybear

Sparks - The Girl is crying in her latte

IAMX - Fault Lines

Avenged Sevenfold - Life is but a dream

Myrkur - Ragnarok

Electric Callboy - TEKKNO (tour ed)

Creeper - Sanguivore

Honourable mention to Gabrielle Aplin - Phosphorescent, two of the songs on the album (Skylight & Mariana Trench) are songs I've had on repeat and absolutely love. I enjoy the rest of the album, just not quite to fit into my top 10. Blink 182 - One More Time is another that was very close, I just haven't listened to it quite enough yet.

Song wise an honourable mention to 'Calm Down' - Rema & Solidarity - Gogol Bordello

Favourite 5 Games of the year

Bramble: The Mountain King - Hand's down, my favourite game of the year.

Persona 5

Fallout 4 - Yes, I finally started playing this again and am nearly at the end of the main story. I did play a few hours of Starfield, but wanted to wait until I'd finished this first.

Frog Detective - I loved this game so much.

Night at the Woods - This is me cheating, I've played it through twice before...it's been on a list in a previous year too. I just haven't played much new stuff this year.

I got Harvest Moon: Winds of Athos & Detective Pikachu Returns for Christmas, I also bought myself the AC: Valhalla DLC's - it is likely all three will be on my list next year.

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

Portrait of a Dangerous Man🎨4

Warnings: (series) non-consent sex and rape; slow creep; cucking; (this chapter) only plot hehe

This is dark!mob!Clark Kent x reader and explicit. 18+ only.  Your media consumption is your own responsibility. Warnings have been given. DO NOT PROCEED if these matters upset you.

Synopsis: Your dream of having your work hung in an art show comes true but your first buyer is not all he seems to be.

Note: I’m at my tipping point, I swear. I’m dealing with everything in our household, new bed (delayed delivery yay!), cleaning, cooking, dog walking, and working. My only escape are my fics and this weekend I’m telling everyone to fuck off so I can do the writeathon... but sorry for the rant, enjoy more Clark.

Thanks to everyone for reading and thanks in advance for all your feedback. :)

I really hope you enjoy. 💋

<3 As usual, I’d appreciate if you let me know what you think with a like or reblog or reply or an ask! Love ya!

Wednesday trickled by like sand in a glass. You could hardly keep your eyes open as you typed away and a double espresso shot was the only thing that saw you through your hours at the gallery. Vanessa was excited for her next event and already asking after some new pieces from you. You promised her some from your storage unit to stave her off as you held in your yawns. 

You collapsed into bed that night beside Marcus. He complained about his day until he drifted off and you followed suit shortly after. You awoke with a decision, the echoes of your boyfriend’s gripes in your head and heart. You hated how miserable his job made him, how dull your own was. It felt like there was nothing else but the almighty dollar.

You called Clark after an email to Jim, your nerves alight in anticipation of the disgruntled reply. It didn’t matter. You were done. You didn’t need to worry about the all caps messages and curt zoom calls.

“Hey,” Clark picked up, he sounded out of breath.

“Oh, hey, sorry, it’s me,” you swiveled in your chair, “I hope I’m not disturbing you.”

“Nope, just getting in a work out,” he grunted, “you’re not bugging me if you have good news for me.”

“I think… I do,” you forced out, “I just sent in my resignation.”

“Mmm, you don’t sound… happy,” he hummed.

“I am, I think I’m just processing it,” you replied, “I said I’d let you know today so I’m letting you know.”

“Well, how soon can you be here?” he asked.

“Today?”

“Sure, why not?”

“I guess, I could leave as soon as you want me,” you said.

“I’ll send a car,” he intoned, “I’ll give the driver your number, if you don’t mind.”

“Yeah,” your voice almost squeaked, “I can do that.”

“Alright, sweetheart, see ya soon.”

The line cut out and you lowered your phone slowly. You stared at Outlook and the new email icon along the taskbar. You closed the laptop and stood. You could worry about the fallout later, right now, you had to get ready for another day of painting.

🎨

It was starting to feel like deja vu every time you arrived at Clark’s house. You got out and thanked the drive, Jeremy, before he drove off. The doors opened before you got to the top of the steps and your host was already dressed in the same outfit he wore for each session. His hair was neat but his beard was even thicker than before.

“I think you can tell I’m a little antsy to start,” he chuckled, “how are you, sweetheart?”

That pet name caught in your mind again. It might just be a habit of his. Nothing more than an absent-minded word.

“Me too, honestly,” you smiled, “but I have a weird question for you.”

“Ask away,” he said as he walked with you through the foyer.

“The beard… you want that in the portrait or--”

“Oh, ha, yeah,” he ran his fingers along his jawline, “I guess I wasn’t thinking. You’re the artist, what do you think?”

“Well, erm, either way is fine,” you said, “I was just… wondering. I’m not even close to starting on, uh, you yet. I mean, right now I’m just working on the background and basic shapes.”

“I’ll let you make the call when you get there,” he said, “say the word and it’s gone.”

“Alright,” you came to the top of the stairs and he pointed you ahead of him.

He followed you as you entered and you went about filling the jar with water and resituating the set up. He sat as you mixed and chose your brush. You climbed the ladder and peered around the canvas at him. He took on the same pose as usual and you dipped the bristles into the pigment. You could make a happy life of this.

🎨

Clark shifted and cleared his throat. You rolled your wrist and glanced back over at him as you drew your hand back from the canvas. He braced the chair and pushed himself up.

“How about a break?” he asked as he shook out his arms, “back’s a bit stiff.”

“Sure,” you said, “I think I could sit down for a moment.”

You took a step down the rung of the ladder but your toe slipped and suddenly your palette was against your chest. You slid down backwards as Clark rushed over and barely kept you from toppling the entire thing over. You laughed at yourself as he righted you and looked down at your paint-streaked shirt.

“Jesus,” you muttered.

“You okay?” he asked as he kept his hand on your upper arm, “be careful.”

“Yeah, I’m-- clumsy, is all,” you carefully pulled away and set down your brush and palette.

“Come on, sit,” he pulled up the stool and planted it before you, “take a minute.”

As you sat, he stretched his arms over his head and then out to the sides. He paced around the other side of the table, long strides as he worked the cramps from his long legs. He stopped and came up to play with a brush as you leaned an elbow on the table.

“Well, I did have another offer for you,” he said, “I was thinking of waiting but might as well ask now.”

“Oh?” you raised your brows curiously.

He swished a slender brush in the air then lowered it and picked at the tip.

“I’m having a get together on Saturday, some business friends and the like,” he said as he set the brush back with the rest, “it won’t be work. You’ve earned some time off. You can even bring the boyfriend.”

“Saturday?” you pondered, “I’m usually at the gallery on Saturdays.”

“It would be great networking,” he said, “and I already told all my friends about you. They’re excited to see your work. It will almost be like a viewing and it’s only right the artist is there.”

“I could make it work,” you mulled, “Marcus would love to come back.” You snickered, “he loves this place.”

“It’s a nice house,” he said casually, “a bit big for one person… hence, the party.”

“I’ll put it in my calendar,” you stood and slid your palette closer and cleaned it off to remix the mess of paints.

“Great,” he said as he rounded the table and brushed close to you, “it’ll be nice to look at a mug besides mine, huh?”

You laughed as you squeezed out the dark paint and nodded, “ha, sure.”

🎨

The rest of your week was spent much the same. Jeremy drove you to Clark’s and you went up to the studio to continue your work between small talk and silences that grew so thick you had to break them with mindless comments. It wasn’t enough to focus on the path of your brush as the man tugged at your attention.

Marcus was excited when you told him about the party. He raved about how he needed to let loose, about how much expensive alcohol he was going to drink, and the awesome backflip he was gonna do into the pool. You reminded him, he hadn’t done anything like that since college but he swore he could still do it.

You didn’t share the sentiment. You were anxious. You were flattered to be invited but despite what Clark said, it still felt like work. His friends were going to be there and he apparently was trying to sell them on your art. 

You didn’t realise until after you hit send on your email, but you put your livelihood in this man’s hands. A man, you reminded yourself, who was little more than a stranger.

On Friday, a day you were thankfully not called to the mansion to teeter on the ladder and paint, the buzzer rang and drew you off the couch from amid your YouTube binge. The man on the speaker called back that he had a delivery and you let him up. You took the box from him, the thick silver ribbon giving away the sender even before you could read the tag.

Inside you found a black dress with little gemstones set into the fabric like stars in the sky. It was nicer than anything you’d ever owned before and a pair of silver shoes were tucked in beneath the outfit. You took the shoes from the tissue paper and something else shifted in the bottom.

You reached in and revealed a velvet box from the depths of overzealous stuffing. You opened the lid and found a simple chain of diamonds. You gaped in disbelief. They were real. The fake ones didn’t look so nice.

You phone chimed before you could even think to call Clark. It was as if he could see you. You answered and your voice warbled pathetically.

“Hi, I was just gonna call,” you touched your throat as it constricted.

“Yeah? I got the notification that it was delivered,” he said, “you like it?”

“It’s too much,” you gulped out, “really, I can’t--”

“I want you to look nice. I want you to feel good and have a good time,” he said, “I feel like you’ve been working so hard. You need a chance to just let it all go.”

“Look, I…” you were uncertain how to handle it. It was more than generosity but you felt wrong denying it as much as you did accepting it, “I’ve never had a boss buy me diamonds. At least let me give those back.”

“Boss?” he mused on the word, “I suppose, but you gotta dress the part now, sweetheart. You’re gonna rub shoulders with a lot of rich dicks like me. Pardon my language.”

“I didn’t realise it was such an upscale thing,” you put the velvet box down and turned to sit on the couch beside the large box. You played with the silver ribbon and chewed your lip.

“Sweetheart, it’s nothing, you got this,” he said, “trust me, if you can win me over, my friends will be child’s play.”

“Mhmmm,” you stared at the tv mindlessly, “Clark?”

“Yeah?”

“Why are you doing all this?”

There was silence and you heard him sigh then a subtle metallic click.

“Because I can. And you’re a talented artist. Didn’t all the big painters used to have patrons back in the day? You know, Da Vinci and all that.”

“Sure, I guess--”

“Look, sweetheart, I’m glad you like the dress, I gotta go.”

He hung up abruptly and you turned your phone to stare at it in confusion. You were starting to get a bad feeling and that little voice in that back of your head, that little sabotaging bitch, whispered in your ear. No, you wouldn’t let your self-doubt get the best of you this time. You either grabbed this chance or you spent the rest of your life doing menial work and painting the world as it passed you by.

🎨

Friday night, Marcus couldn’t stop rambling about the party the next day. You just couldn’t get over the tickle in your chest, the same one you got before job interviews and doctor’s appointments. You were on edge, even as you spent your stress on him, your body writhing against his as you panted and pouted. It had been a while since you fucked. All the work and the stress had just let things slip past you. Maybe with your new gig, you could get back to those early days when it was all you wanted to do.

You slept soundly. You blamed the sex and the momentous week. You got up, had a lazy brunch time meal, and beat Marcus at MarioKart several times over before he convinced you it was time to get ready. 

You pulled on the gifted outfit after fighting with your make-up and hair. You gave a little tada spin to Marcus and he lifted his brow as he tried to figure out his tie.

“Wow, where’d you get that?” he purred, “fuck, let’s be late.”

He ran his hands over your hips as you neared him and fixed his tie for him. You giggled and planted a kiss on his lips.

“Jeremy’s on his way,” you warned, “I don't wanna bite the hand that feeds.”

“Oh, and it feeds you well,” Marcus chirped, “you think he’ll let me have a spin in the McClaren?”

“Maybe, but I wouldn’t. I don’t need to scrape you off the side of the road,” you took your phone as the screen lit up, “come on, he’s here.”

“Fuck, babe, really, you’re gonna make me follow you out of here with your ass looking like that?”

“Stop,” you tittered, “you know, there might be more sellers tonight?”

“Oh yeah? I guess you’ll be paying a mortgage soon enough.”

“Me?” you scoffed.

“Sure, I’ll be your sugar baby,” he kidded.

“Well, baby is accurate,” you teased as you stepped onto the elevator, “please, just behave.”

🎨

You were surprised to see Vanessa at the party but reassured to see a familiar face. Clark had been distracted by his other guests and you did your best to mingle, letting Marcus take the lead until he was distracted by another guest’s Rolex and started asking too many questions. If you did start selling art to these kinds, you suspected you’d be paying for a lot of overpriced brands. That was a worry for another time.

You stood with Vanessa and a man she introduced you to. Bruce Wayne was tall and his dark-hair was combed back neatly as he spoke over the glass of wine in his hand. You were bored of the Monet-Manet argument, one you’d heard a million times from the stubborn gallery owner, and you were at your limit of socialisation.

You excused yourself and put down your unfinished drink on a table. You looked around but couldn’t see Marcus anywhere. The last you saw him, he was with Clark but you couldn’t find him either. You frowned and wandered between the pairs and trios gabbing around the room.

Just past the bar, you looked back and still no sign of either man. You huffed and your heels clicked into the foyer and to the stairs. You’d go to the studio and sit for a moment and collect yourself. You just needed to take a breath.

You climbed the stairs slowly, the din of the party floating up behind you. You came to the top but stopped as your eyes were drawn to a pair of open doors opposite the studio. You neared and stayed against the wall as you peeked inside. Marcus admired an old-six shooter and spun the barrel.

“You got everything, man, I swear,” you hid behind the door frame and listened.

“Eh, it’s all just things,” Clark replied, “I bought that from an auctioneer down in Texas. A verified antique but it just hangs here. Not good for much but looking at it.”

“Dude, what I wouldn’t do to live here? Have cool guns and even cooler cars? Shit, you know how fucked it is that my lady is making bank and I’m over here with my dick in my hands? I mean, I’m proud of her but… I mean, if I could get paid thousands for drawing, I would’ve tried to learn.”

“She’s good. Dedicated,” Clark remarked, “she’s special. Worth more than money.”

Marcus hummed and you heard the barrel click back into the place. Neither of the men spoke as you heard something shift and Clark cleared his throat. Subtle footsteps moved around the room and you pressed yourself to the wall. You should leave and let them talk but you couldn’t help but be curious.

“Isn’t she?” Clark prodded.

“Y-yeah, but… I don’t know. I just wish I had more,” Marcus said, “I probably sound like a chump, huh?”

“You can’t have it all,” Clark replied.

“Says the guy who can buy anything and everything,” Marcus moped.

“Oh?” Clark intoned, “so… how about it then? Fifty thousand.”

“For what?” Marcus chuckled nervously.

“Her,” Clark answered.

“Her-- I… my girlfriend?” he sputtered.

“If money can buy me anything, that’s what I want,” Clark said firmly, “it’s a one time offer… whether or not you agree to it, I’m gonna fuck her.”

You skin crawled at his words and you covered your mouth in disgust and shock. You inched closer to the door to hear better as you waited for the response.

“One hundred,” Marcus said.

“Seventy-five,” Clark countered.

“That’s my girlfriend, dude,” Marcus hissed.

“And yet you’re haggling with me over her. Eighty.”

You tore yourself from the wall before you could hear anymore. You felt hollow and heavy all at once. Your eyes were glossy as you scurried over to the studio doors and pushed the left one open. You unhooked the diamond necklace and tossed it onto the paint-stained palette and rolled up your brushes.

You stormed over blindly to the easel and pushed it over. It clattered to the floor loudly but you were already out the door and halfway down the stairs. You gripped your clutch and the bundle of paintbrushes tightly as you continued on outside and the blurred outlines of luxury cars passed you by. 

You stomped up the long drive in your heels as you flicked away tears and pulled out your phone. You knew it was too good to be true. Any of it; your art, Clark, Marcus. You weren’t good for anyone unless they could get something out of you.

[youwerenevermeanttofeelalone]

A Heartbeat Away | Damian Wayne

✦ pairing — older!Damian Wayne x gender neutral!Plus Size Reader

✦ word count — 2.7k

✦ based off the song I Should’ve Kissed You by One Direction

✦ summary — Damian is haunted by the fact that he only said good night when he should have kissed you.

✦ warnings — light angst, mentions of pregnancy (a minor character is pregnant), mentions of food and beverages, fluff.

✦ author's note i — randomly remembered my obsession with this song and couldn’t get it out of my head.

✦ author's note ii — the parts in italics are flashbacks.

════════════════════════

Ever since he started living with Jason, Damian found himself straying away from the things that held him back.

His life would never be normal, but in hindsight, he could admit things weren’t as bad.

The fallout with his father came crashing down in the worst moment possible — Dick was dead and his relationship with Tim wasn’t the best.

As little as he knew Jason, he was sure he could trust him so he asked for his help instead of somebody else’s.

And Jason didn’t say no. Whether he had the heart to do it or not was irrelevant because he still took Damian in and helped him find a job.

He hated said job.

‘It’s a job,’ you had told him, ‘you’re not supposed to like it.’

You.

Damian rarely stopped thinking about you. Calling it infatuation felt like an understatement, and yet he couldn’t find a better word to describe the whirlwind of emotions you gave him.

He still remembered the day he met you for the first time.

Jason paced in the living room, perking up every time he heard a noise outside the apartment.

You’re driving me insane,” Damian said from the small dining table.

”Roy’s late.”

”Why are you surprised?”

Jason glared at him.

Both of them heard somebody stand on the other side of the door. Their steps didn’t sound like Roy’s.

Pulling the door open, Jason was ready to snap at whoever had knocked.

“You ordered something and gave my apartment number instead of yours. Again.”

Damian didn’t recognize the voice so he slanted his body to the side to see who it was. He couldn’t stop staring.

”I’ll make it up to you.”

”Jay,” you sighed. “I’ve told you before, you just need to tell me beforehand if you don’t want things to arrive to your apartment. My roommate could have opened it.”

Damian chuckled, a single elbow resting on the table.

Jason craned his neck. “You think this is funny?”

”I think you’re a moron.”

”Shut up and come meet our neighbor.”

Damian didn’t have to be told twice. He stood up with an eagerness he hadn’t felt since Jason texted him to let him know he had found the materials so he could build a suit and go back to patrol.

”This is my brother Damian.” Jason turned around to place the package under the table next to the door.

He knew you’d either seen him before or heard about him the moment his eyes landed on you. People always had a visceral reaction when they met him, some found him attractive, others attempted to ask for favors, and some recoiled in fear.

But you didn’t. You held his gaze and stood in the same spot you had been since you knocked on the door.

And whether it had been in a newspaper or a gossip forum, he was glad you knew something about him. There was something about the way you stared at him that screamed for him to trust you. Wishful thinking, perhaps.

“Nice to meet you,” you politely said, smiling at him.

Stunned by the fact that you hadn’t mocked him, and now assuming it wasn’t wishful thinking after all, he tilted his head. Most people did mock now that he wasn’t under his father’s wing.

Still, he said, “Likewise.”

Your smile became warmer. “I live three doors down the hallway in case you need anything.”

He felt a pang in his chest at the gesture. “I’ll keep it in mind.”

Weird sensations in his chest were normal when he was around you. Befriending you was easier than he’d ever admit and talking to you became the highlight of his day.

The pangs in his chest turned into a fluttering sensation in a heartbeat. You’d make him feel breathless when you did the smallest things — when you smiled at him, when you complained about other neighbors with him, when you asked about his day.

He felt special. For once in his life for being the closest he had ever been to resemble a normal person.

And he also remembered, quite painfully, that night he let you walk away without mustering the courage to tell you —or show you— the way you made him feel.

The deserted hallway was yet another proof of how easy it was to lose track of time around you.

Damian hadn’t expected to get back home past midnight or to skip patrol, but 1:00 AM turned into 2:00 and he couldn’t part from you no matter how many times he tried to remind himself to do it.

He hadn’t even expected to enjoy the state fair as an adult, yet he couldn’t remember a time he had more fun than that evening.

You gazed up at him, waiting for him to either do or say something. Anything other than stare at you in the middle of the hallway.

You had already thanked him for making you company, there was no way you’d say anything. And he froze.

“Good night,” he sputtered.

Your brow twitched. “Night.”

He watched you unlock your door and get inside your apartment with a heavy heart.

You moved out a couple months ago and he hadn’t seen you since then. The texts the two of you exchanged were sporadic and they bordered in formal.

He should have kissed you, he was aware of that. And to make matters worse, Jason chewed him out when he found out.

He still looked for you every morning he left the apartment as though you’d remember you had forgotten something. That you had forgotten him.

Jon said it was for the best, that somebody as sweet as you didn’t deserve to carry with his baggage.

Damian knew his best friend to be right, but how could he let go of you that easily when you made him see he was more than his mistakes and regrets?

He didn’t need anybody to carry him, he could drag himself anywhere if needed.

He simply hated the hole in the pit of his stomach every time he entertained the possibility of having to see you one day with somebody else because he wasn’t brave enough to say what he needed to let out.

The idea of being out of time was killing him slowly, so naturally, he’d sought a quick death.

════════════════════════

You gasped upon opening the door. You weren’t expecting anybody to be outside — much less Damian Wayne.

“Oh!”

“Hi,” he softly greeted.

You blinked rapidly. “Did you need anything?”

“I wanted to... Are you on your way out?”

“I’m just dropping this off for my mom.” You momentarily lifted the bags you were carrying in one hand. “She lives nearby.”

He spared a look to the reusable bags in your grasp. “Is she sick?”

“Pregnant,” you explained, playing with your keys. “It’s high risk due to her age so we take as much care of her as we can.”

Damian walked backward, allowing you to come out of the apartment and lock the door.

As you pushed the door to make sure it was locked, he asked, “Would you care for some company?”

Turning around, you gave him a small smile. “That would be lovely.”

He reached over. “Let me help.”

“They’re not heavy.”

“I insist.”

”Okay.” You handed him the bags and took the initiative to lead the way.

He reached your side immediately.

Not knowing what else to do, aware you’d let something slip if you didn’t find something, you made small talk. “How’s Jason?”

“As annoying as always.”

You still remembered when he meant those words, when he complained about Jason and how often they butted heads. His tone was different now, lighter, almost playful.

“Good to know some things never change.”

You walked the streets with an ease you hadn’t been able to in years. Growing up in that neighborhood meant which streets to avoid, and sadly, most of them were unsafe.

There were many things you could have asked or said, perhaps apologize for being cold while texting.

You were in your right to be cold and you could have just not answered, but you wanted to keep contact even though you were hurt.

Damian was great company. It was a shame you misread the entire situation and couldn’t go back to chat with him like before.

It took you a few attempts to get them to talk comfortably, but once he was able to, he didn’t look back. He even gossiped with you.

Stopping in front of the house, you looked around to make sure your mom had the windows open. Once sure, you walked up the front steps.

You withdrew a single key from your back pocket and extended your other hand so Damian would give you the bags.

The floors were recently mopped which meant your aunt had visited that day.

“It’s me,” you yelled so your mom wouldn’t get up. It was her time to be watching TV in the living room.

Carrying the bags towards the kitchen, you caught the jingle from a commercial.

You filled a glass with water and added a couple of ice cubes.

Your mom was comfortably sat on a recliner, feet up and remote control on her thigh. “Hurry back before it gets dark.”

“Don’t worry, a friend of mine walked me here.” You handed her the glass. “Do you need anything else?”

She ignored your question as she took the glass. “Who is it?”

“You don’t know him.”

“Him?” She lifted an eyebrow.

You hadn’t mentioned a guy to her in almost two years now, her surprise was understandable. “Not now.”

“Oh, so it is like that?”

Maybe it was and maybe that was the issue. She wouldn’t blame you if she knew him like you did, if she heard him laugh or saw him change his demeanor to accommodate to somebody else’s sensibilities.

You didn’t think you’d witness anything remotely close to that when you met him for the first time, but you learned really quickly that Damian was full of surprises.

“I’ll call in the morning in case you need something. I’m working ’til 3:00 PM tomorrow.”

“It’s okay.” She took a sip of water. “Did you bring anything sweet?”

“Homemade muffins and a few chocolate bars. Do you want one now?”

She shook her head. “I’ll wait after dinner.”

You kissed her cheek. “Call me, please.”

“Go, go.” She ushered you to go with a gesture of her hand. “Don’t make your friend wait.”

It was your time to ignore her comment.

Damian was sat on the front steps when you came out, looking up at the darkening sky.

“Is everything alright?” you asked in a whisper as to not scare him.

“No.” He shook his head and stood up. “I mean, yes. How’s your mother?”

“She’s good. Having fun watching reality TV.”

Damian squinted. “Is reality TV really that entertaining?”

“It’s mindless stuff, but it’s fun sometimes. You get to judge other people’s lives without feeling remorse because it’s most likely fake.”

The walk back was way shorter and you didn’t want to part. It was time to swallow your pride and your feelings for him.

He didn’t part ways with you at the building entrance. He walked beside you until you reached the elevator — Damian extended his arm to keep the doors open and allowed you to get in first. He followed suit.

You turned the lights on with Damian on your tail. He did wait for you to invite him in, but you were sure both of you knew there was no way you wouldn’t.

“I made muffins. Do you want one?”

Damian nodded.

You guided him to the dining table where a trippy vase in pastel colors rested with flowers.

He looked around the apartment as he walked towards the table. As he sat down, he fixed his eyes on the vase.

“Green or black?”

“Mmh?”

“Your tea.”

You could swear you saw him smile to himself.

“Black.” He placed his cellphone on the table. “You still have that thing,” he said, referring to the trippy vase.

“Why wouldn’t I?”

He huffed a laugh. “Jason said it was ugly.”

“Jason doesn’t have the best taste in the world,” you lightheartedly retorted.

The vase was precious to you, a gift from Damian who spooked you in the middle of a rainy night and made you knock your favorite vase.

You set a plate in front of him and placed the muffin there. “Your tea’s almost ready.”

“No roommate this time?”

“Nope. I miss Lou, but I don’t miss having a roommate that much.”

“I thought the move was temporary just so you could be close to your mother...”

“It is, but there’s still a long way to go. The baby should be here next month and she’ll need help around the house.” You disappeared for a moment as you looked for a mug.

Having found one, you dropped the teabag and poured the boiling water in.

“Sugar.” You put the sugar bowl down just in front of the mug. Feeling his eyes on the side of your face, you gazed at him. “It’s brown, don’t worry.”

He relaxed and uncovered the sugar bowl. “Is the father of your mother’s child around?”

“Yeah.” You sat down on the chair closest to his. “She remarried last year and her husband tries to help, but you know, work gets in the way.”

“Tell me if I can help with anything.”

“Don’t worry, you have enough things to juggle with already.”

“What’s one more? At least let me make you company or walk you home. These streets are dangerous.”

You softly nodded. From the day you met him you knew you would never be able to tell him no — and having his company after a long day sounded nice.

“So...”

“So,” you encouraged him to go on.

“Are you seeing anybody?”

“No. I thought I was a little while ago, but...” You hoped he’d understand what you were getting at. “I guess something got lost in translation.”

“Did it? Or was he too much of a coward to show the way he felt?”

“Don’t.” You hated hearing him talk like that about himself.

“You don’t know how much I regret not kissing you that night. I—“ He sighed, twisting his mouth as he frowned. “I can’t stop thinking about it.”

“At least now I know you did think about doing it.”

“I did. Many times throughout the night.” He turned to the side to fully look at you. “I wanted to find the perfect moment and became overwhelmed. Sounds like a bad excuse, but I swear it’s the truth.”

“I believe you.”

Damian scooted closer and reached over to place his hand on your face. Softly, he caressed your cheek. “I’ve missed you.”

You leaned onto his touch, tilting your head. “Me too. Sorry for being such an ass.”

“It’s fine. I would have reacted similarly.”

“Similarly or worse?”

“Worse.”

You laughed, making him smile.

“May I?”

“Thought you’d never ask.”

Damian leaned in, placing his free hand on the back of your chair as his nose brushed yours.

His lips softly connected with yours, but the slow pace didn’t last. The two of you had wasted too much time, thrown away too many opportunities to be this close —or closer— and patience wasn’t a virtue Damian possessed.

The chair was now balancing itself in two legs, making you interrupt the kiss with a squeal.

Damian then made you stand up and wrapped his arms around your waist. His lips were immediately back on yours.

Your hands went up to rest on his biceps as he kissed you again. His arms tightened around you as he deepened the kiss and you melted.

You melted into the kiss, onto his warmth, due to the fact that he wanted this as much as you did.

Kissing him had become a mere fantasy for you, and there he was, not only making it a reality but exceeding your expectations.

Grabbing him by the neck, you broke the kiss in search of air. His breath was barely ragged and you remembered he told you he could hold it in for a long time.

You needed him to teach you just to be able to kiss him for longer.

“That was nice,” you said, still breathless.

“Yeah, really nice. We should do it more often.”

“Are you asking me out?”

“I’m telling you I want you to be mine.”

All in or nothing, of course. Jason had warned you that Damian didn’t take things lightly.

But you were okay with that.

[spenciegoob]

The 4 Types of Manipulation

A/N: hey hey hey cuties... just thought I’d drop in to tell you I love you and Harry Styles at the Grammy’s, oh and Miley Cyrus in general. Okay that’s it.

Summary: Spencer has to interrogate an unsub, but she has a few tricks up her sleeve.

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Fem Unsub!Reader

Category: Not fluff, but not angst... angsty fluff? fluffy angst?

Content Warning: mentions of murder, manipulation, mentions of sex in the form of flirting, mentions of drug use, mentions of emotional abuse

Masterlist

Word Count: 2.8K

____

Nobody dared to take a breath out of place, every profiler was packed into the room watching with careful eyes at the sobbing girl in the interrogation room through the glass. No one knew what their first step should be, but I guess there’s a first time for everything, right? Winging it was not something anyone in the BAU enjoyed doing, each case needed a thought out plan.

But they’ve seen this unsub before, they know the profile, the history, they know her. So why was she crying so hard that the weight of her head became unbearable, leaving her only option to sob into the crooks of her elbows as best as she could with wrists cuffed to the table?

Nobody knew, except for Spencer Reid.

Emily was hesitant, as expected, to blindly send in one of the best agents she’s ever seen into the room that with each tear shed slowly morphed into a lion’s den. Reid deserved better, she knew that, especially since the last time they dealt with an unsub like this one, Spencer had to be so far out of the loop that the case almost broke him.

He put up a good fight though, and if the determination set in his eyes wasn’t enough to inform the unit chief that she was not winning this argument, his deviance to storm through the door, startling the young woman chained down definitely did.

Why was it always Spencer?

Tears:

“P-please, I didn’t do anything.” Those were the first words anyone’s heard her say since the arrest, even if they were separated by sniffles and choked out sobs. 

Spencer just stared down at her, not taking the risk to further entertain the stuttering girl with wet cheeks and tired eyes.

“I promise I’m not a murderer. You have to believe me, please.” That promise whispered so quietly made with unbreakable eye contact urged him to take a second to reevaluate the situation.

She was apprehended in place of Jacob Hughes, the man they had originally been looking for. There was a chance she wasn’t complicit, a chance she was innocent. Maybe Jacob placed a hair of hers at the latest crime scene because he knew they were closing in.

Or maybe she is just as sick as he is. 

“Prove it,” Spencer said, his tone loud and assertive, leaving no room for argument. She didn’t plan on fighting his demand anyway.

“I- I haven’t seen Jacob for days. He drugged those men, and did h-horrible things. Those poor men.” This struck a nerve, everybody could tell, even the one person in this interaction that wasn’t a profiler. 

Spencer’s shoulders tensed for a millisecond, but she saw it. She saw what her words were doing to him, after all, he used to be one of those poor men she felt so sorry for.

Another loud sob echoed off the concrete walls before she bit her bottom lip and took a deep breath.

“I can’t believe he mur... did that to them. H-how could he?” Spencer watched as the young girl looked up to him like he held the answer to the million dollar question. He studied the way her eyes bounced around his face, looking for something, anything to relieve some confusion when it came to her fiancé.

“Jacob Hughes is what we call a vindictive narcissist and a sadist. He receives pleasure from hurting others, and in this case, drugging and torturing men because he feels he’s been wronged his whole life. The question, however, is why. I know you know, just like how I know you’re aware of his crimes.”

It was a blow so low it could’ve come from hell itself. Spencer regretted it immediately when he watched the way her whole body stiffened at the mention of her knowledge, but he had to be certain no matter the fallout.

“I-I still don’t understand. I’ve never seen him hurt anyone.” Denial, guilt and fear all jam packed into 3 little words that had his heart dangerously close to breaking. The sorrow in her eyes believable enough that Spencer left his standing position between the suspect and the door to sit directly across from her.

She watched his movements with careful eyes, only stealing glances from her peripherals before returning to her cuffed wrists.

“Maybe you’ve never seen him physically hurt anyone, but we know what he does to you.” It was the first and only time Spencer let any emotion, as fake as it was, show in his responses. How could he not try when the girl resumed her sobbing at the implication of her past deception from the man she loves? 

“You know nothing,” she whispered back, her tone laced with defensive anger.

“I know everything.” Was he challenging her?

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Was she challenging him?

“You know what it means.” Yes, he was.

“Do I?” Yes, she was.

The two stared at each other for the entire tone shift in the stuffy interrogation room. The other profilers on the other side of the mirror had no knowledge of how thick the tension had just become because unlike Spencer, they weren’t standing in the middle of it.

Small sniffles were the only noise breaking through the quiet until suddenly, they just stopped.

“Ugh, fine! You win this round. My eyes are starting to hurt from all this goddamn crying. Do people actually cry this much when you arrest them?”

Spencer leaned back in his seat, crossing his arms to clearly convey just how unamused he was with the girl’s antics. She watched him intently, picking apart every move down to the muscle trying to search for any indicators that her little performance worked even a fraction of what she was hoping for.

And she got her wish in the form of the agent’s fingers tapping lightly at his sides under perfectly muscular, if she may add, arms, because any other movement would have been too obvious.

Spencer Reid was getting nervous, because the second her facade faded, he lost the upper hand. She just had to get him trapped in here.

“Oh come on. Not even a ‘good job’? I wasn’t expecting full blown applause, but some appreciation for that show would be nice.” Still, Spencer gave her nothing. He needed her to keep talking, and filling silence was a sure way to make certain she did just that.

“I’ll tell you what you need to know, but first you have to admit that I had you fooled for a second there.”

Lies:

“No.” Unexpectedly, instead of getting frustrated with Spencer’s refusal to play along, she just smiled brighter. This was exciting to her, and it was getting on his nerves.

“What gave it away? Did I look to the left before I spoke or something?” Spencer kept his mouth shut. “Come on, what’s my tell? Enlighten me.”

She copied his movements as Spencer leaned over the cool, metal table slightly, eyes racking over her face, lingering on certain parts for longer than others.

“No.” At this, she huffed back in her seat, leaving the close proximity that would later be used as a secret tool against the doctor before he had the chance to catch on. 

“If you’re just going to shut down every single one of my proposals, then why am I here?”

“You’re here because you’re a suspect in a series of 7 murders in the past 5 weeks.” She perked up at his words, amusement dripping from her features.

“Finally, Doc has something more to say than just ‘no.’ Tell me, was that so hard?”

“No.”

“Ugh!” Rolling her eyes would be giving ammo to the enemy, but the urge to do so was quite strong. In fact, she almost did until she caught a glimpse of her reflection in the one way mirror.

“I’m serious when I say this,” she said, looking directly into Spencer’s eyes so he couldn’t accuse her of lying. “If you take the cuffs off, I’ll answer everything.”

“No.”

“Please! They’re seriously starting to hurt. I put 100% into that performance, and now it’s coming back to bite me in the-”

“Fine!” Spencer stood up carefully, not walking around the table until he was certain the girl wasn’t a flight risk, or worse. When he did finally make his way over, she sat completely still, not taking her eyes off where his fingers grazed hers as the handcuffs unlocked.

A breath of relief escaped her as she rubbed her wrists with the opposite hands, eventually feeling the blood fully return to all 10 fingers.

“Thank you.” It was so vulnerable and raw that it knocked Spencer back for a second. They locked eyes, and something deeper than he was ready for passed between them.

He didn’t know what it was, all he knew was that he hated it so much that he tore his eyes away immediately to return back to his original spot seated across from her.

“Answer me this-”

“I’m gonna stop you right there.” Neither of them spoke for far too much time, and Spencer was growing more annoyed by the second.

“What?” It came out harsh, and mean, and downright cruel, but he couldn’t care less.

“Oh nothing, I just wasn’t going to answer anything. I really just wanted to fix my hair.” And, in being true to her words this time, she secured her hair into a messy bun using the elastic Spencer didn’t even realize was missing from his wrist.

“I’m putting the cuffs back on.”

“No wait,” she pleaded, halting Spencer’s move to get up. “They really did hurt, I wasn’t lying about that.”

“I don’t care.” He made his way over, forcefully grabbing both of her wrists before securing the handcuffs back on. Spencer only regretted his actions slightly when she winced at the metal now back to pressing into her skin.

“Yes you do. It’s your biggest flaw.” Instead of answering, Spencer just returned to his seat, leaning back with crossed arms. He didn’t need to listen to a psychopath tell him his flaws.

“You care too much,” she continued, not minding if he was listening or not. “It gets you hurt, other people hurt. I wish that wasn’t the case. You deserve better, Doc.”

Spencer didn’t engage, opting to gawk tiredly at the suspect, and watch the way her eyes flicker across his features, gauging for a reaction. She wasn’t done.

“Hey, okay, fine. I’m just messing with you,” she laughed, finally breaking her serious facade. “What? A girl can’t joke around while she’s being accused of murder?”

“Accused? Or caught?”

“Accused.” It was final, her tone immediately dropping to a fiery rage. Her defenses were up, and Spencer was never really good at playing on the offensive team.

This time, it was Spencer’s turn to analyze, watching the way the blood rushed to her cheeks with her rising anger level. How all of a sudden her eyes lost their playful glint, giving him the chance to fully see the soul buried deep in them. For a split second, she was completely unveiled right before his eyes.

Spencer, clearly not anticipating just how long the girl in front of him could hold her own, used his last bullet.

He placed the crime scene photos in front of her.

“You know who did this.” It wasn’t a question, he saw it in her eyes. Spencer watched the way they remained stoic even after looking at the bloody walls, and vacant eyes of the deceased.

“No.” Oh, how the tables have turned.

“Who are you protecting?” Her head shot up at his question, eyes flashing red before she blinked it away again. Subconsciously, she started to pick at her fingernails.

“No one.” It was a lie if he’s ever heard one. 

Fear:

“You’re lying. Who is it?” 

“I’m not lying.” She wouldn’t even make eye contact with him. Instead, she gave her undivided attention to her shaky hands confined to the table.

“Yes, you are.”

“No, I’m not!”

“Enough! Who are you protecting?!” At this, Spencer stood up and slammed his hands against the table with a strong amount of force that she flinched hard enough to further irritate her wrists.

He felt awful, the bouncing back and forth between them should have given him enough indicators that she wasn’t lying out of spite. But he couldn’t back down, he had her cornered and her only way out was to tell the truth.

“No one.” She wouldn’t look at him, even as she whispered. “Please stop.”

Spencer truly believed that he had her in a bind, an inescapable one at that, but it wasn’t the truth. Oh no, what the profiler failed to realize was she had him where she needed him.

“I have no information to give you,” she whispered before tagging along. “I’m sorry.” It was the first time she apologized for something Spencer could have seen as an inconvenience.

He believed her, too.

“I shouldn’t have yelled.” That was his form of an apology. Spencer wasn’t going to go any further with it, even if she was coerced into lying by whoever the true unsub is, she was still getting on his nerves.

Her hands were still shaking at this point, and she wouldn’t meet his eyes. Spencer just slumped back into his seat, settling into the silence between them until ultimately he was either called out of the room, or she gave him another indication that her game hasn’t ended.

A loud sigh bounced off the walls. “I don’t care that you yelled in my face. You think it’s the first time a man’s done that? You’re not special, Doctor.”

“I never said I was.” So the game carries on, but this time, she didn’t smile at his sarcastic response. Leaning back in her chair, she huffed a breath before continuing.

“You really want to be though, don't you?”

Lust:

She was pushing his buttons, trying so hard to dig under his skin till she was unremovable. She wanted Spencer to leave this room with her on his mind for the rest of his days.

She was close too.

“No, I don’t,” Spencer deadpanned, trying to keep a cool tone. If he continued to hand her the ammunition she needed, he would be left defenseless.

“Oh come on, loosen up. I was just joking.”  A smirk grew across her features, a thought crossing her eyes. One Spencer knew would not be in favor of his win tonight. “I could help you with that, you know.”

“No, I don’t know.” He did. Spencer wasn’t going to lie to himself and say that the woman sitting across the table wasn’t extremely attractive; she was. He just would never admit it aloud.

“I have a feeling you like to get rough, don’t you, Doctor?” She asked, sitting up and crossing her legs. The stare shared between the two of them was a mix between passion and anger, meeting in the middle to create a new kind of emotion.

“Is this fun for you?” She left out bait, and Spencer was stupid enough to fall for it. Emily once said that a pretty face slashed his IQ in half.

He couldn’t help but agree.

“Undo these cuffs, and I’ll show you what fun is.” She was toying with him now, and they weren’t going to get anywhere, but Spencer couldn’t find it within himself to get up and leave. She had him by the...

“I’m going to get that confession.” It was like he was five years old again, arguing on the playground with the older kids about how their insults didn’t make sense.

“What’re you going to do, punish me?” She asked, the last words in a hushed whisper. When Spencer’s cheeks grew hotter, and his eyes darker, she knew she had him.

“You do like to get rough! My, my, Doctor, you're keeping me at the edge of my seat here.” She let out a boisterous laugh before really digging the knife deeper. “Is that why you kept the cuffs on?”

Before he could snap back, the door flew open and Emily stood there with a tablet in her hand. “You need to see this.”

Spencer got up to leave, thankful for the reprieve even if he did have to return to the interrogation after speaking with Emily. He almost made it to the door before a voice called out behind him.

“Wait!” She called after him, the cuffs rattled when she instinctively went to reach for Spencer. “Aren’t you going to answer my question, Doctor.”

Playing chess his whole life, Spencer had never once played a game where Checkmate presented itself unexpectedly. He was always at least three moves ahead in his mind, seeing the inevitable end before he even began his gameplay. There was a first for everything, because his last move suddenly arose.

“No.”

_____

Join a taglist here Tell me your thoughts on this fic here Have a request? Send it in here

Taglist: @the-girl-who-writes-fanfiction @haylaansmi @masumiyetimziyanoldu @cielo1984 @rexorangecouny​ @username2002​ @calm-and-doctor​ @pieceofried​ @mermaidshmari​ @missyoumaybank​ @everythingbutnormal​ @seasonfivereid​ @no-honey-no​ @muffin-cup​

[prof-peach]

If you could cross over two of your favorite games, which would you choose? Please explain, why that crossover would be a good match.

Oh you’re going to regret asking this one, I’m bout to GET SERIOUS.

So Pokemon, obvs, I love the whole world it’s built in, but the games imo are REALLY boring, I haven’t enjoyed one a lot since gale of darkness, the main ones just are a little too linear obvious plots, pretty standard setups for story and style. Speaking of style, the games lack personality, the models aren’t animated well, moves have no dynamic energy or visual difference at times, and the turn based battle style just feels kind of, I don’t know, old? Slow? Just doesn’t suit what I enjoy personally, gives me a FInal Fantasy vibe and I just cannot stand the speed at which things happen in those games, plus not into 3rd person ‘let’s build a team of people’ much, but that’s a problem for another time. With this all in mind, the game I wish would happen is like gen20 Pokemon, far future sadly, I doubt I’d see it in my lifetime but god I’d be happy if I did!

Ok so take the newest Zelda graphics, the visual treat that was BOTW, open world, puzzles, not JUST combat, you got side missions, hunt the chickens, find missing pets, parcels, items, whatever. Love it! The horse taming?! Amazing you funky little game. Now take the bad guys and beasts from that. And put Pokemon in instead. Give them the diversity, the life and believable natures that BOTW gave the animals, I followed a frog in BOTW for 15 minutes, and it was a great experience, it felt like it was believable. Above world spawning, ACTUAL difficult gameplay, rare spawn rates, make dragons hard to get again, cmon, it’s too easy now, make it so we need a certain set of Pokemon for certain tasks. Water types big enough to carry you will be able to get you to new areas, rock types that can help you climb mountains faster, or break through blocking boulders. Actual towns with more than 4 houses in them, shops, barns, farms, homes. Like little link with the heat, maybe ice types would struggle in volcano areas, or bug Pokemon not be so comfortable in gale force winds. Give the weather more of an effect on your partners. Mounts, don’t even get me started that Pokemon Let’s go had you able to ride any of the larger species, but swsh did not???? Bitch please, give me my rideable Pokemon. The wild area too was far too closed, limited, online was laggy and a mess, camping is limited, let me do more with my team. Pokemon for me is all about the actual creatures, how they live with humans, and the many wonderful things they’re capable of. Yes of course it’s cool they can fight, but like what else you know?

I’d love a game that lets me buy a plot of land, maybe plant things, custom build things. I’m a sucker for the fallout4 settlement builds when they’re modded to hell and back, they’re fun! It can be a really calm and creative process. If I could do that and skip the main campaign and all the battles for a bit? Amazing, it sound perfect for me. I am that distracted hoe collecting flowers while the kingdom burns in the background. Side quests are everything to me. Let me give homeless people enough money to get them in a home? Let me adopt Pokemon that are stray around the town? Plz oh plz bring me a Pokemon game that allows me to work WITH my team to do more than KO other species. I want to save and buy a plow for my buddy gogoat, and grow amazing foods to sell to get currency to spend in decorations, to spoil my team. Give me actual game consequence, if I ignore that sick and injured Pokemon I find in the wild, later maybe it’s family don’t want to help me out with a different problem, too stricken from grief. I am all about the average bits, the old women who need help, the lost pets board in town, the general day to day stuff. Let me get cosmetic items for the Pokemon I keep, cute outfits, special gemstone items, let me actually live with them, or even feel remotely like they’re realistic.

Ok so in game, if it’s looking like BOTW it’s pretty beautiful but also stylised, I’d have it so you can send out a maximum of 3 Pokemon from your 6, using bumpers and such to throw them out. If you hit the trigger you switch from controlling the human trainer, to the Pokemon you’ve targeted with a standard lock on targeting system. You then can be the leader, but be the Pokemon. You could technically defeat the game without a human if you wanted, which incorporates the mystery dungeon games I think, and caters to that crowd. I’d love to see the use of attacks out of battle, things like using water gun to grow plants, using ember to start a campfire faster and stave off the cold. There’s no consequence to Pokemon anymore, and I think that’s where it’s lost me. I have to admit I miss the days of a poisoned pokemon fainting if you don’t heal them soon enough, I miss gym battles that were actually tough, damn, try picking charmander in red and beating brock without grinding in viridian forest first, it’s not easy. And I loved that. Yes it’s a child’s game, it will never be difficult again, but god it’d be nice to have a bit of a challenge, or maybe a difficulty setting, so some could play it with hostility turned off, great for kids, or you can be n adult like I know so many Pokemon fans are, and play it on expert mode and ACTUALLY have to work hard to beat the game. Alternate skill trees anyone? Train gun a fire type to ACUTALLy combat water moves?? Please! Cmon! It frustrated me that every challenger has pretty much a systematic set of moves to use to win. Grass opponent? Fire attack spam until you win. It’s dull, so at least with very difficult tricks to either find or learn in game would make it more achievable if you can send that fire type in and I don’t know, train them so much the heat evaporates the water mid-battle and you suddenly have a shot at winning. Pokemon has taught me that if you work hard enough you can achieve something, but the games just have such strict ways to win. Feels wrong.

In terms of battling, let us BE the Pokemon, let us learn to dodge, train our speed, train our defence, make a team of truly tough Pokemon instead of just, average? Some species have a cap on their skills, a squirtle has lower stat points than a Charizard, but you can’t ever change that? Let me choose the Pokemon I believe in, and let me work with them until they’re just as good, if not better than the game tanks. This would also make online battles more interesting. Everyone picks the top trio. Fairy, dragon, legendaries. And yknow what? It’s boring. That one IRL fight with the monster Pacharisu that won in the world tournament with follow me and the situs Berry? Unbelievable, I love that little rat so much because of this, so let us all have a chance to build a team that’s strategically viable, strong, and potentially a winner formula, even if they aren’t fully evolved, or the biggest Pokemon in the world. Yeah maybe you have to grind way harder with your unevolved Pokemon, but you get to the end game and win, because you put love and time into species that you enjoy, not just good fighters.

Unfortunately I am beholdent to Todd-idiot-Howard, and I love the Eldrescrolls and fallout games (before they got dumb, not that I don’t play the new ones. 76 I’m looking at you, you big asshole game.) honestly I hate online games, so none of that junk, just a good old fashioned open world sandbox game is plenty. Games for me are an escape from others, not an invitation to socialise. To each their own of course, and I do play online games sometimes, just pretty short lived ones, over watch and rdr2 for example. Would they be sometimes better on private servers? Yes of course, fallout76? Want to play with others? No. I do not. Please leave me alone. And if you buy a private server you’re feeding the monster that is Todd Howard, the man the myth the asshole, then we’ll get more bad games like 76. I just so desperately want the Pokemon company to see what a beautiful potential game they’ve got on their hands, that could be suitable for far greater audiences, but instead they’ve focused on the kids. It’s fine, it’s functional, but it’s lost to the fans from day 1, that are all 20+ years old now and want something meatier to play, something far more broad and inclusive. I also hate that there’s no wheelchair option in any Pokemon game. Like cmon, it’s not hard to include that.

In short, BOTW + Pokemon, with a sprinkle of open world sandbox to it, less fighting, more fun. Or, at least both options. Sure, go fight everything, great, but I want to farm carrots over here with 6sunflora, plz let me have some peace.

Edit: I forgot about harvest moon, chuck some of that in there too.

SECOND EDIT: someone in the comments mentioned to put this in Unova? Plz love yourselves, this game would be ALL MAPS. Stuff one singular location, this is the ideal game, put every map in it, join them, put islands in, make them more explorable, more detailed!

[playitagainmyjohnny]

today is the four year anniversary of far cry 5 !! i have a lot of . thoughts i guess . so i'll try to assemble them into something ?? legible lmao but . here goes . i'll put it under a read more bc it's uh a bit of a beast actually haha .

i've never played a far cry game before 5 afaik, outside of maybe building an island or something once in like 2, or 3, years ago when i was playing at someone else's house on their copy . i never really had much interest in it (nothing against the series, i just . didn't . too busy playing fallout for the 30th time i suppose) . even with far cry 5, i didn't even really notice it until recently i suppose ? i ended up getting it on sale on steam and then just . spur of the moment randomly playing it back in january and i . fell in love lol . i was originally drawn to it bc of the sort of redneck/country vibes, plus ofc a religious murder cult (those are two of my absolute favorite things in any sort of media lol) . but in all honesty the game far exceeded any expectations i had for it and i just . enjoyed it so tremendously . i love the characters, i love the environment, i love the music (both the in-game cult radio as well as the instrumental stuff), i just . love everything about it really . and i'm very grateful to have had it in my life for these past few months, to have had it to play during some really difficult moments . along with the actual game itself, having a photo mode option for someone like me is just . incredibly amazing . fallout doesn't have that sort of thing, so i feel really spoiled now actually lol . going back to having to console command my ui away and having no free camera and no time change and so on .... it's gonna be rough . i've taken so many photos, and so many photos i love so much, and it's helped me build this account and find other fans and just share the love of the game with all of you, for which i am also incredibly grateful . thank you all for joining me here, and for all of your kind words and support . it means more to me than words can say . i started playing the game about 2 months ago really and it's been truly wonderful ever since . i started march with a photoset on the first, and then another on the second, and another on the third . i didn't plan by any means to make a post a day, but i decided after a few days of daily posts, maybe i could make a personal goal to post once a day . then i realized on top of that, hey it's the anniversary month so why don't i celebrate it and really keep up with that post a day thing and now here we are, 27 days later and 27 posts later . i plan to finish the month out with a post a day as well for a total of 31 by the end of it all . after that, we'll see what happens ! i'd like to continue posting screenshots for far cry 5 of course; after all, i'm always taking more photos lol . at this point i spend more time photographing hope county than i do actually doing anything of any real value there, but i wouldn't have it any other way really . however, i'd also like to include other games on this account (fallout 3, 4, and nv for sure . maybe rdr2 if i ever start it back up) . i also need to play new dawn (which i own and am just too busy playing fc5 to get to lmao), and i'd love to get fc6 + the joseph collapse dlc one day . so i guess expect photos from all of those games in the future as well as more content from fc5 ! along with that, i'd love to post artwork, links to my fics, and also interact more with other people's content and other people in general on here . but for the month of march, i just want to show my love and celebration for the game for its anniversary with a photoset every day . i'm thinking i might do the same next year, but we'll see . it'll be the five year anniversary for the fifth numbered far cry game so i feel like i have to be a little extra and over the top lol . i hope those of you who follow me now will stick around even with the sort of broadening of content, but if you don't, that's fine as well . ANYWAY i'm done being all gooey and whatnot lol . i'll get a photoset set up for today in a little bit . thank you all for joining me here and sticking around; if you made it this far, know that i love you . if you didn't make it this far, know that i still love you .

i love you . stay platinum pussycats 🖤🖤🖤