#i spent so long tweaking this i just have to post it now before i lose my mind

[spacer-case]

angel left on earth (finding your brethren in the stars)

[thefallennightmare]

Miracle-twenty

*gif created by me. feel free to use, simply give credit*

Pairings: Noah Sebastian x Reader

Warnings/Tropes: forced proximity, slight enemies to lovers, slow burn, smut, angst, fluff, mentions of death, and swearing.

Summary: Reader is the merch girl for Bad Omens. It wasn't what she wanted to do with her life but when her mother got sick with Alzheimer's, reader took a job where she could to help with the costs. She thought it would be a one-time gig but the longer she was on the road with them, the harder she fell for Noah Sebastian; even if he wanted nothing to do with her. She needed a miracle to save her mom and her future.

Author Note: A little light smut for now! Basically, all that it's going to be is smut with a side of fluff for the last few chapters.

Tags: @ada-clarence @nonamessblog @thescarlettvvitch @malice-ov-mercy @crimson-calligraphyx @theoneandonlykymberlee @yumikitten @blackveilomens @cherrymedicine13 @thebadchic @notmaddihealy @jay02bo @beaker1636 @jakekiszkasguitarpick @punk-pr1ncessxoxo @er3nslovergirl @iamdesolate @lma1986 @jessitpwk @themodern-daywednesday @writethrough @bngurngheart @dreams-that-are-anwsered @loeytuan98 @omens-in-reverse @loverofagoodbeard @jay02bo @niicoleleigh @tearfallpixie

The door in front of us unlocked before Noah led me through the threshold, his fingers linked with mine; the ones that weren't wrapped up in gauze. When the lights clicked on, I blinked a few times at the sudden brightness and looked around. I'd been here a few times but now, this time was different. I wasn't here for a party or to hang out for a few hours. I'd be staying here, for how long I wasn't sure.

Noah and I had spent the last few hours in the hospital getting checked out. While Noah's injuries were mild, just a little smoke inhalation, mine were worse. The burns on my hand would heal eventually with some special cream and I had to keep it wrapped. Even though I fell on top of Jolly and Nick, I still bruised my hip and tweaked my elbow. The worst was the amount of smoke I inhaled. Doctors were concerned and wanted me to stay for observations, but I immediately denied. All I wanted was to go home and find comfort in my bed.

Home? I didn't have a home anymore.

Hours later and two different medications for the pain, I was standing in the middle of Noah's living room unsure what to do or where to go. I was exhausted, hungry, and in desperate need of a shower but still felt awkward as I stood there.

"How are you feeling?" Noah asked as he searched for the answer in my face.

I thought about lying, saying I was fine, but with what happened tonight the relationship between Noah and I changed immensely. He deserved to know the truth about everything even if it wasn't something he wanted to hear because it would worry him.

"My throat burns from all the smoke and my hand stings," I sighed quietly.

The doctor said the burning in my throat might last for a few days so I should try not to talk or strain my voice so much. Noah also was dealing with pain in his throat but I was so fucking thankful they didn't have any upcoming shows for a few weeks, enough time for him to heal and rest. It was bad enough that someone snapped pictures tonight of the fire with the guys there and posted them online, the last thing I needed was to be blamed for Noah not being able to perform.

"Why don't you head upstairs and take a shower? I'll make us something to eat then we can rest in bed all day?" Noah suggested with a slight twinkle in his eyes.

"I don't want to impose, Noah. This is yours and Jolly's place. I'll be out of here as soon as I find something."

He brushed a finger along my jawline and I shivered under his touch.

"I've already told you, angel. You can stay as long as you want, don't feel you have to rush out of here. We can figure all this out one day at a time, okay?"

With tears in my eyes, I reluctantly nodded then picked at the grey sweats that the hospital loaned me. "I don't have any clothes."

Noah made a mocking look over me from head to toe while tapping his chin. "I think you're just about my size. I've got some clothes that will fit."

I playfully smacked his chest with my good hand. "You're hilarious."

"Come on, I'll show you to my room and I'll get some clothes for you," he linked our fingers together then led me up the set of stairs to the upper level.

Noah pointed to a room on the right saying it was Jollys room then when we stopped in front of a closed door, he turned to look at me.

"I should have asked if you're comfortable staying in my room with me," Noah said.

The thought of us sharing a bed together made my stomach flip.

"As long as you're fine with me invading your space."

He gave my hand a squeeze. "It's going to be hard getting out of bed in the mornings now that you're here with me. Also, my room might be a mess. I haven't had the chance to unpack from the festival."

I smiled warmly at him. "I can handle a little mess, Noah. Have you seen my life?"

While I thought it was a funny joke, Noah did not.

"Sorry, bad joke," my lips pulled in a tight line.

Noah let me walk inside first and I nearly gasped at what I saw; a clean, tidied up bedroom with a suitcase perched right in front of his closet.

"If this is your definition of a mess, then I would really like to see what you consider a disaster," I chuckled.

Noah brushed a kiss across my forehead before he began rummaging through his dresser to pull out some clothes for me. It was a large Bad Omens hoodie and a pair of black joggers that were long because of Noah's height.

"What, no panties?" I teased with a wink.

Noah's eyes darkened and pulled me into his chest. "Fresh out but I'm sure you'll be fine without them for a little while."

I audibly gulped at how dark his voice had gotten and felt my core twitch with need. It's been so fucking long since I had a release and I wanted some sort of friction.

But the exhaustion of the day outweighed how horny I was.

"I don't have any toiletries or anything," I said, quickly changing the subject.

Noah turned me back to the open doorway of his room and gently patted my ass. "Bathroom is across the hall. There are extra towels in the closet and should be a new toothbrush in the drawer closet to the toilet. For now, you can use my stuff in the shower; top shelf. Tomorrow we can run to the store to buy you some things."

I raised a brow at him. "You thought of everything, huh?"

"If I wasn't afraid of you falling asleep in the tub, I'd run you a bubble bath with candles and all that shit," Noah smirked while running a hand through his hair.

"So romantic," I pressed a kiss to his cheek before walking across the hall into the bathroom.

Once the door was shut I glanced in the mirror and inwardly cringed at how I looked. My hair was covered in shoot and reeked of smoke. The burn on my hand needed more ointment and a new bandage but figured I would wait till after my shower; which would be hard to do with one hand. It felt weird to strip naked in the guys' bathroom and shower in a place that was so private.

The hot water washed away all the events of today, swirling down the drain, as I thought about where my future was headed. The guys all said that I could have my job back if I wanted it and honestly, I did. Now that I had nothing holding me back, I was ready to get back on the road to focus on my career. It wasn't something I expected I would do when I dropped out of college to help my mom but knowing that I was getting to do this with people I cared about; I wasn't complaining.

Holy shit, no wonder why Noah smelled so fucking good.

As the shampoo rinsed from my hair, I thought about how my relationship with Noah drastically changed. In the beginning, I wanted to take things slow but now realizing what he would do for me; I was ready to jump right into this with him.

And jump right into him.

My cheeks burned as thoughts of Noah standing in this shower with me creeped into my mind and I squeezed my thighs tight, hoping it could curb the desire.

With a sigh, I shut off the water and stepped out of the shower, wrapping a towel around me. I dried my hair with another when a knock sounded on the door.

"Angel?"

Opening door a crack so I could peak through, I raised a brow at him.

"Jolly's going to order us something for breakfast. Anything specific you want?" Noah kept his eyes on my face, not letting his gaze drop past my chin.

It was then I realized how late, or early morning, it was so I shook my head. "I'm fine with anything.

He smiled and went to turn away but his name fell from my lips as I called after him.

"Could you help re-wrap my hand?" I held up my injured hand while opening the door farther.

Now, Noah's eyes dropped to the towel wrapped tightly around me. "Do you want to get dressed first?"

I rolled my eyes at him. "It's nothing you haven't seen before, Noah. In person and with pictures and videos."

A red hue crossed over Noah's nose and I smirked at how cute he looked when embarrassed as he stepped into the bathroom and shut the door behind him. As he took old of my arm to undo the wrap around my injured hand, I stared up at him through lashes.

"When did you find my Only Fan's page?"

Noah hesitated for a moment, halting putting on the medicated ointment. "I found it during the first night at the Airbnb."

My eyes doubled in size. "You knew about it for that long?"

"Wait," I said again when a frightening thought slammed into me. "Do you still have an Only Fan's account?"

"No," he said with such sternness in his voice while dropping my newly wrapped hand to my side. "I deleted my account the second you left. It was wrong of me to say those things about you then to go back on your page to watch it just didn't feel right."

"I deleted my page," I reassured him.

Noah reached around to grab a brush then began brushing my hair. The sweet action made my heart swell and I let my eyes flutter shut at the feeling.

"I would have been fine if you wanted to keep it, I understand why you needed to start it."

"I don't need it anymore. Plus, it would feel wrong posting on there now that were-." My words trailed off, unsure what to call us.

Noah set the brush down then raised a brow at me. "What are we, angel?"

I shrugged while holding the towel closer to my chest so he lifted my chin up towards him. "I'm yours; never stopped. I know I've apologized before but I feel like it hasn't been enough."

"I accepted your apology, Noah. There's no need to continue apologizing," I said.

His fingers dropped my from chin to graze over the skin of my neck across my collar bone then stopped right at the top of my towel. There was a rich darkness to his eyes as they burned into me, something sinister in his mind.

"I really want to kiss you," Noah breathed.

I liked the sound of that.

“I want you to earn your way back up to my lips but you’re going to need to work for it," I ordered while placing my hand on top of Noah's head, which was a task since he was so tall, then pushed him down to his knees.

While looking up at me through his long lashes and hair falling into his eyes, Noah licked his lips. "Can I?

I nodded hastily. "Please."

Noah growled as he lifted me onto the bathroom counter and ripped open the towel, it falling to my sides and I leaned into the coolness of the mirror when his warm tongue flicked over my slick folds. I moaned out his name while running my hands through his hair, hips bucking up into his mouth when he pressed the tip of his tongue on my clit.

"Shit," I breathed, eyes fluttering shut.

"Fuck, angel. I'd get on my knees every day for you. You taste so fucking good," Noah murmured briefly pulling away from my clit.

I hissed in pleasure when his teeth grazed over it before wrapping his lips over my sensitive bud and began sucking. A long finger slide between my lips and I opened myself wider for him as he hooked that finger inside of me. With his mouth biting and sucking on my clit and his finger pumping in and out of me, I felt the coil in my lower belly pull tight. I peered down seeing the tattoos on his fingers disappear into me. My nails scrapped at the roots of his hair as I rode his face closer to my release; it was so close.

"Be a good girl and cum for me, angel."

My orgasm came out in a strangled cry as I writhed above him, his tongue assaulting my pussy as the aftershocks tore through me with such force, I fell slump against the mirror. Noah's soft lips kissed up the inside of my thigh, over my stomach, up my chest between the valley of my breasts where his flicked each nipple with his tongue, then he hovered over my mouth waiting for an answer. His eyes were blown wide with lust and suddenly, I wanted to repay the favor.

"I'd say you earned it," I let out breathless.

Noah's lips attacked my own in a hungry kiss, his teeth biting down almost instantly before his tongue painted over it soothing the pain. I moaned into it when I tasted my arousal on him and my arms hung around his neck, nails scratching over the fabric of his shirt; something I wanted off right now. His large hands ran up and down my bare thighs, goosebumps rising to my skin, and I wrapped my legs around him to pull him closer.

A firm knock on the bathroom door made Noah reluctantly pulled away but continued to hold his grip on me.

"Yeah?"

"Breakfast is here, and it's getting cold," Jolly called through the wood of the door.

Noah buried his face deep into the crook of my neck to breathe me in. "I've already had the best fucking meal."

Giggling, I brushed away the hair from his face before leaving a kiss on his forehead. "I am hungry."

"Then we'll continue this later," he promised with a gentle kiss to my lips.

"I'll meet you downstairs," I pushed him away so I could hop off the counter and pat his chest. "You should probably shower; you stink."

Noah scoffed with a chuckle and helped me get dressed since I couldn't with my injured hand and I slipped out of the bathroom when he turned on the shower. It shocked me to see Jolly still leaning up against the wall next to the door. He stared at me with a raised brow, a small smile on his lips.

"Hi," I said quietly.

Jolly hummed. "Glad to see you're settling in fine."

Cheeks burning, I pointed to the door behind me. "I was just showering."

"Sure, sounded like it," he winked before ruffling my hair and heading downstairs.

[bunnimatsu]

Now what about dom Matsus 😈

im tryna clear out my inbox so, thank you anon for this one!

tag(s): nothing too hardcore but if it’s too much for you, i’m sorry!, lowkey cringe, nsfw, dom matsus, not really edited and its basically just me horny talking and pulling it out of my ass, brat tamer karamatsu (that one’s for you @thebardisabird and @squidzza , I DID IT)

i tried to finish this as fast as i could.

osomatsu, who’s absolutely merciless when it comes to pounding you. he’ll grip your hips and slam himself into you over and over again, never slowing his pace down as wanton cries leave your lips. when you throw your head back in ecstasy, a smirk forms on his lips. he leans down and nearly whispers in your ear: “yeah you like that? tell oso how it feels…~ say it~” and when you can only let out cries and whimpers, his hand comes down on the fat of your ass and thighs while demanding you say who’s making you feel this good.

karamatsu, who’s a brat tamer. he’s the second oldest. he has younger brothers who get on his fucking nerves, you think he has time for YOUR shit, [name]? imagine: you’ve spent a looong time dragging him around the mall and doing things YOU wanted but the one time he wanted to do something, you whined a little and said no. kara had it rough the day prior and he thought shopping with you today would ease his mind but that little stunt made him snap. he grabbed your chin and tilted it up to look at him, his eyes a darker brown than you originally thought. he looked mean… “darling…i’ve spent so long trying to please you today…just like how you deserve..but the one time i ask for something i want…i get a no and a whine.. i’m very tired, cherie…” you’ve never seen him like this before and to be honest, it made you squirm a little. “you’re going into this store and shutting that pretty little mouth…understood?”

and that was the night karamatsu absolutely rocked your shit. hands tied to the bed post and having no mercy on your pretty body.

choromatsu, who no longer gets nervous around you and started to show the strict side of him. at first, he was always careful when it came down to spending a night with him. gentle caresses and slow yet nervous kisses down your body, asking ‘i-is that okay..?’. you loved it, sure, but you wanted more. you knew what choromatsu was capable of, especially when it comes down to being mean. you see it when he’s badgering at his brothers, yelling at them for being lazy pieces of shit and…ordering them around. to be honest, it was kind of sexy. he was a little shocked when you asked him if he can apply that kind of behavior in bed but he didn’t oppose to it. so naturally, you found yourself facing a mirror while you were sat on his lap, bouncing on his cock. his hands made their way up to your chest to tweak your nipples and when you tilt your head back in pleasure, he firmly grabs your cheeks and makes you look into the mirror again. “don’t look away. i told you not to look away.”

ichimatsu, who always has to have you bound. gagged, on a good day. he puts you in positions you didn’t even know existed and it leaves your poor muscles sore the next day. ichi loves to get rough with you, treating you like you’re his prey while he’s the predator. your entire body would always be covered in bruises and bite marks and it makes him always smirk in pride. he always leaves your legs shaking, whether he’s drilling into your sopping wet pussy or driving his tongue deep into you, hoping to get more and more of your sweet essence. more. ichi wants more of you. and he’ll do anything to get it.

jyushimatsu, who pins you against anything and everything. there isn’t a single piece of furniture in your house that’s untouched by you and him. he’ll have sex with you at any chance he gets if you ask him. he’ll hold you up against the wall, his biceps flexing a bit in his compression long sleeve as he pistons his hips into yours. the usual wide-mouthed smile he has on his face is replaced with a look of concentration, focused on your body and how it reacts to his touch. but that also quickly fades back to his smile as he looks at you and laughs almost joyously, “am i making you feel good?”

todomatsu, who loves to tease you. light feather touches as you sit in your chair at the mixer he took you to. you knew what he was doing, and by god, did it make you squirm a bit. it all started because atsushi was sat across from you. you were just being friendly to the guy, chatting like how you normally would. but todomatsu hated that. he didn’t like the way his ‘friend’ looked at you. only he was allowed to look at you like that, why were you letting him? and then you felt it. todomatsu’s hands gently rubbing your thigh. you looked down at his hand then up at him, moving your leg away then going back to talking to atsushi. mistake #1. he didn’t like that, so he took it a bit further. when atsushi started talking to the others at the table, you felt your boyfriend’s hand dip between your thighs, brushing against your heat slightly. you jerked forward and played it off as something else when atsushi asked if you were okay. todomatsu retracted his hand as if nothing happened, giving you a stupid coy smile. that night when you two went home, your legs were immediately spread open while he worked the vibrator against your aching cunt. you cried for forgiveness as you made a mess for what seemed like the hundredth time. he smiled sadistically as he cooed at you. “i don’t think you really are sorry~”

—————————————————————————

and that’s that!

sorry if it’s underwhelming, writing’s still not my strong suit.

anyway, i have to tell you guys agaaiiinnn, my ask box regarding writing is closed so please, don’t send me stuff unless i say otherwise 🥹

other than that, love ya!

- jarvis <3

[cozy-cinnamon-roll]

Stitches (Part II)

(Read Part I Here! used to be We Interrupt This Broadcast... changed the name because I feel like this fits better 😅)

Fandom: Hazbin Hotel

Pairing: Ler!Rosie, Ler!OC, Lee!Alastor (strictly platonic)

Content/Trigger Warnings: tickling, very brief blood mention, medical themes (non-graphic & painless). And again, this is set right after Alastor gets his ass handed to him by Adam, so you can expect some angst (don't worry, he gets better).

If there are any trigger warnings you'd like me to add in the future (and/or to this fic), PLEASE let me know! I am always happy to oblige. 💕

This is a ticklefic! If that's not your cup of tea, kindly move along.

"Almost ready" I said. "Basically finished" I said. Sorry y'all, the Chronic Illness Fairy struck. 😅 I will say this was my favorite part to write, but also the one I'm most uncertain about... bit more angst in this installment and I'm not much of an angst writer lol... but with Rosie in the mix (especially as a ler), angst never lasts long. 🥰

Also I changed the title. Hopefully it's not confusing that way... cuz without Part 1 this fic makes zero sense 😅

One last thing... I'm so happy y'all like Trudy! Was thinking about posting a lil sketch of her at some point (I need a new insomnia project now that this fic is done 😅). I've been having a truly awful few weeks on the anxiety front, so all the positive feedback on Part I has been quite literally making my days 💕

Hope you enjoy!!

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"Ooh, you stubborn little bastard. You're still gonna refuse to laugh?" Rosie mutters.

Alastor doesn't dare try to speak. All he can manage is a defiant shake of his head.

"Look, my friend. If you 'don't mind a little tickling,' and getting all giggly is your specialty…" Rosie tweaks his bottom rib, eliciting a noise that comes just short of a squeak. "What, exactly, is the problem here?"

"I'm supposed to be in control!" he grinds out through his twitching grin.

"You are in control, sir." Trudy abruptly withdraws her hands, holding them up innocently. "You can tell me to stop at any time."

Alastor cringes. He was sorta hoping no one would point that out.

"Which is why I find it so fascinating that you haven't yet." A sly smirk creeps across Rosie's face.

Oh, for fuck's sake.

"I- I'm humoring you!"

"Humoring me?" Rosie tilts her head. "My dear, I hope you're not doing this just for my sake. If you don't want Trudy to check for further injury-"

"No, I do! O-on my terms!"

"This is on your terms."

"Yes, but-"

"In fact, you insisted."

He stumbles again, before mumbling another meager, "…to humor you!"

Trudy shoots her boss a disoriented look - but Rosie, as usual, is hearing her friend loud and clear.

"Alastor." Rosie rolls her eyes, gestures for Trudy to step aside, and scoots over to place a hand on his knee. "Adam is dead. Everyone in hell thinks you're either succumbing to your wounds in some remote gutter or hiding in whatever alternate dimension you just spent the last seven years. You're not even 'on air'." She leans in. "You can drop the act for a moment, if it's what you need."

That certainly hits the mark. For the first time, Alastor's smile falters - not completely dropping, but certainly losing much of the strained quality it's had since he arrived.

"I wish I could, my dear."

Encouraged, Rosie continues. "Well, what's stopping ya? As much as I love spending time with Alastor the Radio Demon… if you wanna take this opportunity to let out whoever's underneath that effervescent grin of yours, you know we wouldn't mind."

Alastor swallows - and for the first time in a decades, Rosie finds his expression difficult to read. "Rosie, I'm afraid I can't really..."

"I mean, you've been holding that same silly show-host-smile for years! Don't tell me you've never gotten tired of it!"

"It's sewn on, Rosie."

"…What?"

He hesitates. "Let's just say today wasn't the first time I've been, ah... stitched up." As he speaks, he gestures to his toothy grin. And for once, there's not a trace of distortion in his voice.

Rosie's dark eyes go wide when she realizes what he means. The cannibal overlord just stands there for a beat, in an uncharacteristic moment of shock.

But, being Rosie, she quickly recovers. "Well, so what?"

"I'm just saying, I'm afraid I can't really drop the act."

"Nonsense! Since when has your act had anything to do with your face?" Rosie flicks her hand, as if brushing the thought aside. "Who cares if you can't show genuine Alastor. I wanna hear him."

"But my microphone..."

"You're doing just fine without it."

Once again, this attempt at reassurance only makes Alastor look more disturbed. "Th-this can't be me!"

"...Well, no. This right here sure isn't the Alastor I know. But…"

Alastor is barely listening to her anymore. His broadcast persona has been his sole identity since he was alive. Now his radio tower has been reduced to rubble, his microphone snapped clean in half, even his carefully-styled clothing left in tatters…

If this is the Genuine Alastor he's now stuck with - panicked, stuttering, weak - he can't imagine how he'll ever be able to face the rest of hell…

But these racing thoughts are once again interrupted by nails tracing up his sides. A sharp yelp cuts the air as poor Alastor just about jumps out of his skin.

"…Perhaps I can offer a little help?" Rosie suggests gently, once she has his undivided (and adorably flustered) attention. "On your terms, of course?"

Alastor just gazes back at her for a long moment. "What do you have in mind?"

"I happen to know something about you that even you can't fake."

The radio demon hesitates… before heaving a sigh and, to Rosie's surprise, giving a small nod of consent.

She breaks into a brilliant (and frankly terrifying) smile.

Before Alastor can brace himself, Rosie's hands have both found his sides and begun working into his waist. Having just watched him squirm around under Trudy's thorough probing twice (and adored every second of it), she already has a pretty good idea of where his worst spots are.

Which is made abundantly clear by Alastor's reaction. Within seconds he's gone from still trying to hold it all in by habit, to giggling into his hands, to cackling hysterically.

And it's the kind of laughter she's spent the last seven years missing. This isn't the confident, taunting chuckle he brings out for battles or brushing off rivals; this is bright, helpless, occasionally hiccuping laughter, the kind that is nearly impossible for him to stop once he starts - and the kind she only has the privilege of hearing when something truly amuses him.

"You can't sew your laughter on," Rosie reminds him. "This is all yours."

Rosie's fingers creep up under his shirt to scribble on bare tummy, adding a couple new sweet spots to her mental catalogue. This technique brings out even more of her favorite little quirks: the way he bats playfully (and completely ineffectually) at her wrists; his repeated attempts to speak around his laughter that only result in frantic spurts of incomprehensible, giggle-laced gibberish.

As she traces her nails across his lower belly she also finds a tiiiny layer of unexpected pudge. Which probably shouldn't surprise her - he's been out of the battle scene for seven years, after all. All those deer carcasses have to go somewhere.

Regardless, she finds it terribly endearing for some reason... and the surge of affection translates into a corresponding surge in the intensity of Rosie's tickles.

"AHaha! Ro- Rosie!" he blurts, his voice jumping a full octave higher than normal. "Stop!!"

Rosie removes her hands immediately. "Stop?"

"Aha- ah- well- I mean, er…" He stumbles breathlessly, and gives a sheepish cough.

"You didn't really want me to stop, did you?"

Rosie resumes with a chuckle, reeling herself in just a little. "How 'bout we say... oh... 'enough,' if you really want me to quit?"

Of course, she has to go and say it out loud.

"M-more of a reflehex..." he admits reluctantly.

Alastor tosses a shaky thumbs-up at her, already too lost in his own giggles to manage a verbal reply.

And he's gotta admit… Rosie was absolutely right. He wouldn't stop her right now for all the souls in hell. There's a reason Alastor has the most recognizable evil cackle of any other overlord. He can't help but find dissolving into laughter as cathartic and exhilarating as always - even if this time, it's not at some poor soul's misfortune. It's a result of his best friend's affection for her darling deer demon.

"As fun as getting your soft little belly is," Rosie muses, pausing to let Alastor catch his breath for a moment, "I can't help but wonder if you're ticklish anywhere else…"

Alastor may be off the air, but Rosie can practically hear the screech of microphone feedback just by the look on his face. "….I plead the fifth."

"Have you considered his ears?" Trudy pipes up shyly. While she'd managed to restrain herself behind an impeccably professional bedside manner earlier, it had taken everything in her power not to stroke Alastor's ears when she'd been close enough to do so. They were just. so. fluffy.

"Ohhh, heavens…" Alastor, for his part, curls in on himself at the mere suggestion.

Rosie grins. "Hey, 'no' is always an option."

A long pause. Alastor can't believe he's considering this. But the sensation of being tickled, as unbearable as it is, does feel awfully pleasant… and it's been so long since anyone has dared to touch him…

And what else does he have to lose at this point, anyway?

"I suppose if you're… very gentle���"

"Are you aware that your ears are the softest thing in the nine circles?"

This stipulation ends up backfiring. When it comes to his ears, gentle is worse. So, so much worse.

Poor Alastor is too busy clutching his stomach and snickering madly into his sleeve to reply.

"I should know, I work in retail. These right here-" Rosie traces her fingers down the feathery-soft edges, sending the radio demon into a new round of hysterics. "-Would fetch a pretty penny."

"They're nohot for saHA-ale!!"

"Nooo, I should say not." Rosie's hapless victim lurches back into the cushions as her fingers find the fluffy region at the base of his ears. Even without the microphone, his cackles have no problem filling the room. "You're the only demon classy enough to wear them."

"And don' you - GAHaha! - f-forget it!" He's so drunk on laughter now that he's beginning to slur his words. His careful elocution has gone the same place as his steady tone, and lack of stutter.

Luckily, he's also far too drunk on laughter to care.

...Right about there, Rosie notices that the faint hum of radio static in the air is no longer just in her head.

He is laughing his heart out for the first time in weeks. Genuinely laughing for the first time in decades. And laughing completely for himself, for his own enjoyment, without need for intimidation or control or image or audience, for the first time since long before he died.

While Trudy typically can't say much for her self-preservation instinct, she's got enough of one to feel hesitant joining her boss in tickling the most powerful overlord in hell (outside the pretense of medical intervention, at least). So she just stands back, watching fondly as The Most Dangerous Overlord This Side of the Pentagram utterly destroys the deer demon.

...At least, until she notices a flicker of green light out of the corner of her eye. Lying forgotten on the end table, the splintered ends of Alastor's microphone are sparking and crackling like live wires.

The surgeon creeps over for a closer look, staring in fascination. And then - just as Rosie gets poor Alastor behind the ears and delivers a scribble to his tummy at the same time - she ever-so-gently nudges the fractured ends closer to one another.

To her surprise, a bright green spark arcs clear across the gap. For a fraction of a second, the whole staff radiates a flash of a familiar green glow.

--------------------------------------------------------------

"Keep him laughing, Rosie," Trudy murmurs over her shoulder. It appears the Radio Demon's downfall will be nothing more than an intermission.

Thanks for being so patient with me y'all! Hope it was worth the wait 💕

💜- Cozy

[levi-supreme]

Rei's Birthday Event: Spring date with Levi

Characters: Post war!Levi x Survey Corps fem!reader

Genre: SNK!canonverse

Warnings: SFW, fluff. Reader insert (y/n). SNK final season spoilers!!!! Some references to the canon events of snk (slight mentions of depressive episodes, mentions of death etc).

Word count: 3.6k

A/N: Thank you very much to my dear anon Victoria for the request!! I actually have two very similar spring time date requests, as such I decided to tweak this up a little. There will be mentions and references to canon events, but nothing angsty at all!!

I'm sorry this took so long to complete, and I'm still going through a bad writer's block lol but thank you to everyone for being so patient! I hope you all like this <3

Read the original request here.

"Levi Heichou!" You called out, excited to see your lover appear before you. 

"Tch, I told you so many times before to drop the shitty title, we're no longer in the Corps anymore," Levi rolled his eye—his good one—as he approached you. His hair was neatly combed back, his fedora in his lap. Levi was wearing a simple white button shirt with black long pants. His hair had grown longer; his fringe now growing past his eye. You missed how he used to keep his hair short, but you loved how nice Levi looked with longer hair too. 

You looked hard at Levi, studying every line and wrinkle you see, and the barely visible strands of grey on his ebony hair. Years of fighting on the front line had taken a toll on his body more than you liked, even though he claimed it didn't really affect him much since he had the Ackerman bloodline. 

Although the war ended, you knew Levi still wasn't at peace. You could tell he was restless, he didn't like being cooped up at home. His eyes didn't seem to have life in them like they used to, and he just seemed so sluggish all the time. You knew Levi wasn't sleeping well too; sometimes the ache in his knee woke him up, and sometimes, it was the demons Levi were fighting in his head. Levi didn't say it, but you knew he missed the old life, the one where he spent half his life fighting for a cause he believed in, and now that he fulfilled his mission, his life felt aimless; he didn't know what to do, and what to continue living for. 

It took you a long while to convince Levi to even agree to step out of the house and go on this picnic date, and deep down, you knew you had to make every minute out with him worthwhile.

"What are you staring at?" Levi's voice brought you back to the present, "thinking of something?" 

"Nah, I'm just thinking of asking Mikasa to send me some of those pearl eye cream from Hizuru. You know, the one Lady Kiyomi sent her for her birthday?" you answered, bringing a pair of shoes and putting them on for Levi, "I heard they're good for reducing wrinkles, especially around the eyes." 

Levi's eye narrowed. "Oi. Are you saying—"

"Did Big Sister y/n just call Uncle Levi old?!" A high pitched voice came from the kitchen, and you felt an impact around your midsection. A few moments later, a head of blonde hair appeared by your side too. "Big Sister y/n just said Uncle Levi has wri—"

"Gabi! Shush—" Falco covered Gabi's mouth while she tried to wiggle herself free. You giggled and glanced at Levi who was eyeing the three of you, and quickly tried to separate the younger ones. 

"Oi. You brats. Ganging up on me now?" Levi crossed his arms, looking utterly displeased. Falco continued covering Gabi's mouth while she tried to stomp on his foot. 

"Of course not, Levi, we wouldn't dare to offend our elders do we, kids?" You joked, earning another stare from Levi. Before he could say anything, you quickly ran into the kitchen with Gabi and Falco.

"Big Sister y/n!!! Did you see Uncle Levi's face when you talked about wrinkles?" Gabi laughed while Falco appeared with a picnic basket in tow. 

"Shut up, Gabi! Uncle Levi and Big Sister are late for their date already, stop disturbing them!" Falco sighed and tried to pull Gabi away, "here, Big Sister, I hope you and Uncle Levi have lots of fun today!" 

You nodded and waved the kids goodbye and went outside, looking again at Levi who still had his arms across his chest. Onyankopon was right behind Levi, giving you a smile. 

"Come on brat, let's go." Levi rolled his eye again as you passed the picnic basket to Onyankopon. Pushing Levi's wheelchair, Onyankopon told you to wait by the pavement as he went to drive the car over. 

"... do I really have wrinkles?" Levi muttered once Onyankopon left. You snorted and tried to hide it with a small cough.

"Hmm… well… I mean, uh… your crow's feet do seem to be… uh—" 

"Fine. Enough." Onyankopon arrived and Levi dismissed you, clearly knowing the answer in his heart. You giggled as he came out to help Levi up into the car while you kept his wheelchair in the boot. 

"The weather today is lovely," Onyankopon smiled as he began driving, "it's a good day to be out in the sun."

"And yet, she still does not want to tell me what we're doing today." 

"You'll find out later." You chuckled again holding Levi's hand, watching the scenery outside pass by. You sought help from Onyankopon and the kids weeks ago to look for nice picnic spots in Marley. With the spring breeze flowing and the flowers blooming, you thought it would be a perfect opportunity to spend undisturbed time with Levi. You thought a change of scenery might do him some good too; to help him out of this depressive state. After another quarter, Onyankopon stopped the car near the park and went to take Levi's wheelchair out. 

"I'll pick you two up at eight, is that okay, y/n?" You checked your watch and it was a little past four. You nodded your head and thanked Onyankopon before taking the picnic basket and another bag from the front seat. Placing the picnic basket on Levi's lap, you helped him put on his fedora and his eye patch before wheeling him ahead. 

"So, are you going to tell me why we are here in this godforsaken place?" Levi questioned you again as you began pushing him on a stony path. 

"I'm taking you out on a date, obviously." You teased him again as you suddenly pushed him faster, causing his fedora to nearly fly away. Levi tutted angrily and said you should never be allowed to push his wheelchair again. 

A few moments later, you and Levi arrived at a shop offering bicycles for rent. You paid the shopkeeper some money and then he rode a quadricycle over. You took the picnic basket and bag from Levi's lap and placed it in the front seats of the quadricycle. Once more, Levi gave you a look of confusion. 

"Well, up now, I rented this for the day," you gestured. Levi awkwardly looked away, subconsciously placing his hand on his bad knee and grimaced, knowing that you of all people should know how he wasn't like before. What were you thinking, making him cycle when you knew it was going to be hard for him?

"Come on, Levi, stop depending on that wheelchair. You have to prevent your knee from becoming worse, right?" You smiled encouragingly, offering your hand out. You had expected that Levi would be unhappy, but you likewise knew that you shouldn't treat him differently from before. Whether or not he was Levi Heichou of the Survey Corps, or now as Levi the war veteran, he was still Levi—the Levi you loved. Whether he had physical disabilities or not, Levi was still the man you want to spend the rest of eternity with. You didn't want to push him, you wanted Levi to get out of this self-pitying state himself. After a long while, Levi held your hand and pushed himself up from the wheelchair. Slowly but steadily, you guided Levi up on the seat of the quadricycle, placing his feet on the pedals. 

"W-wait. What about the wheel—"

"Don't worry, sir, your item will be safely kept here." The shopkeeper kindly replied and Levi seemed to relax a little. It was hard trying to move around without the wheelchair, but maybe you were right. He should try to depend on it less. "We'll close at around 10pm, so please remember to come by before then." The both of you nodded and you took your seat on the left. Looking at Levi, you gave him another smile and asked if he was ready. You could see Levi massaging his knee again. Levi took a deep breath and sighed, telling you to start pedalling. 

It was hard at first, but Levi gradually got used to the momentum again. The both of you kept your pace slow, taking your time to enjoy the scenery passing by, the sound of birds chirping, and the gentle rustling of leaves. The sun was obscured by the clouds and there wasn't much of a crowd as well. You saw Levi's face relax gradually, the crease on his forehead slowly disappearing. Levi seemed to be more at ease with paddling on the quadricycle as well. You smiled to yourself. Bringing Levi out was indeed doing him well. 

"Are you doing okay?" You checked in with your lover, making sure he wasn't overexerting himself. After he gave you a nod, you pointed to a large shady tree about 200 metres away, telling Levi that it was the next stop. Reaching the tree, you told Levi to remain seated first. 

"Are you up for a walk?" 

"... Hah?"

"A walk, Levi. Let's go for a walk."

"N-no, I don't think I can—"

"We'll walk slowly. Forget about the walking stick. You don't need it, I'm here." 

Levi looked hard at you, face remaining emotionless. The frown on Levi's face became more and more evident as the seconds passed. You continued to stare right into Levi's eye, your resolve unwavering. A few seconds later, Levi broke eye contact and sighed again before reaching out his hand towards your direction. 

"You better not make me regret this," Levi muttered under his breath, "you're forcing a crippled man to walk when you jolly well know he can't." You rolled your eyes.

"First off, Levi"—you took his hand and slowly guided him down the quadricycle—"you're not crippled. Secondly, you walk fine. Thirdly, think of this as rehabilitation, hmm? And lastly, stop complaining like an old man." You stood on Levi's right side and interlocked your arm with his, making sure he wasn't putting too much pressure on his knee. 

"Where are we going?" 

"Not far. We're just going to that small pond over there," you pointed towards a pond just in front, "let's go and feed some ducks." Levi scoffed hearing you.

"As long as they keep their feathers and shit to themselves." 

The walk to the small pond was slow but pleasant. The heat from the sun was warm against your skin, the scent of the earth was refreshing. Levi held on to his fedora as the wind blew gently, and the sound of the grass and gravel crunching underneath your feet was playing like a contrasting melody. Once you two reached the pond, you opened your sling bag and took out a slice of white bread. Levi raised his eyebrow slightly.

"These are stale bread from a week ago." You chuckled before tearing it into half, passing one to Levi. You further tore your half into more tiny pieces before throwing them little by little into the pond. Some of the ducks in the pond started waddling over. Several tortoises also popped their heads above the water. There were also fishes fighting amongst themselves for the last few pieces. Levi looked at you before tearing the bread in his hand, scattering them all across the pond. The fishes and ducks dispersed and finished all those pieces of bread within the next minute. 

"Do you have more bread on you?" Levi asked as he finished scattering the last few pieces of bread in his hand. You laughed and took out a few more slices.

"Maybe we can go to the pier next time," you commented once those hungry birds finished all the bread in your bag, "we should try feeding the seagulls." Levi scoffed again and let you hold on to his elbow. 

"Tch. And have them shit on our heads? No." 

The both of you began walking back to the quadricycle. Reaching into another bag, you took out a small paper kite. Levi raised his eyebrow again. 

"Do you like it? I had Gabi and Falco do it together with me." You smiled and flipped the kite over, letting Levi see the doodles they did. Levi smirked when he realised who the five blobs of colour drawn on the kite were. You held onto the string and passed Levi the kite, telling him to lift the kite above his head while you moved back. 

"OKAY, LEVI, THROW THE KITE HIGH AFTER I COUNT TO THREE!" You shouted and Levi gave you the thumbs up. After counting to three, Levi threw the kite high and you jogged backwards, pulling the string up to get the kite into the sky. Releasing the string bit by bit, Levi slowly made his way to your side as the kite now started flying a short distance away. You gave Levi a smile and tied the string around the tree trunk before going to the quadricycle, taking out the picnic basket and setting the mat.

"Now… let's see what the kids made for our picnic." You rubbed your palms together excitedly and opened the basket. You took out a container of hot stew, some freshly baked sourdough bread, cheese, mushroom quiche, and a small container of fruits too. You arranged the food on the mat and took out the bowls, cutlery, and a few serviettes. Pouring some stew into the small bowl, you passed it to Levi's left before giving him the spoon. 

"It seems pretty decent," Levi uttered as he took a spoonful of stew and eyed you, "are you sure they did it all on their own?" You ate some stew and nodded.

"Well, Onyankopon did give them pointers, and I was the one who gave them the recipes, but yeah. The kids made it all by themselves. Not bad, huh? Maybe we should let them open a small food stall along the streets." you took another few mouthfuls of stew, "it's time for them to contribute to the household finances." Levi tutted angrily instead.

"They're too young to be doing shit like that, you brat. Don't be ridiculous." 

You giggled, cutting some mushroom quiche for Levi. "I'm joking. Of course I wouldn't let Falco and Gabi do something like that. " The crease on Levi's forehead disappeared again as he ate, passing you his bowl for more stew. Levi and you took your time savouring the good food prepared by the two kids. It was pretty decent, and indeed you were secretly thinking of letting them open a small food business once they are of age. 

Once all the food was finished, you told Levi to pack everything fast. Bewildered, Levi didn't say anything, yet he wondered what you were up to again. You got Levi up onto the quadricycle again and told him that there was one place you wanted to bring him. Stopping the quadricycle, you helped Levi down and laced your arm around his again, walking him to some benches ahead. The park was located right next to the sea, and it was pretty empty, just the way you hoped. 

"Come on," you muttered as you helped him down, walking towards the bench, "we're just in time." 

"For what?"

"You'll see."

Taking your seats on the bench, you checked your watch before glancing ahead again, looking at the dispersing clouds. Before long, the sun started to set, painting the sky a beautiful hue of red, orange, and yellow. You could feel Levi let out a breath he didn't know he was holding, and you grabbed his hand, feeling your fingers interlock. The both of you continued to stare silently at the magnificent view ahead, watching the sun descend lower and lower, listening to the waves crashing on the shore, feeling the wind blowing against your skin. You could feel Levi's calloused fingers caressing your knuckles, and the familiarity tickled something in your memory.

"Brings back memories, huh, Heichou," you peeked at Levi, seeing him trying to hide a small smile as well, "we used to do this all the time." Levi hummed in agreement, keeping his eye on the sunset instead. 

"I still think the view from the top of the walls were nicer though"—you let go of Levi's hand and stretched your hands—"it was higher, more windy, less obstruction, and more—"

"And more dangerous," Levi frowned as he interjected. You laughed once more, closing your eyes to feel the wind in your hair again. You thought back to the reason why you decided to bring Levi out today, and even though you knew it might make him unhappy, you also knew you had to talk to him about it. Minutes later, the sun had already gone below the horizon, and the sky was gradually getting darker as well. Soon, the lamps nearby slowly started lighting up. 

"Say, Levi," you broke the silence once more and Levi hummed in acknowledgement again, "do you… miss the old days?" 

"... why'd you ask?"

"I miss those days too, you know. I miss all our friends and comrades too. Every single one of them. Every day." 

Levi didn't say a word. You guessed he was probably upset. Yet, you took a deep breath and decided to just tell him the words on your mind. 

"I know it's not easy for you to, I don't know, adapt to a normal life again seeing how you've been in the Corps for nearly half your life. B-but, I just don't want to see you wallowing in self-pity, okay? It hurts me to see you like this. 

"I don't care whether or not you have missing eyes and fingers, I don't care if you have to be in a wheelchair forever. I'll gladly feed your meals and bathe you, I'll wear your shoes for you and I'll push you wherever you want to go. We'll hunt around Marley to look for beautiful spots to watch the sunset and the stars. I love you for who you are, and that will never change. Falco and Gabi love their Uncle Levi too. So, j-just, don't give up, okay?"

"Who said anything about giving up?" Levi turned to you, a look of annoyance appeared on his face. 

"W-well, I don't know, you're always looking so listless, and you're not eating and sleeping well. I haven't seen you smile in a long time. And once I saw you staring at the mirror looking like you're abo—"

"Hey, hey, stop it, okay? Stop worrying. I'm fine. Really." Levi held your hand and gave you a squeeze. "I'm fine. I'm dealing with it, okay? It's, it's j-just—I'm—"

"Shh. It's okay. I get it. I get you." you hushed him, gently holding him close. You didn't need to see Levi's face to know that he was probably going to tear up, a side of him that will never be seen by anyone else; anyone except you. "Everything will be alright, I promise you. I won't leave you. I'll be by your side." 

The both of you remained in each other's embrace, letting your hug do the talking. Patting Levi's back rhythmically, you heard him let out a long sigh before pulling you even closer, tightening his grip around your waist as he buried his head in the crook of your shoulder. You didn't feel the need to ask Levi what he was thinking about, and likewise, Levi knew you wouldn't ask him about it. After a long while, Levi finally loosened his grip around you. The moon was hanging high in the sky and the wind was getting colder. The stars shone like little specks of glitter in the ink-coloured sky. 

"Feeling better?"

"Y-yeah, better," Levi hastily wiped the remnants of tears from his cheek, "thank y-yo—

—you interrupted Levi mid-sentence with a soft kiss.

"I love you, Levi. Always remember that. Hmm? I mean it." you gave him another small smile before stroking his cheek, pressing another fleeting kiss on his chapped lips. Levi's larger hand cupped yours as he kissed you back, feeling like time around him stopped, and nothing else in the world mattered. The feeling of your lips on his, the coldness of your cheeks, the warmth from your body; they were real, and a reminder that he was still here, and he was still alive.  

Levi broke the kiss first, struggling to find the right words to say while he looked at you. Chuckling, you gave him another smile and mouthed it's okay once more. Levi was never good with words and he was never a good talker, but it never bothered you anyway. Levi gave you an appreciative look while you looked at your watch.

"Come on, Levi. Let's get back to the bicycle shop." 

Helping Levi on his feet, you guided him up the quadricycle and the both of you slowly cycled back to the shop. Thanking the shopkeeper for keeping Levi's wheelchair safe, you opened it and gestured to Levi to take his seat, yet Levi shook his head instead. 

"Let's walk to the main entrance. There's still time, right?" Levi offered to hold the picnic basket and kite while another hand held your arm for support. You tried to hide your smile as you both walked, listening to the owls hooting in the far distance. Onyankopon's car was already waiting outside by the time you reached the entrance. Seeing Levi walking next to you, a wide smile broke across Onyankopon's face as well.

The journey back home was quiet, yet Levi felt like the weight had been finally lifted off his shoulders. You held on to Levi's hand as he laid on your shoulder, drifting somewhere between sleep and consciousness. Levi knew his road to recovery would not be an easy one. But with you by his side, it was like he found his wings of freedom once more. And for the first time in a long while, Levi went to sleep with a smile.

Disclaimer: This is my first time writing hurt/comfort so I understand if it sucks and there's no hurt or comfort at all LOL I prommie I'll do better for the rest of the requests 🥺

Tagging: @levi-lover @ack3rlady @cinnamonlevi @imkumichan @kristinecharmm @notgoodforlife @jean-prettyboy-kirschtein @evas-leslas @sweet-assh0le @hannie2kay @levislovingwife @galactict3a @hauntedhousecat @suukee @thesimpsstuff @ackermendick @greenfurret @jayteacups @nelapanela94 @postwarlevi @levisbrat25 @ladycheesington @svftackerman @chaotic-nick @lilshades @youre-ackermine

Rei’s Birthday Event master list | Rei’s Springtime Event grand master list

Event tag list | Rei’s tag list

[vendetta-if]

December 2022 Progress Update

For the past two weeks, I've been working really, really hard on Chapter 4 (one of the reasons I've not been too active on Tumblr lately, and I probably still wouldn't until Chapter 4 is done 😅). As of the time writing this update post, the word count is 23.6K words.

The talk with Yvette took quite a long time to write and it is indeed pretty long. Almost 12K of 23.6K words are dedicated to the talk with her. It's not only long, it also has a lot—and I mean a lot—of variations in responses depending on what your MC feels about her.

The last time MC decided on their feelings on Yvette, it was ten years ago during the comic book store incident. Now, your MC will be given an option to change what they think about her ten years later, before their very first conversation with her in their entire life so far.

The four different feelings MC can have on her are:

Hate Hate is straightforward; your MC still hates and is bitter about what she did and her neglect (not visiting MC for a decade).

Love-hate This is a more complicated feeling and I think it's a pretty good addition that makes MC feels a bit more unstable and add a bit more layers of complexity. Your MC still kinda hates her, but also yearns for her affection and mourns for the missing connection and relationship with her, and these feelings in turn feed into MC's hatred, anger, and bitterness against her.

Apathy/Indifference Pretty straightforward as well; your MC just doesn't really care about her and considers her a stranger.

Pity MC feels bad and pity for her and can sympathize with her plights. This might be the most positive feeling MC can have regarding Yvette, the second one being love-hate.

I spent a lot of time writing four different reactions and inner thoughts for MC based on these feelings they have about her. I hope I'll be able to showcase one of the variations in the Sneak Peek of the talk I'm planning to release tomorrow 😄

Also, in this chapter, you'll finally be meeting Skylar and Santana for the first time. Right now, I'm in the middle of writing the talk between MC and Skylar. After that, it'll be time to focus on Santana's talk instead.

These talks also take a long of time to write because I have foolishly decided to give six different options of responses every time MC talks with any of the ROs, half for different romantic responses and half for non-romantic ones 😭

I also did a lot of tweaking on the previous chapters (grammar & typo fixes, coding fixes, and adding some stuff).

First, by popular demand, MC can now choose their clothing style to be the same with Uncle Luka's style. The style is called "all-black".

Second, I tweaked and added some stuff with the Police Commissioner because it seems I missed the mark in trying to portray him as a grey character. Now, his involvement with the Nemesis Project will be more explicitly pointed out in the narrative than just implied subtly previously. Also, his other bad qualities, such as nepotism and hypocrisy.

Third, I tweaked MC's reactions when executing the commissioner—I think it's either your MC turns away and not wanting to witness the execution or your MC and Ash looking at the execution together in awe 😆 Now, instead of Merciful MC looking away and Ruthless MC spectating the execution, it'll depend more on your MC's choice in Chapter 2 regarding the mission (Ready to kill, reluctant to kill innocent, or don't want to kill).

Well, that's all I have to report for the month. As always, I just want to say thank you for all your support and enthusiasm for my story 🥰. I might not be able to answer a lot of asks in the coming days because I'll be hyper-focused on finishing Chapter 4 as quick as possible 😅

If you guys are interested in supporting me, getting some extra side contents on the side, including an early access for this upcoming chapter, please check out my Patreon!

[Patreon Link]

[crescencestudio]

Devlog #33 | 07.26.23

Hi everyone!

It's only been a month (per usual) since the last devlog. But it feels like so long ago! Very weird that last devlog I hadn't even released Intertwine yet. But here we are, back with another one!

Before we get into things, I want to extend the biggest thank you to everyone who has played and supported intertwine!

if you havent played yet, here it is. this is me on my knees asking because i am quite proud of it and what our team accomplished in two months!

in the almost month it's been out, we stand at almost 15k total plays and 200+ reviews which is so crazy to me. i never would've expected that kind of reception for our little game and when i say it has been so motivating for alaris!!! u dont even know!!!

thank you again for all the kind words---i know you are all Sick of me talking about it but i don't know how else to express my gratitude <3 it means so much to me ;_;

I wanted to make sure I inserted an official section for it in the Devlog just to really thank you all for the support. But with that, I shall get into the updates!

But not before a quick belated happy birthday to Fenir!

Writing

I posted it earlier this week, but I HAVE!!! THE MOST EXCITING NEWS!!! At least for me.

I FINISHED DRUK'S FIRST DRAFT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We all know how long this has been in the making. I've been talking about his route for what feels like an eternity. Evidently, it's Very Normal to experience burnout, struggles with motivation, creative ruts, etc. etc. at this point in development. The initial and final stages of development are easier because your motivation is up. In the beginning, it's like Wow!! This is Fun!! And towards the end, it's like Wow!!! I actually Fckn Made It!!!!

And so the middle part of development, aka the stage I just entered with Druk's route, is the slog.

Now that I've overcome that initial hurdle, while I'm not near the end of development, I do feel like I will have a better handle of progress on the following routes since I have a better set of expectations and tools on how to get through this stage (compared to when I initially started Druk's route, and I was like what are all these Feelings?? Why am I Struggling so much??).

That being said, WE ARE OVER HALFWAY DONE WITH THE SCRIPT! It currently stands at 200k words including the demo, and with how each of the routes have been shaping up, we have about 150k left to go. Wow!!!!! It is crazy to know I've written that much for Alaris, and this feels like such an exciting milestone to know that I'm over halfway there for the script!

We also have just about wrapped up Fenir's developmental edits, so that makes Kayn and Fenir's foundational versions of their routes done (all that would be left at this point is line tweaking and/or revisions based on beta feedback)!! Overall, this was a really exciting month for writing updates, and I'm so happy to feel back on track with Alaris development <3 I also finished my dissertation proposal in case anyone is keeping track of that HEEHOO

Art

Most of my attention for art was (un?)fortunately on Intertwine this month AGAIN. I really had anticipated being able to dive right into Alaris and irl work this month after Otojam ended. But the reception to Intertwine made it so I needed to dedicate some time to "marketing" artwork aka the artwork I like to make when reaching certain milestones of support (e.g., 1k downloads, etc.). Obviously these aren't necessary, but I like to show my thanks and appreciation in some way, and the artwork is what feels best conveys my gratitude.

Because we hit milestones relatively quickly, I ended up having to make those pieces faster than I anticipated prior to release. So I spent the first half of this month mostly on intertwine "promotional/apprecation" artwork. Near the tail end of this month though, I've prioritized Alaris artwork and have made progress on both the Kickstarter physical rewards and some CG sketches!

sneaky peeky of pretty mermay Aisa

Vui continues to hit it out of the park with the backgrounds. Most of them are spoilers at this point. But I do have one that isn't too bad of a spoiler! And because you all have been so supportive and patient with me, I show hehe

vui and his bg mastery: a preview of the dragon springs

The demo mentions dragon springs (I..... think......... LMAO), and here is a preview of what those dragon springs can look like. Wonder what the context will be in which we visit them, teehee! I'm in love with the way Vui brings the fantasy world of Alaris to life. I am so grateful for him ^^

Market Research

My wrist was feeling ~delicate~ this month due to Otojam crunch and then post-release pieces. So I don't have any actual art pieces to showcase this month for market research. I did play Otojam games and started Cupid Parasite (ryuki and allan my beloveds). But crescence's wrist needs to relax LOL. So no art pieces more than necessary for this month!

I will send some love to my besties over at Ravenstar Games though! If you haven't heard, they have a game currently in development called Lost in Limbo. It looks sick as hell, and the team is unbelievable talented and hardworking. This month to celebrate Barbie, they were able to sneak this promotional piece in, even while working on their Master's ((Do you see...... a familiar group of people..... heh))

Alaris x Lost in Limbo x Barbie the collaboration of the century

That's all from me for now. Thank you again for all the support and love on Intertwine! I've truly cherished all the fanwork, reviews, kind messages, etc.

That being said, while it was a bit of a struggle getting back returning to the Alaris world initially (I was literally like what.... was the plot of this again... LMAOsazodujf), it's been so rewarding to return to my OG gang. The intertwine release and return to Alaris work has also been strangely sentimental since it's reminded me how far I've come in the two years I've been in this dev Thang. As always thank you for your continued support (and for supporting Alaris since it's inception when I was a Wee Dev), and I look forward to bringing you more updates in the future <3

See you all next month, and stay safe!

[cerealforkart]

I made myself these little dress up dolls because everyone’s getting changed all the time, here’s the first batch, outfits pre-episode 13

Design notes under the cut

[part 2] [part 3]

Lincoln

* I would first of all like to thank Lincoln for being shaped like a model (long boy) and thus very easy to dress up

* I forgot that Link needed to tear off his sleeves to make Normal a diaper in lesson 14, so in lesson 11 he grabs a sweater when I assume he goes home between escaping the FBI and returning to school

* Lincoln is so comically tall the Teeny costume (which I just moved from Normal to Link and edited to match Link’s pose) only reaches his knees. It actually looked so stupid that I had to edit it to make the Teeny costume slightly longer in the legs

* Link has two roombas in his room, he’s a clean boy, he isn’t walking around Taylor’s house in his bare feet, he doesn’t trust like that, it’s sock time

Scary

* I actually originally planned for Scary to have more piercings, but I forgot to add them in lesson 1. Let’s just say her mom won’t let her go crazy on the piercings, from what we’ve heard in rad facts (wouldn’t let her get a tongue piercing or learn guitar) that sounds in character

* I wanted to do the Shit Garden logo on Scary’s shirt like one of those metal bands that only people who like metal can actually read, but I only have so much time and patience

* I want so badly to play with Scary’s hair more, but I haven’t really had the chance, I hope there will be more excuses to give her different styles in the future, I like the braided bun for fancy occasions a lot

* Big T-shirt and shorts are peak pyjamas, love it for her. Also, you don’t need to know how long I spent trying to come up with something for her shirt to say

Normal

* Don’t tell anyone but I kind of miss drawing Teeny’s big stupid head every day, it was easy comedy

* I did actually draw a Jimmy Buffet design on the shirt before scribbling over it, you can barely see if you look closely

* I don’t actually have anything to say about Normal’s dance outfit so I guess I’ll just take this opportunity to talk about my Normal design in general. He was the one it took me the longest to land on and I’m still unsure if I’m happy with him, I want his hair to be long enough to just sorta hang and be greasy, but not so long that it will get in his face too much and I still consistently fail on it

* Not much to say about his sleepover fit either. Froggy :)

Taylor

* I had originally planned for everyone to be wearing their bracelets on their left wrists but in episode 8 it’s mentioned that Taylor is wearing his on his right, at that point I think I had only drawn Taylor’s bracelet once so it was easier to just change his and let him be a special boy (also, they keep the bracelets on post-FBI because Taylor never really has an opportunity to take it off and the others wear theirs in solidarity)

*After Lesson 10, Taylor swaps out the crest of friendship from Digimon to wear his dad’s ring of swapping as a necklace, he tends to grab at it when his dad or the topic of betrayal comes up

* I hate Taylor for his dance fit. No longer my favourite son

* Not really a design note but I watched the Sailor Moon dub in three parts on youtube with my little sister huddled around our home computer after school, we’re real OGs

Hermie

* I finally decided to add the Joker makeup to my Hermie design, I found a powdery sorta brush to use for it so now he’s a true clown. Good for him I guess

* You may notice that I’ve tweaked my Hermie design and his colour scheme just a little bit. This is because white Hermie is dead and you know what? Good for him. I also made his hair a little wavier for Scam, you’ll start seeing the updated Hermie design (as if you can tell there’s a difference other than the very slight change in hairstyle) in lesson 16, because I drew the lesson 15 pages before episode 23 came out and I wasn’t going to go back and change them

* Stupid Joker tie. Hate it

* No sleepover fit for Hermie. Tragic. They need to have another sleepover and include him

[alblondo23]

(slight tweak of the timeline, and inspired by Oscar posting hoodies on his insta, because that boy somehow knew, I swear)

Logan didn't want to wake Oscar. He knew the week had been exhausting for him, even before he got to the race; adoring media begging for interviews, adoring fans begging for autographs, pictures, hugs. Daniel had tried to lift some of the burden from Oscar's shoulders - "Mark did the same for me, when I was a rookie, so it's the least I can do for him," he had told Logan (and Logan idly wondered, why had Daniel told him this?) - but there was only so much he could do, without racing himself.

And so now Oscar was asleep, half-curled, half-sprawled on his hotel room bed in that position that screamed "I only meant to lie down for a moment", and Logan couldn't bear to wake his friend.

His friend. Only a friend.

But Oscar -

- Oscar was wearing his hoodie.

That darned Williams Australia hoodie that Oscar had spent all week teasing Logan about, Oscar was wearing it, snuggled down into it against the coolness of the evening, his face turned into the side of the hood, a tiny smile quirked at the corners of his mouth. The hoodie was long on him, the waistband brushing his thighs - thighs that Logan definitely wasn't thinking about any kind of weird way, of course - but Oscar, being heavier, filled it out better, the fabric taut across his shoulders and hips.

Logan didn't want to wake Oscar, but despite the stereotype of Australia being warm, Melbourne in early April was cool, winter beginning to creep around the edges.

At the last moment, Logan spotted the dark shape of a hoodie on Oscar's desk chair, and snatched it up. It was too short on him, the sleeves leaving his wrists bare at the cuffs, but it did the job. Logan sat on the bed for a moment, fiddling with the cuffs. Oscar's bed was so soft, Logan thought he might just lie down next to him for a moment...

~

Oscar woke with the sun the next morning, largely because he had forgotten to pull the curtains, and was greeted with the surprising sight of Logan, sprawled out on the bed next to him, dead to the world asleep.

Wearing his hoodie.

Oscar had pinched Logan's, the night before, as part of the game of teasing his friend - his friend, not anything more - and had accidentally fallen asleep in it; for some reason, it had felt like one of Logan's hugs, and smelled like him too.

But he hadn't expected Logan to steal Oscar's hoodie back.

He couldn't stop staring.

His only coherent thought, for a long while, was that Logan should wear more green. Not the obnoxious British Racing Green of Aston, but that lovely dark emerald of Oscar's things. It highlighted his skin, made him look glowing and lovely and -

- nice. It made his friend look nice.

But there was something about seeing Logan lying there with Oscar's branding on him, Oscar's initials, the outline of Oscar's home track, that made something possessive and only half-acknowledged purr in his chest.

Too late, Oscar realised Logan's eyes were open. Open, their brilliant blue dancing and sparking and brightened by the green contrast -

~

Logan was dreaming. He must still be asleep. That was the only explanation for Oscar hovering above him, his cheeks pink with a blush, his eyes fixed on Logan, still wearing that hoodie.

Well, if it was a dream, then Logan would let himself have what he had barely recognised while waking.

~

It was only when their lips met that Oscar thought, oh god, I'm a moron.

~

It was only when Oscar sighed Logan's name against his mouth that Logan realised, this is really happening.

And soon enough, both hoodies were on the floor.

I had to take a day and think on this because it's just soo good!! When I saw Oscar's post about the hoodies, I was going to post something, but then I saw this! I've reread it so many times trying to collect my thoughts I won't lie.

First off, Daniel seeing what's between Logan and Oscar and knowing that Logan will be there for Oscar to support him! He told you that because he knows Logan. He knows. (Max and Lando definitely had been updating him on the gossip. Max mostly to make Daniel see how much he misses racing and come back. To the sport of course not just to Max ;) Lando does it so he can find an ally in teasing Oscar)

Logan not even realizing that it's Oscar's hoodie only for Oscar to go absolutely wild for it when he wakes up is perfect. Logan is all heart eyes and some dirty thoughts while Oscar's out here going he looks best in My colors, My initials, and My clothes.

Oscar originally only stole Logan's hoodies to feel close to him. Now Oscar steals all of Logan's clothes so that Logan can only wear Oscar's things. Seems fair to him!

Now onto the kiss! The kiss is everything! I've said it before and I'll say it again, these two have such intense mutual pining vibes! They'd only get together when something finally broke as one of them finally thought screw it and reached out. Logan reaching out because he thinks it's a dream is perfect! The hoodies both landing on the floor made me laugh because it's the best fade to black.

After this all happens, Oscar definitely tells Logan that he looks amazing in green, for purely unselfish reasons of course! His plan works perfectly because Logan doesn't own much green and wears (a larger version of) Oscar's hoodie as he slowly brings green into his wardrobe. Everything is perfect! Until Logan actually wears non Oscar branded green in public and gets photographed! Oscar has to then realize that Logan looking beautiful in green in public turns that half-acknowledged purr in his chest into a howl as suddenly everyone is commenting about how pretty Logan looks. Suddenly every pic that appears online of Logan wearing green (because he likes when Oscar calls him beautiful or says it compliments his eyes so he wears green a lot now) there's Oscar making very clear to the world that Logan is there with him.

Logan posts a picture of him in Oscar’s hoodie on Instagram laying in bed all rumpled after the fade to black, and Oscar immediately pulls him into a kiss because now he can kiss Logan whenever he wants. Oscar turning into a (non toxic) possessive mess because Logan wore his hoodie once is amazing for me.

[space-writes]

Hi Space!! I saw your post about Obsidian, and I think it would be perfect for my worldbuilding notes. (for novels + D&D things). Do you have any advice about how to get started with a worldbuilding/story vault? Especially how to make it look as nice and aesthetic as your notes? I opened Obsidian for the first time just now and I immediately felt lowkey overwhelmed by the possibilities.

You also mentioned plug-ins? How do those work? Do you have any you consider essential for yourself?

Sorry if these are silly questions, but I'm very curious about this, and I want to give it a shot! Thanks for answering, and for telling me about this super cool-looking app!

~ Morri🗡 (@memento-morri-writes)

Hi Morri!

not silly questions at all! i'm more than happy to chat about obsidian for literal hours

The key here is do not do everything at once. As you build, what you think you need, and what you actually need, will change. The best way, I’ve found, to build any kind of vault in Obsidian is organically. Put in a small bit of information, play with it, then put in some more.

I fully expect no-one to do this, because I did not, and ended up refactoring my entire process multiple times, because I am an idiot who thinks common sense does not apply to me.

I wrote a post for anon here that covers some bits about plugins (which i will be making a post about soon, it’s in progress!), and such, but I’ll repeat here one of my main points, which is that there are as many ways to organise Obsidian as there are people. It is overwhelming, because there is so much freedom. I spent a long time switching through themes and organisation methods, before realising that I had to grow my own process that worked for me.

I base mine on a (very very) bastardised version of Johnny Decimal. Top level folders for large categories, with subfolders if needed.

and now a cut! because this did, in fact, get long

making a worldbuilding/story vault

For a worldbuilding/story vault, I’d recommend starting with the very very basics of your information:

a folder for meta information, like images, pdfs, other files, any templates you make. just to keep that stuff out of the way

a folder for research

a folder or folders for characters and setting

a folder for the actual writing

within those, it depends on what you’re working on how you want to organise. I have the following in my ‘world’ folder for the Valloroth vault:

and my D&D vault looks like this:

I like big categories and i cannot lie. I like this method because it makes sense for my brain, and I know where to look for things. however, don’t feel beholden to any organisation you set up if it’s not working. try it, find the friction points, try something different to ease the friction points.

the best and worst thing about Obsidian is that you can do whatever you want. so if it’s not working - change it! it’s your vault!

for the aesthetic

i am the kind of person who knows just enough css to be a danger to myself and others, and I like tinkering. it took me a couple years to get my vaults looking the way they do, but the quickest way to get a pretty vault is to look at community themes!

For d&d, the go-to MVP of themes is ITS Theme. It has a lot of options, a really good set of explainer docs, and the dev is a pretty active member in the discord community. (hi SlR if you ever read this! love your work!)

My main vault uses the typewriter theme, with custom colour accents, custom fonts, and also a bunch of CSS snippets. Valloroth is entirely custom on top of vanilla obsidian, and i’m scared to look at the code because it’s over a year old now, and I haven’t really updated it and I am not a dev TT_TT

many of my prettifying tweaks are bits of CSS I’ve collected from lurking in discord over the past few years, or stolen from other themes.

but if you’re not a nerd with too much free time like me, hop into the community themes under ‘appearance’ in settings, and play around until you find one you like. and then, if you’re a nerd with too much free time like me, there’ll be like one or two things in that theme you want to change, and before you know it you’re neck deep in w3schools trying to figure out which selector you need to target when you should be asleep.

i’m always happy to chat/share CSS bits and pieces, if you/others are interested!

aaaand this post is long enough, so i hope that’s been helpful. I hope you have fun playing around with Obsidian, whether you end up using it or not

[aprincessnotaqueen]

PART 3.

A continuation of this snippet

The music room had not changed. Same hard, plastic chairs; same streaked whiteboard; same third-hand instruments. Courtney stood at the threshold, taking in the familiar site of her second home with butterflies in her stomach.

“It’s not the same, is it?” Came a voice behind her. She didn’t have to turn around to know who had snuck up on her moment.

“We’re not the same, you mean,” she replied, unable to face him.

His chuckled response was all the confirmation Courtney needed; Duncan felt it too, the shift between them and the room they had lived in their whole freshman year of high school.

Things had seemed so much simpler then; the inside jokes and stolen kisses. Music was their sole interest, before things got complicated. Before they got complicated.

Courtney knew better now. Business and pleasure do not mix, and she still could not meet Duncan’s eyes as she thought back to fond memories.

The first time she had sang piano in front of the boys they had stared at her in awe, unaware she was the missing piece to the band they were clinging to.

The first time she had played a piece of music that wasn’t classical, that was different to every recital she had practiced for, and how alive it had made her feel.

The first time Duncan had taught her to play his guitar, carefully showing her each note until she mastered it, until she was able to write music to it.

Finding her voice in her high school music room was the high Courtney had been chasing ever since, and so far nothing else had compared.

“I assume you’ve already planned our set list,” Duncan commented, taking a seat on the piano bench.

Courtney fought the urge not to watch him, a battle she had lost many times before. But he sat in her space at the piano, looking so much bigger than the last time she had seen him do so.

The last few years had been kind to him; his muscled flexing under the long sleeves of his shirt as he reached for the keys. Stubble graced his face, carving out his jaw. He wore a well-worn gray beanie, but Courtney knew he still had his signature green Mohawk tucked away.

Courtney had spent a lengthy amount of time covering the bags under her eyes with make up that morning before pulling on her comfiest capris and sweater. She hoped she looked as put together as she wanted the boys to see.

“Chris had some suggestions,” Courtney told him. “We’ve been emailing.”

Duncan chuckled again, the sound giving Courtney a twitch.

She thought four years apart would make it easier, but here she was staring at him across the room like she was sixteen years old again. The sight of him turned her stomach like it always had, but Courtney was still yet to figure out if that was a good or bad sign.

“The boys are late,” Courtney said, turning to the clock above the door.

Duncan chucked for a third time and Courtney resisted the urge to throw her shoe at him.

“You never change,” he mused, turning his blue eyes towards her, catching the glint off the yellow classroom lights.

Courtney hid her shiver, choosing to frown at him instead.

Time for a quick authors note, I think!

These are just snippets, not a whole story, so there are time jumps. I have not written the whole story out, I am writing these snippets as scenes come to mind and posting them immediately, so should I ever actually write the full story there may be some tweaks as we go.

They are written in my notes app and uploaded from my phone so I apologise for any weird formatting!

The first snippet got a lot of love and I’m so grateful to everyone who reblogged and favourited and left comments.

But I wanna give a specific shoutout to @the-type-a @xwhatababex @lotsofloveish for your continued support in everything I post, I haven’t shared my love for you as much as I should but I am so so grateful to all of you 💕

[uwingdispatch]

Here With Me

Here With Me

Notes: Poe Dameron/Reader, gender neutral reader, post-sequels, hurt/comfort, chronically ill/disabled reader, domestic fluff, established relationship

CW: hospital/clinnic setting, minor injury (not graphic), chronic illness, chronic pain, implied sexual intimacy

Ao3 Link

★★★★★★★★

Your health being what it is, you’ve spent a lot of time in urgent cares over the years. But, since meeting Poe, sometimes you feel like that time in urgent care clinics has tripled. You’d think that as a flight instructor and he’d know to be more careful with his hands, but tonight while making dinner he’d sliced the tip of his finger clean off.

Your droid, Arsix, trained specifically for medical and emotional support had wanted to come with you to the clinic, but Poe’s droid, BB-8, wasn’t willing to stay at home while his person was having an emergency. So Arsix had offered to clean up the kitchen while BB-8 drove you and Poe to the nearest emergency clinic. Which is where you are now with a towel wrapped around your husband’s hand and his fingertip in a bag of ice in BB-8’s care.

“You doing okay, Poe?” you ask.

“I was actually worried about you,” he says. “I know how much you hate being around medical stuff. You sure you don’t want BB-8 to drive you home?”

“I’m sure,” you say. “I’m here with you until that finger is whole again. I don’t know how you can fly an X-Wing but you can’t operate a kitchen knife.”

Poe wraps his arm around you, his good hand giving your shoulder a squeeze. “You know they don’t let me near X-Wings anymore. Those are for military personnel only.”

You roll your eyes. Poe Dameron has access to any ship he wants to fly—all he has to do is ask the right person. But he does mostly work with small transports or shuttles when he’s teaching or traveling these days.

“Also, to be fair,” he says, “it wasn’t a kitchen knife. There’s this thing I saw on the holonet where you use a vibro-blade to—”

“A vibro-blade?” you ask, trying not to yell. You have to take a deep breath to hold back your anger. “Nope. Stop. I do not want to know the rest of that story right now.” Another deep breath. “How’s the pain?” you ask.

“Tolerable,” he says, kissing your temple. “I’ve seen a lot worse, sweetheaert. Really, you can go home.”

“I don’t trust you not to leave,” you whisper in his ear.

He laughs, knowing exactly why. He’d nearly lost one of his toes not too long ago because the wait at the clinic was “too long” and an old buddy of his had recently built his own med droid.  It didn’t go well. Babu’s droid would have been perfectly fine if Poe were Anzellan—but he’s not.

“I’m never going to live that down am I?”

“No. And when we’re done here if you don’t take me somewhere to get a burger I’m never going to forgive you.”

“Ugh, we didn’t get dinner, did we? Are you sure you can wait?”

BB-8 chirps his concern. Poe just gets a little hangry when he hasn’t eaten. But, for you, not eating when you’re hungry can mean dizziness or even migraines.

“I’ll be okay,” you say.

Thankfully a med droid rolls into the waiting room and calls out Poe’s name.

“Burgers,” you say before kissing his cheek, smoothing his wild curls away from his face. “Go get that finger reattached so we can eat.”

*

You’d been dating Poe for a few months the first time he wanted to take you to a med center.

He was nervous. The two of you had been out, strolling around downtown waiting for your table at a local restaurant to be ready—and then you’d tweaked something in your knee and needed to stop and rest. He’d found a park bench and helped you get to it, but you could tell he wanted desperately to fix the situation.

You’d experienced this feeling before—there were men who didn’t know what to do in an emergency other than fix it. If Poe couldn’t handle not having the power to make it all better—well, guys like that usually just ran.

“Sweetheart,” he said. “The pain you’re describing…it’s not normal.”

“It is for me,” you explained. “This happens a lot.”

He ran a hand through his dark curls and let out a long breath. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I just don’t understand why you don’t want me to help you.”

Arsix was at home tonight. If she were here she might offer you one of your tablets, maybe a few other home remedies, but even she understood that some things just took a little bit of time. And a little bit of rest.

“That’s not it,” you said. “If you could help, I would let you. But I need you to trust me when I tell you there’s nothing at the med center that will help me with my knee tonight.”

He took your hand. “I trust you,” he said. “What can I do?”

“Unfortunately,” you said, “I think I need you to take me home.”

He looked a bit stricken before he tried to hide his disappointment, anxiously running a hand through his hair again. “Okay,” he said. “Let me go get the speeder.”

You felt his worry, and a there was a tightness in your chest as you wondered whether this might be it for you and Poe. If maybe he’d hit some kind of mental roadblock, realizing you had real disabilities with real impairments that weren’t cute. Things would go wrong that he couldn’t heroically swoop in to solve.

But when he returned with the speeder, he had a sweet smile on his face, and he took your hand again as you slid into the passenger seat. The ride home was a little quiet, but Poe put music on, caressed your hand with his thumb.

When he finally pulled up to your place he said, “I understand why you don’t want to be with me tonight. I guess…sometimes you just need some space when you’re hurting, huh?”

“Poe,” you said. “When I said I wanted you to take me home, I didn’t mean I wanted you to leave”

“Oh?”

“I was hoping you’d come inside. That maybe you’d want to be with me even though I’m kind of a mess right now.”

“Kriff,” he said. “I’m an idiot. Of course I’ll stay.”

The door to your apartment slid open and Arsix was standing inside, twittering her concern.

“Knee issues,” Poe told the droid. “Is there anything you can do?”

Arsix beeped instructions to get you inside and on the sofa where you could elevate the injury on an ottoman while she got a heat wrap ready.

Gently, Poe eased you onto your sofa, asked if he could hold you. So you rested your head on his chest, letting out a deep breath as he wrapped an arm around you.

“Sorry I kind of ruined our date,” you said. “I know it’s not always easy with me.”

���Look at me,” Poe said, tilting your chin toward him. “Please don’t apologize for this. This wasn’t your choice, and I know that.”

You nodded, trying to hold back tears.

Poe leaned in to kiss you, a sweet, comforting kiss, his plush lips warm and soft. You took his face in your hands and invited the kiss to last a little longer. But you were so overwhelmed with relief that your tears begin to fall.

“Hey, now,” Poe said, brushing away your tears with the pads of his thumbs. “What’s wrong, sweetheart?”

“I really thought you were going to leave,” you said.

“I know that we haven’t known each other very long,” Poe said. “But the thing is…I’m in love with you. I love you. And that means I’m going to learn how to help you when you’re not well. And how not to help you. I’m going to learn what you need, and to be what you need, okay?”

“Wow,” you said. “That’s, um…that’s a lot.”

“It’s okay if you’re not ready…if you don’t—”

“I’m just a bit overwhelmed. Nobody has ever tried to become an expert in caring for me before.”

He laughed. “The sentiment stands. I can wait.”

“Okay.”

He was about to kiss you again when Arsix came into the room. She had a heat wrap and bacta spray with her, which she applied to your sore knee. As she rolled away she beeped and whistled a phrase that translated to you can kiss the General now.

You laughed and threaded your fingers through Poe’s hair as he bent to capture your mouth with his, his tongue a sweet thrill as it slipped passed your lips, his hand gently running over your shoulder to cradle your neck.

“Thank you for staying,” you said as he pulled away, giving you a moment to search for even the tiniest bit of deception in his warm brown eyes. There was none.

He kissed your forehead and said, “Always.”

Somehow, you believed him.

*

“How’s the finger?” you ask.

You and Arsix have just finished cleaning up the take-out mess in the dining area despite Poe’s protests. You don’t want him to tear any of his stitches, even though the high dose bacta should have him in pretty good shape within a few days.

“I’m fine,” Poe says. “Really. You must be exhausted.”

He comes up behind you as you’re drying off your hands, wraps his arms around your waist, and kisses your neck, his lips soft despite the rough scruff of his face. It’s been a couple of days since he last shaved and you have to admit—you don’t hate it.

You turn in his arms, threading your fingers through his hair, his soft curls wild after tonight’s misadventures. Smoothing his hair away from his face, you look into his eyes before pressing a kiss to his lips. “I need you to be more careful,” you say. “I think I like you best with all ten fingers.”

Poe lets his hands wander to the waistband of your pants and says “I think I know why,” with a cheeky grin.

“Seriously, though,” you say. “As much as I enjoy what you can do with your hands, I also just need you to be safe.”

You aren’t the only one concerned about Poe’s blatant disregard for his own safety. BB-8 had mentioned it more than once over the years. Finn let you know when things started to get serious between you and Poe that it was something you might want to keep an eye on. Because when Poe gets upset or ambitious or excited, safety goes out the window.

“You’re talking like I regularly put myself in danger.”

“Don’t you?” you ask. “Tonight it was a slip of a knife—a vibro-blade for stars’ sake. Tomorrow it could be lightspeed skipping or an insane bar bet you can’t turn down.”

Poe sighs deeply, pulls you close. He smells of his citrus-y soap, of the light, musky cologne he wears. You rest your head in the crook of his neck and he whispers, “I’m so sorry, sweetheart. I wasn’t thinking.”

“You need to think,” you say. “I’m counting on you to think. If anything ever happened to you…they can reattach a finger, an arm even. But one of these days it could be a lot worse than that and I need you to be here with me. To come home to me.”

Poe’s heart rate has started to increase, and you hope you haven’t induced a panic in him.

“Sometimes,” Poe says, “You remind me of Leia. I wish you could have met her.”

“I hope you’re not deflecting,” you say.

“I’m not,” he says. “Let me see your eyes.”

You pull away from his embrace and meet his tired gaze.

“Leia would have loved you for a lot of reasons. You’re strong, and you’re thoughtful, and you speak your mind. But she especially would have loved how you put me in my place,” Poe says. “Just like she used to do. And just like she usually was, you’re right.”

You can’t help but smile a little, taking Poe’s face in your hand, his brown and silver hair flopping forward into his eyes. “I love you,” you say. “Even when I want to stay mad at you, you make it so hard.”

He kisses you then, slowly, his hand on the small of your back, his lips fitting to yours perfectly. You touch your forehead to his and sigh.

“BB-8,” you say, knowing the droid is nearby. “Can you sweep the house for vibro-blades and put them all in the weapons locker in the garage?”

BB-8 chirps in agreement and gets to work.

*

You hadn’t expected for Poe to spend the night that night—you’d hardly expected him to stay after your date went sideways. But he did. And he didn’t seem to mind that, because of your extreme knee pain, it wasn’t a very romantic evening. Arsix was in and out of the bedroom all night, checking on you, bringing you medicine and changing out the heat wraps on your sore knee. Your overprotective tooka-cat was on edge, pacing the room as best as his three legs allowed in between naps at the end of the bed. And while it was hard for you to sleep when you were in this amount of pain, you found being with Poe through a difficult night like this somehow comforting.

It was in the early hours before dawn when you woke to find Poe asking Arsix if there was anything he could do.

“I feel so helpless,” he said.

Arsix warbled and whistled and you made out the phrase safe feelings with you.

“Yeah?”

You bring calm and warmth. Past boyfriends inconsiderate.

You smiled to yourself and rolled over in bed. You hadn’t met many others who talked to droids like Poe did, treating them like the people they were. Especially not in the middle of a sleepless night.

“You’re still here, Poe,” you said.

The moonlight was coming in through the windows, past the curtains that you could have sworn you’d closed before bed, but which your tooka-cat had likely disturbed. Poe put his arms around you and you laid your head on his bare shoulder, his skin warm as you reciprocated the embrace. You ran your hands through his dark curls, resting your palm at the back of his neck.

“Of course I am,” he said. “Did we wake you?”

“No. I’m just…awake again.”

“I’m sorry,” Poe said, his hands at your back, lightly massaging the spot that always ached when you’d been still for too long. Maybe he was more attuned to your needs than you’d realized.

“Not your fault,” you told him, yawning. “Thank you for being here. Nights like this can be hard. Not just because of the pain, but…it’s lonely sometimes.”

“I wish there was more I could do,” he said.

“I know,” you told him. “But what you’re doing right now is enough.”

Arsix twittered that she had tablets and bacta spray for you and you thanked her, sitting up so you could swallow the medicine. The little droid helped you apply the bacta to your knee before she rolled out of the room, telling you to ping her if you needed something.

“Come here, sweetheart,” Poe said as you settled back into the bed. He pulled you into his arms again, letting you get as comfortable as you could.

“This is nice,” you said.

Poe cupped your face, his thumb caressing you cheek, and as you pulled back to see his eyes in the near darkness, there was something there that you hadn’t seen before. A truth so deep and real that it could only be seen in this dim light. And he pressed a sweet kiss to your lips that told you this was the only place he wanted to be.

*

When Poe comes home from work today he’s wearing a blue flight suit with the arms tied around his waist, carrying a heavy duffel bag. You haven’t seen him like this in a long time, and you can’t help but admire how the white tank he’s wearing perfectly compliments his toned physique and the pretty tattoos on his arms and chest.

“What’s in the bag, General?” you ask.

You’d just come out of your office to make yourself a cup of tea—Poe wasn’t expected home for at least another hour.

“One of the kids spilled oil while I was teaching a refresher course on basic vehicle maintenance. Which would have been fine—it happens all the time, you know? But it got everywhere and when I went to shower and change…apparently the upperclassmen put my change of clothes in the freezer last week. In a tub of water.”

“Why am I not surprised?”

“This was all I had in the office,” he says, gesturing at his attire. “So.”

“And that’s the block of ice?” you ask, pointing at the bag.

He nods.

“I guess we can just put it in the back yard to thaw,” you said. “Have you considered not telling your students all the stupid shit you did when you were a kid?”

Poe laughs, reaching for you. Taking his hand, you let him pull you into an embrace.

“Don’t lie, though,” Poe says. “You think this look is kinda hot, don’t you?”

“Maybe a little,” you say.

You smooth his hair away from his face, his curls a bit more wild than usual, and he tilts your chin toward him to kiss you, letting his tongue tease you just a little as his lips meet yours.

When your front door slides open to reveal BB-8 towing a small shopping bag, Poe pulls away.

“There you are, buddy,” Poe says.

BB-8 chirps a response that translates roughly to flowers acquired.

“For me?” you ask.

Poe gets the bag from BB-8 and pulls out a bouquet full of your favorites. “I’m sorry about last night,” he says. “It was an unnecessary stressor for you, and I shouldn’t have been doing something so reckless. I talked to my therapist on my lunch beak today—she also wasn’t impressed.”

You take the flowers and admire the arrangement, take in their sweet scent before grabbing a vase from the cupboard and filling it with water. “What did she say?” you ask.

“Something about thrill-seeking behavior after spending so many of my formative years in life and death situations.”

“Sounds familiar.” You’re told him the same thing on multiple occasions.

“I know,” he says. “I need some new hobbies.”

“That I can help you with,” you say. “There are ways to feel alive that don’t put you in danger.”

Poe steps close to you again, runs his fingertips down you cheek before softly touching your lower lip with his thumb. And you place your hands at his waist, playing at the hem of his undershirt, which he swiftly removes.

“I can think of one way to feel alive that might be nice right now,” he says.

Poe presses his body flush to yours as you lean back into the kitchen counter, drawing you into a hungry, urgent kiss, cradling your face in his hands. You let your hands wander from his muscular back down to his perfect ass, pulling him even closer.

“Bedroom?” you ask, almost breathless.

“Yeah,” he says. “Bedroom.”

When you’re watching him peel himself out of the ill-fitting flight suit, you laugh—and he retaliates by playfully pushing you into the bed where he climbs on top of you, undressing you, kissing your lips, your nose, your neck, your shoulders.

“Sweetheart,” he says, “let me show you how alive you make me feel.”

As he trails kisses down your chest and abdomen, your mind empties itself of every pain, every stress, every worry. “I love you,” you tell him.

And from under the covers, placing one more kiss to your belly, he replies, “I know.”

★★★★★★★★ Thank you so much for reading! I wanted to write some nice, soft Poe for y'all. I hope this fic makes you feel seen and loved.

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[ajcgames]

Sounding performant

I had a late night last night tweaking things and getting a bit carried away with all-things audio.

There's quite a lot to cover from those developments, and there's some nerdy performance-related discussion later further down - so skip past all that if it's of no interest!

For now, here's a quick look at some of the work done on the audio system:

Now with sounds and music!

I spent a while working on the audio system for the game. This included setting up a bunch of initial sound effects for various things. Chief amongst these are the UI sounds - something I'm always really keen on getting right (I haven't yet added any audio to main menu screen yet though).

I've always been a fan of more understated audio feedback. Whilst it's nice to have solid, heavy-sounding call-to-action feedback in certain games, for games like this where you're continually interacting with the UI, I prefer to aim for very short clicks and pops.

I also wanted to get two other main things sorted out - the ambient background loop and some sort of music jukebox of sorts (nothing the player can see, this is an internal thing). The ambience is a kind of airy, factory-esque soundscape I discovered whilst hunting for loops, and I trimmed out a nice portion for a continual ambient loop.

How did I make a non-looping sample loop?

I discovered a neat trick some years back to loop any audio sample seamlessly. It's a similar trick to how you create seamless repeatable textures (in a weird kind of way).

Open up the sample in your program of choice. In this example I'm using Audacity.

2. Cut the sample in half from somewhere near the middle, and paste it onto a new track. Move the first half you just cut to begin almost as the second part ends (below they're arranged so that the first part begins about 1 second before the last part ends).

3. Fade-in the first part, and fade-out the last part by as much as the overlapped section (in my example they overlap by about 1 second, which is what I set both their fade in/out durations to):

And that's it! A perfectly looping sample! You can move the first track to start a bit earlier if you want to make the blend between them a little more balanced. For me, this strategy has worked countless times.

Music management

I discovered some nice royalty free, CC BY-SA licensed audio and music which I can attribute in the game's credits screen. I set up a background music randomiser so that it'll shuffle all the audio tracks and play them in order at a fairly low-key background volume.

The game has four primary audio mixers - effects, ambience, music, and master. The latter controls all the others, but having separate channels for each audio lane will let me add sliders that the players can control the levels of each. Something I'm sure players appreciate for their specific tastes.

Beyond this I had to spend some time setting up a global audio singleton (for easy reusability elsewhere in the game), and a lot of time in Audactity trimming and normalising a bunch of sound effects. The net result of all of this is in the video I linked earlier.

The big performance discussion

A few posts ago, I talked about the importance I attached to making sure the game was performant. In games where you allow the player to effectively build whatever they want in moreorless unlimited numbers, performance becomes a tabled issue before too long. It's also something worth considering as a matter of principle when developing a game, because not everybody will share the same specifications of your development machine.

I'm developing this game on a PC with an AMD Ryzen 5 3600 and an nVidia 2070 Super. Not exactly 'prime gamer' specs, but maybe a bit higher than some folks who might want to play the game. Therefore, shooting for a decent level of optimisation is an important element for me.

I'm not trying to run the game on a potato or anything, but I'd like to ensure I'm making some basic optimisations if nothing else.

Stress testing

One of the best ways I've found of testing the game under load is to simply scale everything up. More objects, more running logic, more rendering. The works.

To this end, I created a stress testing class which I can just switch on in the project.

I've found that my current default map size of 40 allows for a pretty big factory, though the player may have to work up to that size initially. 40 feels like a good maximum, but why stop there? I want the ability to test the game at an arbitrary size - even far exceeding what I ever envisage it to be used for.

I find that the more you scale up, the easier it is to spot glaring problems in either the code or the rendering. To this end, I decided that the main likely culprit of code slowdowns would either be my belt logic, or my machine loop code.

To get started, I first needed a benchmark to test against.

Here is what the game runs like with absolutely nothing loaded into the level. Predictably, with no loaded machines or belts, and no logic being processed, it runs pretty fast as an empty level:

The test structure

When you enable the stress test, the game doesn't load a previous level, but instead lays out a level structure in an algorithmic format, following some layout rules and placement logic.

I first create a routine that adds an extractor against the edge of the level, then places down the maximum density of belts to reach the other size of the map - which is a zig-zag pattern. In order to get a couple of machine's worth of processing out of this layout (and to make sure it actually functions as a factory line), I drop an Analyzer on the end of it.

It looks something like this:

Then, I simply repeat this for every odd-numbered column in the level, and you then end up with this monster:

That is moreorless the maximum number of things you can put in a 40x40 level. Rather a lot.

Crucially though, this is where I can start looking at the raw numbers and see where my performance bottlenecks are.

Immediately I can see several problems.

There are way too many Batches being handled, along with a ludicrous number of Shadow casters. The render time of 11.6ms is both unsurprising and a little disappointing.

But this is without any optimisations having been made. So I can move straight on to the obvious things: static meshes.

There's thousands of items in this stress test, all being updated. But lots of things (machines & belts) never move and never rotate during the game once they're placed. You can combine these into static meshes to improve draw performance, along with allowing their materials to be GPU instanced to combine them together into single draw calls for each shared material object.

The effect is immediate, and almost doubled the average FPS available in this stress test.

I continued on, tweaking things like shadow complexity and removing them completely from some objects that didn't need to cast shadows at all. After a bunch of optimisations I had managed to get a stabilized average frame rate of around 180 fps.

There are definitely logic improvements I could make, but after running a lot of profiling on the game I was starting to make only tiny sub-millisecond improvements to the frame time.

After all my tweaks, I decided to go all-out and double the stress test map size.

I was plesantly surprised at how well it ran. If nothing else, it showed how well the belt code was working under such immense load.

Again, I should stress that there is no way there will be a need for 80x80 factory sizes, at least not in my current plan for the game. But it's nice to know that I'm still getting over 60 fps even at that extreme level.

Going above and beyond 80x80 footprints for a level would likely require some re-thinks about how I collate and render the level entirely. I'm convinced I can still do a lot of work about these shadow casters, but I'll need to do some research there. Shadows are notoriously expensive in graphics processing, so I'd like to fully understand what's going on there and mitigate it as much as possible. I expect I can make some additional gains to the FPS when I do so.

Anyway, that's about all I have for this one. I hope you enjoyed if you made it this far, and sorry it was such a long one. Hopefully you have a great day, wherever you are!

[thisapplepielife]

Monthly Word Count Wrap-Up

February 2024

Another month is already gone this year, like, what? How!? 🤯

That said, here's February's breakdown of where I spent my time writing:

I worked on 6 different fics this month, for a total of 24,081 words. My word goal is 500 words per day, and I've continued to hit that mark. Even if on some busy days, I was definitely banging away late at night just to get those words in before bed. 🥴

All Across the Universe (yes, it really did have a title, haha! So does "Steddie Coded" and "...Elvis") took up the biggest chunk for the month, by a long shot. It was my 2023 NaNo fic and I really buckled down this month to get it ready to start posting. Of course, I still like to add and tweak, and I guarantee there'll be more words added to it, even as I say, "I'm done," lol. What I really mean is, I could post this, as is. But, I won't, because I'll keep tinkering around, adding, deleting, changing, until the moment I hit post, lol. That's just the way I roll.

The fact that I added over 19K to it this month, really pushed me into the "it's ready to go" zone, though. I decided to work on it, and did, so I'm pretty happy about that. Even if I did want to spend time on a couple other things. Next. Later. Just wait. One idea at a time, brain, please.

As much as I loved the idea, writing anything for the event for original characters just went nowhere for me. I just didn't have the extra bandwidth, but I would have loved to participate in it, if I'd had the time to pull my shit together. (If you're curious, what I wrote those few words on was a college au meet!cute for Gareth & Di for the introductions prompt. I didn't get far. But I had fun thinking about it for a minute.)

Anyway, I averaged 830.38 words a day this month.

And for the yearly average, I'm now at 946.45 words per day.

What I Posted This Month:

So Here Is Us (For Steddie Micro, T, 509 Words)

All Across the Universe (Chapters 1 & 2, E, 9,287 Words)

[vukovich]

hello hello vuk, i am once again in awe of both your posting chapters directly to tumblr and your peculiar prompts, so here’s some mad libs style insanity for you! hope this inspires *something* (anything, i have no idea) happy new year!

character one: draco

character two: harry

phobia: friggatriskaisekaphobia (fear of friday the 13th)

furniture: sex swing

flavor: bubblegum toothpaste from the dentist

relationship type: just got together

Swing the Day Away

"I'm not doing it." Draco nudged a leather stirrup and set it swinging.

"Fine." Harry threw a hand in the air, rolled his eyes, then pulled his boxers down. He kicked them into a corner of his bedroom. "I'll get in it."

He lined his ass up with the contoured harness. It hit him mid-thigh, having been suspended at the height of his inseam, not Draco's.

"No!" Draco's hand darted out, grabbing Harry's wrist, and pulled him close. "Don't get in it."

He clutched Harry's hand to his naked chest. It was stupid. A stupid, stupid superstition. Friday, the Thirteenth. Other superstitions made sense. Cracks in sidewalks and maternal spinal columns, broken mirrors and bad luck, salt over a shoulder. Those all made perfect sense and each had a deep, rich history that dated back to medieval magical history. Why, Merlin himself was the one who accidentally threw salt into the eyes of a would-have-been attacker.

All logical. Except... for Friday, the Thirteenth. That one was all nonsense. But something horrible would happen today. It did every time. Last year, his shoelace got caught in a cab door, and he was dragged for an entire step and a hop until it pulled free. Nearly died.

The year before that, he'd ordered a cashew milk ice cream cone, was given a regular ice cream cone, and spent the entire evening on the toilet. At a party.

Five or six years ago, Mother met Bryce, dyed her hair red, and bought a motorcycle. It was mortifying.

Harry tweaked Draco's nipple and pulled his hand away when Draco squeaked. "Draco, I took the day off of work because you wanted to do this as soon as it was installed."

Draco eyed the anchors in the ceiling. Had the men who drilled them known they weren't for potted plants, but something far heavier? Had they thought to load test them? If so, how thoroughly? And at what weights? And what kind of test torque had they exerted on-

The leather creaked, and Draco had a split-second to reach behind Harry's carefully descending backside to whip the harness out from under him. Harry's ass hit the floorboards with a slap of skin on hardwood and a whooshed "Oomph!" His glasses bounced into his lap.

Draco clutched the leather strap in his hand, briefly leaned on it for support while his stomach dropped into his legs, then straightened, not trusting the contraption to bring the entire building down on them. He released the strap and wiped his hand on his naked thigh.

Harry shoved his glasses onto his face and glared up at Draco from the floor. "What the fuck?!"

All of the air in Draco's lungs leaked out in a nervous squeak-hum that lasted so long that Harry glanced at the clock.

"Can-we-do-it-tomorrow?" Draco blurted.

Harry sighed and leaned back on his elbows. "I have to work tomorrow." His head flopped back, and he grumbled to the ceiling. "Because I took today off, because you told me to put in a request for the day after the installers were scheduled."

Draco watched his toes grip the hardwood. "I didn't think it would be ready for a few more days."

"I don't have another day off until next week now."

"Sorry." Draco clicked his thumbnails against each other.

"What's wrong with it?"

"Nothing," Draco said quietly.

"Should I return it?"

"No!" Draco shot out. "No! I want to use it tomorrow. Well, next week. Or whenever."

Harry slumped onto one elbow and rested his cheek on his shoulder. "But not today?"

Draco shook his head and dreaded the next question. The one where he sounded like an utter loon. The one where he had to admit that he wouldn't sleep until midnight, not until the date on that clock flipped forward, because something bad always happened on Friday, the Thirteenth.

Harry cleared his throat and asked the question. "What's wrong with today?"

Draco closed his eyes and swallowed repeatedly, but the anxious titter was still in his voice. "It's Friday, the Thirteenth," he said, face schooled but hands trembling.

Harry snickered. He snickered, then he snorted, then he rolled onto his side to smother a honest-to-Merlin guffaw in the crook of his arm.

Draco huffed. "It's not that funny."

Harry keened his laughter into his hands like a pink-cheeked air raid siren.

"Definitely not this funny at all."

"It's-" Harry shouted, breaking into peals of laughter. "It's," he started, then took a slow breath. "It's the fourteenth today."

Harry sobbed out another laugh, then flipped his glasses onto his head to wipe his eyes dry with both hands. "Oh, gods, that's funny," he said with a sigh.

Draco's cheeks were glow-in-the-dark fluorescent pink. His face radiated heat. A fine sheen of rage and humiliation decorated his upper lip in a field of sweat droplets.

"It," he said sharply, "is not."

Harry's laughter subsided into a baseline chuckle that made his words bounce. "It is. It's Friday, the fourteenth. I remember writing the cheque to the installers yesterday and writing the thirteenth on it. And I put in for Friday, the fourteenth off. That's today."

Draco pressed his fingers to his cheeks to cool his face and dry his hands. "It's not." He pointed at the clock on the dresser with the Rolodex time and date. "Today is Friday, the thirteenth. Tomorrow is Saturday, the fourteenth."

"Wha-" Harry sat up straight and flipped his glasses down.

"You postdated a cheque," Draco said.

Harry took his glasses off and went to rub them clean on his shirt, but he wasn't wearing one. He put them back on and squinted at the clock.

"But-" Harry said, then rolled over and crawled closer to the dresser. He blinked. Then glanced at Draco, then back at the clock. "Shit!"

"And you took the wrong day off from work." Draco stuck his nose in the air and harrumphed in triumph. "See?"

"Fuck!" Harry shouted, scrambling onto his feet and hopping into his boxers. "Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!"

Draco tilted his head and watched Harry wrestle into a pair of jeans. Was Harry afraid of Friday, the Thirteenth? Even more so than Draco?

"Harry, are you-"

"I'm late for fucking work!" Harry screamed from inside a rumpled t-shirt. "Goddammit!"

Draco let out a squawk of a laugh.

"Fuuuckkkk!" Harry yelled, sprinting out of the room.

Draco's grin broke into a chuckle, cut short when Harry darted in to lay a peck on his cheek. He paused, mid-lunge, breath warm against Draco's chin. "Tomorrow?"

Draco nodded and gave Harry's chest a push. "Tomorrow."

"Good," Harry whispered, then turned. "Tomorrow!" he said over his shoulder, then turned down the hall.

Draco cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled, "Tomorrow, the fourteenth!"

"I know!" came from near the kitchen.

Draco took a deep breath and shout-sang, "Tomorrow, Saaaaaaaaturday, the fouuuuurteenth!"

"Fuck you!"

"I know! On Saaaaatur-"

The front door slammed shut.

[sweetreunions]

hey y'all, i'm april ( s/h, 21+ ) and this is kang jinah! she's technically a muse i've had for awhile but i've tweaked things here and there so bear with me as i figure her out fully once again 🥹 you already know the drill: background (tw: mentions of child abandonment + bullying) and plot bunnies under the cut, drop a like for plotting and i'll hit you up 🫶🏻

BACKGROUND

born in daegu to a young college couple that could barely afford to make ends meet for themselves, let alone their newborn child. she was left on the steps of the local fire department at the age of three and brought to a children's home not long after

she was six years old when a sweet couple from the busy bustling city of seoul adopted her, the wife having chanced upon the children's home and jinah during a work trip as a traveling nurse. little young jinah would become the light of their lives despite not being biologically theirs

jinah's childhood was spent adjusting to the bright and loud city when she had only known the quaintness of the countryside, but it didn't take her long to adapt and by the time she moved on to middle school, she was living life like a seoul local

if living like a local meant enduring the hazing and bullying of fellow classmates for being given up at birth. how they came to know such a fact, jinah would never know but that didn't faze her nor did it hinder her in any way because if there's anything that kang jinah is, it's resilient

that resiliency got her through public schooling and before she knew it, she was entering university where she could be anyone that she wanted to be. not that she particularly kept her adoptee status a secret, but it's not exactly something you spill on a first date over coffee, y'know?

it's also during university that she started to fiddle with the idea of finding her birth parents, figure out her true roots and what not. she was careful in letting her parents know of her thoughts and luckily for her, they were fully supportive of the idea as long as jinah finished university first. so that she did; with a bachelors in computer science from hanyang and a mountain of debt to show for it

and so she's back in daegu now, 20 years later to search for her birth parents after the immense amount of money spent on a private investigator alerted her that [redacted] and [redacted] on her file still resided there

for her personality she's very much sticking to the phrase "it is what it is", meaning she's likely to be one of the chillest people you've ever met. it's not that she doesn't care, because it's likely that she does, it's just that she chooses not to stress herself over things completely out of her control. she's sweet and almost always with a smile on her face. a nice girl that would help the elderly cross the street if she saw them struggle or wander around to help a lost child find their parents, you get the vibe we're going for here

PLOTS:

she's a relatively fresh face around the mall and clearly in need of a friend; that's where you come in! ever since you noticed her taking a break on her own you've made it your personal goal to check in with jinah whenever possible

for whatever reason, you find yourself digging through the racks and racks of items at isanghan thrift and she's got her eye on you for potential theft with the way you're ransacking through the shelves but really, you're looking for this (1) thing you lost and security says rumour has it it's landed here

something like this post where she notices you having a crappy day and when she inevitably asks what's wrong you say "nothing" except she's calling bullshit. she may be new to sunset but she isn't dumb, so spill

she's been dying to try out glogolf but she doesn't want to go on her own because "that's just sad" so she basically begs you to go with her and honestly...how can you say no to her 🥺

someone who she's known from seoul!! it can either be a friendship they had or perhaps they didn't get along so well back then, the possibilities are truly endless here

a new (?) city means a new dating pool and miss girl won't pass up the opportunity. that is until she finds out you also work at sunset and then it's jinah goes ghost!

miss compsci major is also a gaming nerd and she makes it pretty obvious with her spending breaks glued to her phone a lot of the time– oh what's that? you're a gamer too? oh she could just fall in love rn in this club

i'll add more as time passes (or perhaps make a legit plots page lmao) but this is all i've got atm. as always, if nothing works here i'm all for brainstorming so let's get itttttt 🌚