#it’s being looming over me all day and it’s probably not a big deal but it’s a big deal to me and I’m worried shitless

[sweetpascal]

— 𝐛𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐡 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐚𝐫𝐦𝐨𝐫

pairing: general marcus acacius x fem!reader

summary: unsure of whether or not your husband is alive leading his army's invasion, the only method of tranquility is by reaching into your past memories as a necessary distraction.

warnings: MINORS DNI, wife!reader and husband!marcus, mentions of TW: miscarriages, (probably incorrect) roman history, mentions of TW: blood and death, making love, sweet nicknames (carissima/me - dearest, dulcissima/me - sweetest, meum cor - my heart, melculum - my little honey), marcus has a big dick, creampies, tender softness, probably ooc marcus ??

wc: 4.4k

notes: oh booyyyyyyy. so we all collectively agree that general marcus is scrum-diddly-umptious ?? all the pics, videos, and gifs dropping does not ease my obsession. so.. i turned my obsession into a work of art for all of you to read ^.^ idk squat about the roman times, but i did do my best to research !! divider from @saradika-graphics 🤍

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It seems like the days have been mixing in with each other the more time has passed. Unsure of which day started and which day ended, you lost track of time. It had been one month, maybe two at this point. The sun rose and set, the moon and stars following in tandem. It was almost like a dance. It was amusing, to say the least. It reminded you of your relationship with your husband. With the light color dress wraps and delicate gold jewelry you'd wear around your neck compared to his permanent scowl, it's clear to civilization who's the sun and who's the moon. But you both complement each other in more ways than one.

You're able to calm him down with a simple touch on his arm, causing his boisterous voice to quiet down and his heart to steady its pace. Marcus' presence looming behind you around others, everyone already knows how dangerous he can become if someone even looks at his wife the wrong way.

Now, without his presence and his voice and his touch, nothing feels real. Pacing around in the dining hall of your home, you rubbed your hands tenderly over your barely-there baby bump over your soft blue wrap dress that Marcus surprised you with the last time he had come home from a previous battle for more land. He had won, of course, because General Marcus Acacius never loses. The mere thought of him losing a battle led by him with his army in tow is one of your greatest fears as his wife.

Staying inside your home and wallowing in your fears was no good for you and your unborn child. You couldn't go through the stress of worrying after your husband and deal with another heartbreaking loss alone. The night that Marcus had come back, you had broken down in front of him, shakily telling him through your thick tears that you had lost your son.

"A son?" He had quietly asked you, his eyes wide and heartbreaking.

"The teller that settles by the river," you told him with a broken voice. "She had confirmed it with her readings."

You remember it clearly as day; the look on his face equivalent to that of a broken man. You had choked on your tears, begging for his forgiveness for not being more careful, for not being a dutiful mother that was supposed to protect their child. You had knelt down in front of him, grabbing his knees and pleading to him and the gods for forgiveness and punishment, your hands pressed together in a prayer.

"Carissima," he had whispered quietly to you, slowly getting down onto his knees to remove your tight hold on his dirtied pteruges. His hands, trembling and unsteady, tenderly hold your cheeks to look into your heartbroken eyes. "I shall never strike a hand upon you, need you deserve it or not. I shall never lay blame on something the gods have brutally stolen from us. Oh, my dearest wife." His last whisper had you gripping onto his arms and crying your heart out into his shoulder. He said nothing more, nothing else. On the ground that day, all he did was hold you, and that was more than what you needed.

Breaking out of that distressing memory, you busied yourself with around-the-house distractions. In your hands was a handmade wicker basket you had purchased at one of the markets. The owner was a sweet, older woman that knew of your reputation amongst the others. She always treated you with kindness and looked at you with excitement every time you came by and not fear. She also gifted you a handmade blanket sewn with intricate patterns of the moon and sun.

"I gift this to you as a thank you for your kindness," she had said, pushing the blanket further into your hands when you had protested. She lay a wrinkly finger against her lips and drooped her eye to a wink.

Stepping outside with the wicker basket in your arms, you traveled a short distance to a small pond with many bushes, trees, and delicate flowers all around. This was your happy place. And this was also where you and Marcus had made love for the first time so long ago. The tree, the rock, the patch of grass. All of it held a distinct memory of your first time. Thinking back to it brings a smile to your lips.

"Tell me to stop, and I will. Tell me to stop right now and I shall go back to where I rest and I will not pursue you any longer," Marcus had told you breathlessly against your jaw. He had you laid on the soft grass underneath the moon, the light shining against the pond in a way that makes the gentle movements look like glitter. Your dress was hiked up around your hips as he rested heavily between your trembling thighs, your hands squeezing on his strong biceps that flexed in response to your sizzling touch.

"Marcus," you sighed prettily in his ear, and it sounded like the sweetest song he has honor of ever hearing. "My need for you has not gone away. It will not go away unless you take me right here, under the moon and stars, until I'm singing for you in pleasure."

The look in his eyes was that of desperate hunger and wanton need. When he had slid himself into your cunt for the first time, all of your prayers to the gods have been finally answered. Marcus was made to be yours. And you were made to be his. Hushed moans and frantic thrusts, Marcus fucked like how others perceived himself – like a barbarian. Some women would disagree and find it appalling and dirty, but it was perfection. He wasn't scared to touch you. He touched you as though if he were to let go you would float away, for he would no longer be able to taste you on his tongue or feel your tight warmth wrapped around his thick cock.

A touch to your shoulder had you gasping and dropping the basket onto the ground. You spun around and laid a hand on your chest and one on your bump, staring at the poor maid that scared you accidentally.

"I deeply apologize for frightening you, miss," she stares at you with her hands up in defense as though she was staring at a frightening animal backed into a corner. "General Marcus has arrived and he asks for your presence in your bedroom."

"No, no, it's quite alright, dear. My head was in the clouds again," you offer her a gentle smile and a brief laugh, laying a hand lightly on her shoulder to ease her worries. "And Marcus, is he...?"

The young maid recognized your worry and shook her head as an answer to your unspoken question. You hand her the wicker basket of plucked fruits from the bushes and politely tell her to wash and ready them, and to bring them to your bedroom when the task is done. She nodded and hurried off immediately.

You carefully, but also hurriedly, made your way into your home. Nodding and giving polite smiles to the people inside, you walk up the spiral marble stairs. When you reached the top, there stood a statue of yourself sitting atop a stone with a statue of hour husband on his knees and his lips pressed to your knees. There were intricate details in the statue, like of Marcus' fingers gripping your thighs or the soft rolls of your body. Your husband preferred a large home such as this for his growing family. You preferred something quainter and more personal, but what your husband says, goes. You recognized his large, dirty footprints leading to your bedroom, another young maid already on her knees scrubbing the stains.

"Aureia, there's no need for that," you tut softly at the young girl, and she looks up at you with wide eyes. "Leave that alone for now, alright? As for this moment, will you please gather the others and bring pails of hot water for a bath?"

"Right away," she nodded and hurried off. It brings a smile to your face at how eager the young maids are to please. Unlike the other men and women that have maids in their homes, you treated yours like people. They respect you and in return, you respect them. Marcus used to disagree until he remembered how you grew up when it was just you and your widowed mother, along with the reputation of being poor. Realizing that you see yourself in these young maids, your husband made it a point to allow you to be in charge of them and do whatever you see fit. Having that much power can be overwhelming, only because of the fear of having your kind heart be taken advantage of. But those that work for and with you know to never cross you, for they'll have to deal with the consequences your husband has waiting for them.

When you entered your private bedroom, there he sat, still dressed from head to toe in his armor. He sits with his back facing the door, his sights focused on the large window that overlooks the garden which circles around the empty thermae. You slowly move around the bed and finally stand before him, essentially blocking his view of the window. Marcus doesn't look up at you just yet. So, you stay silent and let him do what he needs to, let him think what he needs to think.

His hands, still caked with dirt, grime, and dried blood, move up to your stomach. Your bump is within his line of sight. Both of his hands rest on either side, feeling the firmness and shape of the bump. You watch as his eyes shut and his jaw clenches. His face was also caked with dirt, grime, and dried blood. The ends of his hair are curled with sweat from the heat of his long journey back home to his family. Marcus says nothing when you stroke his jaw silently. Neither of you register the door opening and four maids coming in one by one to empty two pails each of hot water into the tub that sits in the corner of the room. They know better than to interrupt.

When the door shuts, Marcus moves to rest his head against your bump. His ear is pressed into your soft flesh through the dress adorning your body. He can faintly hear the thumping of your heart and that brings him back down to earth, back home to you. Your hands, warm and gentle, card through his messy, graying curls. Damp with dirt and sweat, you don't care. Feeling him right here, right now, was all that mattered.

"It's over," he finally speaks, his voice rough and low. His hands move down to find a home on your wide hips, fingers just barely digging into the shape. "The war is over. I made sure of it." And he leaves it at that.

Your eyes shut and you let out a sigh of mixed relief and heartache. You couldn't imagine what your husband had to go through, as a leader, to make sure that he and his army of men make it out alive. You couldn't imagine the number of bodies that are lying out there, hundreds of miles away, torn apart and bled out, mangled flesh and bone. You couldn't imagine your husband possibly being one of them. Bending down as best as you could, you tenderly wrapped your arms around his broad shoulders and kissed the back of his head. You briefly sniffed his hair and pulled back.

"Let's get you inside the bath, hm?" You whispered softly, hands lovingly scratching at his scruffy jaw as you pulled his head up to look into your eyes.

When he stands, you almost forgot how imposing he was. His height was a strong factor. The bloodied armor he wears makes him look much broader and more dangerous. The exhausted look on his face makes him look much more mean – evil, even. But he's neither of those things, at least not to you. He stands as still as a tree as you begin to unclip and pull off his armor one by one. From the thick leather chest plate bound with protective metal underneath, all the way down to the thick leather arm-wear covering his forearms. Unsheathing his sword from its belt, you unclip that from around his waist as well. Having done this a million times, it's muscle memory.

He stands before you, naked, dirty, and exhausted. You reach behind your neck and slowly untie your dress wrap. It pools at your feet, your naked body now on display for him to see after months apart. Marcus' eyes take in every detail. The delicacy of your collarbones, your perky breasts, the curve of your growing belly, the soft curls of your pubic hair, those thighs that Marcus loves being in between, all the way down to the dangling anklet he gifted you.

"Come on," you whisper softly and take his hand to lead him to the filled tub. Steam sits above the water and Marcus' aching muscles scream out to it.

He enters first, hissing at first from the heat but then moaning gruffly once he sinks further into the hot water. Almost immediately, his sore muscles begin to relax. He could fall asleep right this instant. He feels a gentle push on his shoulder. He scoots forward and allows you to enter behind him.

"What are you doing, dear wife?" He doesn't hear an answer to his question. He's about to turn his body, but then he feels your hands massaging his tender scalp and washing his dirty hair. His eyes shut almost instantly, and he groans huskily with parted lips.

You wanted to laugh at his reaction but decided against it. Marcus never had time to relax and wind down. He was always on his feet, always discussing the next steps of battle, always readying his army men with hardcore training. It pained you to see him like this, especially at a distance. He never wanted you around to witness his leadership. Not wanting to induce stress onto you early on in your pregnancy, not wanting a repeat of your last pregnancy, he had given you strict instructions to let him handle everything.

"Meum cor, you do so good with taking care of your husband," Marcus quietly tells him, his entire body shuddering when your nails tenderly scrape the sensitive parts of his scalp. "I know the other men are envious of the treatment I receive from such a divine woman."

"Mm, I know, my love," softly laughing at his goading. You reached over the side of the tub to grab a small wooden bowl. Using that to pour water onto his soapy curls, you gently tipped his head back and did just that. You kissed the side of his head and gently cleaned away the dirt and grime on his beautifully tan skin. You paid extra attention by lovingly kissing the scar on his right cheek.

For the next hour, you put all your focus into washing his body. No longer was he a filthy barbarian. No, he was now your clean, fresh smelling husband. His damp hair curled elegantly behind his ears and neck. You had maneuvered onto his lap to focus on his front. There were more prominent bruises on his chest and arms, as well as some cuts that have begun its healing process. You gave him a small pout, to which he tuts and lovingly cups your chin between his thumb and forefinger.

"I could ride into the sun and still come back to you in one piece, meum cor," he tells you quietly, moving his face much closer and shifting you to sit comfortably on his lap. "No man, no sword, no army could ever strike me down and take me from you."

Holding onto his scruffy jaw and peering into those dark chocolate eyes of his, he looks at you with such tenderness that no stranger will ever witness. Your bump is resting against his own stomach, and he feels every breath you exhale. Heads lean closer, his aquiline nose resting on the side of yours, lips just a hair away. There's distant chatter outside in the gardens, the curtains swaying gently from the warm breeze coming through the open windows. The water in the tub is still warm and steaming, the clearness of it was now murky from the dirt you cleaned from his aching body. You have half a mind to drain the tub and call out for more pails of fresh hot water, but you're so comfortable and safe in the arms of your husband.

"Do you recall the night I took you underneath the stars?" Marcus asks you huskily, both hands gripping your hips, strong fingers digging into your plushy flesh. He forces your hips closer to his, thick thighs tensing underneath your own. "The way you begged me to keep going, even when it began to rain down upon us."

Your lips parted to elicit a soft gasp when you felt his hardness on your thigh, thickening and rising with each second that passed. You do remember that night like it was yesterday. The soft rain pattering on your naked, writhing bodies. Your nails had dug deep into his skin to keep him from moving away. You had cried out to the gods for more, more, more.

"I do believe I may have scars from those nails of yours," Marcus joked lightly against your jaw, pressing a kiss to the bone with his plush lips.

Giggling quietly in his ear, you held his head close to your chest as his kisses traveled south. "I do believe you're creating tales, carissime."

He hums disapprovingly, holding you tighter on his lap when you shift. The steam from the water made his skin feel sticky and warm. You tasted salt on your tongue when you kissed below his ear. It was intoxicating, to say the least. Tasting him, trailing your tongue all over his molten hot skin, licking over his scars and freckles. There was a quiet minute when you both looked into each other's eyes again. Marcus can see the light hasn't died. He can see the adoration you have for him in the way your pupils dilate, and breathing quicken. And you can feel the love Marcus has for you in the way his eyes get slightly wide as he takes in your features, most likely mapping out which ones he hopes your unborn child takes from the both of you.

"Take us to bed, meum cor," you beg him. No longer able to keep looking at your handsome husband and not do anything about it, you leave it all up to him.

Without another word, Marcus stands with a hoarse grunt. With one strong arm wrapped tight (but not too tight) around your waist and his other hand under your thigh to keep you up and against his body, he steps over the tub and makes his way over to the bed. Neither of you care if your wet bodies are soaking the sheets. As he lays you down and rests on top of you, nothing else matters at this moment.

"Melculum, you look like a goddess with the sunlight kissing your naked skin," he whispers to you, lowering his head to kiss at your breasts and collarbones. You gasped and arched your back, further pressing your breasts into his mouth, to which he sucks a sensitive nipple between those lips.

Marcus rests on his forearms on either side of your head with his big hands tenderly cupping the crown. Your feet teasingly trail up and down the backs of his thighs, and you feel his hardness twitch between your bodies. Whispering his name in a needy voice, he looks up at you and catches the look in your half-lidded eyes. The flush on your skin makes your skin glow. He would never disrespect his gods and goddesses, but Aphrodite does have a competition on her hands.

Feeling too eager, you take charge and yank his neck down to finally kiss him. After months of not feeling his body, hands, and lips on yours, you powered all your emotions in this kiss. It was messy and desperate and hard. Tongue, teeth, garbled whimpers and heavy breaths. Marcus suckled at your bottom lip, letting it snap back against your teeth to then suck and bite at your neck. Your hips were shifting to slot his hard cock between the silky lips of your wet cunt. Grinding up and down, the thick vein that rests on his hardness glides easily against your swelling clit.

"Marcus," you weep quietly in his ear. "Oh, my husband. I need you more than life itself. Oh, you're the bravest, strongest soldier known to man. You're so... powerful, so dangerous. You keep your family and your people safe, my love." Saying this all while you're grinding your sweet cunt up and down the length of his hardness has Marcus growing erratic by the second.

He looks down between your bodies. Your cunt lips open like the blooming petals of the sweetest flower. The soft dark curls of your pubic hair rubbing against his own. Your small belly bump that keeps your unborn child safe and sound. Marcus uses his thumb to guide himself inside your cunt, breathing shallowly when the warm tightness sucks him in, inch by inch. Your mouth falls open to let out quiet, needy moans.

"There we go, melculum," Marcus grunts lowly in your ear, lowering his hips further down into yours and his thick cock slides deeper inside your leaking hole. The heat, wetness, and tightness of your cunt has him spiraling already. The knot in the pit of his stomach further unraveling the deeper he gets. "You were made for me," he breathes deeply, the heat of his breath fanning over your sensitive neck.

When he starts fucking into you, he was mindful to not rest his entire weight on your belly. He repositioned himself in a way that had his back curving to drive his hips deeper, faster, and harder into your own. The action had you arching and gasping. Your soft breasts and feet bounced gently from the movements. Marcus lovingly strokes down your temples with his thumbs and kisses you hard once again. Your fingers curl into his hair, now drying and curling beautifully. He looks like a god. It makes you want to cry. But then, his cock starts punching against the one spot that makes you scream.

"Oh! Marcus!" You yelped, eyebrows furrowed and lifted up as your mouth fell open and moans started pouring out. "Right there! Right... there. Ri-ight the-ere!"

He slows his thrusts until he's grinding so deep and so slow. Your moans turned into whimpers. He was able to hear the sloppy noises of your cunt soaking around his hardness. He grins down at you, his dimple deepening when you twitch and writhe.

"So beautiful," he whispers against your jaw. "So ethereal underneath me, writhing and begging for my cock." Marcus sharply drives his cock into your cunt unexpectedly. You let out a long, wanton wail that has his grin widening. He does it again, and again, and again. It was driving you absolutely crazy.

Your slick is most likely dripping out of your hole and onto Marcus' balls which slap against you. You can practically feel the weight of them, so heavy and full of two months' worth of cum. He drags his cock in and out of you slowly now, allowing you to feel every vein and every inch. Your thighs spread wide for him, eager for more. He answered your silent pleas and fucked you at a quicker pace again.

"Wrap your arms around me, Marcus. Oh, please, please, please!" You sobbed quietly, tears prickling at the corner of your eyes. He follows immediately. His strong arms wrap under your back and he rests some of his weight onto your front. Your thighs widen to accommodate his size, allowing his cock to nudge deeper in a way that steals your breath. "Just... like... that," you whimpered after each thrust Marcus gives.

He feels dizzy and overwhelmed in a good way. The smell of the homemade soap on your skin, the softness and warmth of your naked skin against his, your sweet moans like a pretty song in his ears, the slick tightness of your cunt sucking him in repeatedly. Feeling, smelling, and hearing all of these at once was enough to finally let him spill out his moans without holding back. His chest vibrates against your bare breasts with each grunt that passes his kissed-raw lips. The vibrations on your sensitive nipples tickled you erotically.

"You are intoxicating," he moans heavily against your sticky skin, his scruff scraping deliciously and his lips and teeth leaving little love bites. "Non possum satis de te." I cannot get enough of you.

With your eyes rolling back and your thighs trembling around his wide hips, you simply cannot control what your body does. Marcus catches you off guard by messily kissing you, his tongue intertwining with your own, tasting each other's saliva. The taste of him had you whining into his mouth. There was a faintness of wine on his tongue. Although you obviously couldn't drink while you bear his child, the lingering taste of it on your husband's tongue was enough to drive you wild. Your hands, originally placed on his shoulder blades, trail down to his tapered waist and finally cling onto his perky bottom. You squeeze the tender flesh and briefly dig your nails into the skin, feeling the muscles clench and unclench with every roll of his hips and cock driving into your cunt.

"Tu parum desperatus es, huh?" Marcus' voice sounded cocky and the grin on his face didn't help. You're a desperate little thing, huh?

One of the things that made your husband a respected leader was his arrogance was never wrongfully directed. He loved to gloat, about anything and everything. But when it came to you, his wife, his ego inflates to the point of popping.

That's when you felt it. The coil in the pit of your stomach gets tighter and tighter, forcing your gooey walls to twitch around Marcus' thickness. He moans lowly at the feeling of it. He hooks one of your thighs over his arm, bracing your knee into your chest to fuck you deeply. The position change had you shuddering, more slick leaking out and staining the sheets below your bodies.

"I'm... I'm... fuuuck!" With one final cry out to the gods, you scratched down Marcus' skin and braced yourself for impact.

Your orgasm washed over you like one of the strongest ocean waves known to man. Your body wouldn't stop twitching and writhing underneath his massive body. The squeezing tightness of your cunt wouldn't let your husband fuck you any longer. He drops down and lets out a final rough grunt before spilling inside of you. He has a entire body shiver as his cock twitches repeatedly, his thick cum spilling out every few seconds. It finally stopped after a whole minute; yes, you were counting. The tickle of his cum hitting you deep inside had you giggling drowsily.

"You should be thanking your husband for giving you a well-needed release, not laughing at him," he hums against your skin, the vibrations of his voice and bristles of his scruff tickling you further, causing you to laugh louder. He feels your belly jumping from your shaking body and he can't help but to smile.

Being in the arms of his wife after a long journey of war and death, there really is no place like home.

[bad-and-drawn-that-way]

can I request a Vox x reader fluff where they've both been struggling to come to terms with their feelings but when something (you can decide what) happens and the reader gets hurt really badly, he confesses

ANOOOOOOOOON!! YOU. GET ME. SO GOOD. HOW DARE YOU HIT ME UP WITH ONE OF MY FAVORITE TROPES?? Literally, give this trope to me as many times as yall want. I'll find a million ways to write it. Reap the repercussions and enjoy the food you beautiful homie, you!

Star-Crossed Idiots [Vox x Reader]

Vox refused to believe it.

Velvette had been the one to call him out on his shit first. Unlike him, she had a semblance of emotional maturity that meant she was perceptive to shit that flew over his head entirely. While he didn't understand why he found himself going out of his way to spend time with you, Velvette figured it out in a matter of days. The very fact that he had kept his involvement with you a secret was suspicious in itself. Not to mention, Velvette realized before he did. When she discovered his feelings for you, she found it hilarious. And a touch pathetic.

"I mean really Vox, you have zero reason to even know them," Velvette scoffed as she sipped on the frappuccino he had used to buy her silence. Things were already messy enough with Valentino. He had no intention of the pissy moth hearing of this until whatever this was, was sorted.

"Yet you constantly check in on their phone activity, go out of your way to run into them on the streets, and now they're even working for you just because your needy ass wanted an excuse to see them on the regular," Velvette listed as Vox did everything in his power to avoid eye contact.

Vox buried his face in his hands and groaned while Velvette rolled her eyes. "Wouldn't it just be easier to ask them out at this point? I love you, darling, but you're making this so much more complicated than it needs to be."

"No," Vox growled as he looked up and shot her a warning glare. "Do you have any idea how much shit we'd be in if I just started dating some random sinner? And that's only if the feelings were mutual."

He ran his hand down his screen with a huff, turning to look at Vark swimming up to the glass. While Vox had originally had the aquarium extend to the meeting rooms for a sense of looming intimidation, he'd found quite a bit of comfort in his sharks being able to follow him through the tower.

"Look, for all we know, I'm just pent up," Vox tried to reason. It sounded fake, even to his own ears, but he was in denial. There was too much bullshit he'd have to face if he really was as whipped for you as he feared. "It's been a shit couple of weeks. I probably just need a break and a good fuck and this will all be something you make fun of me about next week for ever entertaining in the first place."

Velvette shook her head, sighing as she pulled out her phone and started to scroll.

"Whatever you say."

---

You refused to believe it.

There was no way you fell for Vox of all people. For starters, you told yourself you'd never love again! Every time you'd tried, disaster followed. It didn't help that any potential match was one to be made in Hell. Granted, you knew not everyone in Hell was bad. There were a lot of sinners who you firmly believed belonged in Heaven or some sort of equivalent.

But even so... Vox was definitely not one of those people. Not that that was the important part or truly mattered. You were no saint either, you were also in Hell.

"I don't see what the big deal is toots," Angel Dust sighed as he watched you give Fat Nuggets attention to keep your hands busy through the stress. "There are worse people to have a crush on."

"There's better too," you whined. "I'd rather not have a crush at all," you muttered bitterly as your hand continued the soothing action of petting the teacup pig.

You'd originally been on the production team for one of Valentino's studios. That was how you befriended Angel Dust and why Vox scooped you out from under Valentino to work on his own set. He told you it was because he valued someone who had an ear for audio balance, but Angel said he'd only offered you the new job after the overlord walked in on the cameraman flirting with you right before.

"Why not just fuck the guy and see if it's a matter of heart or a matter of-"

You laughed as you covered Angel's mouth with one of your hands. "Okay, okay! Don't... finish that sentence. I won't let you taint poor little Fat Nuggets ears with your porn language."

Angel snickered as you pulled back your hand. "But you see my point, right?"

"I do," you sighed. "But that's... not really my style. If anything, I think it'd just hurt to see him after something like a casual fling. The idea of him wanting my body, but not me? Yeah no. I'll choose the healthier option of repressing my feelings, thank you very much."

"I'm telling ya, he's into you," Angel groaned. "I've seen the way he is with people he thinks are hot. I've seen him with Val. You're different, toots."

You smile sadly at Angel and put Fat Nuggets down on the bed. It was clear you didn't believe Angel and he was on the verge of ripping out his fur because of it. The two of you were so unbelievably oblivious it was gonna kill him again. "Thanks, Angie but... it's okay. Really, it is."

He sighed and eventually let it go. The two of you talked about other things for a while before Charlie peeked into his room to ask for your help on something. Once you were gone, he rolled over the conversation in his mind as he tried to think of ways to get the ball rolling on your love life.

Angel shook his head with a sigh and pulled out his phone. He scooped up Fat Nuggets and flopped back in his bed as the dialing sound filled the room. The line connected, and he was quick to the point.

"Hey, I know we don't really talk, but I've got an idea."

---

"Really Angie, I don't think this was necessary," You grumbled as you tugged down on the all-too-short skirt of the outfit he'd squeezed you into.

"Oh, but it was and it is," Angel grinned as he took your hand and twirled you in the entry hall to the club. You rolled your eyes and let him spin you in jest. He'd asked you to come with him to one of your old coworkers' birthday parties.

Apparently, one of the rules was to dress like you'd get hired to dance at the club. At least, that had been Angel's excuse when you questioned why he was hovering over you as he did your hair, and makeup and held up several outfits to your body that you doubted would fit.

Despite the discomfort of getting all dolled up, you were happy he'd invited you. It had been a while since you saw your old friends. That being said, it would have been more fun if you weren't tugging down your skirt every two minutes. You weren't the only one hyperaware of how much of your skin was exposed. Nor of the way the fabric hugged your frame tightly. Several of your old friends had suggested you return to the studio with a job in front of the camera instead of in the shadows of the set.

You'd been having a good time, sticking to the corner of the room with some of your old friends to watch the drinks while the rest were out on the dance floor. One of the drunker sinners of the bunch accidentally knocked over some of the drinks while she'd been telling a story about the recent cam show she did. You volunteered to go get more napkins from the bar. One of your friends came with you to reorder the ruined drinks and the two of you had nearly pushed your way through the crowd when you heard a familiar voice call your name through the noise.

Vox didn't have to fight through the crowd the way you had. The second sinners saw the glow of his screen, they were quick to move out of his path. Your friend touched your arm, pulling your attention away from the approaching overlord. They winked at you and told you they had the drink issue handled.

When you turned, you caught Vox's screen flickering from pink to his usual blue. You had never seen any color other than the "You don't get to sleep" blue light, so you assumed it was just a trick of the flashing dance lights above.

"I didn't think you'd be here," you say to break the tension. This wasn't the first time you'd seen him in casual wear, nor was it the first time you'd seen Vox since realizing you had feelings for him. Even so, your heart was beating hard just from the sight of him.

"A-Ah yeah, well," Vox stammered as the music blared through the busy room. "Velvette wanted to drop by. She said something about wanting to check the place out as a potential venue for an upcoming show."

"Just the two of you?" you ask, perking up slightly.

"It was supposed to be," Vox chuckled dryly. His grin was tired and forced as he looked to the side and scanned the room. "Valentino heard we were coming here and tagged along. I don't know why, but Velvette got really heated about it. Something about him fucking up her plans..."

"Oh," your shoulders drop. You cringe internally, wishing you could take back the bitterness in your voice. You hoped it wasn't too obvious, but the way Vox was looking at you like you were some sort of a puzzle told you everything you needed to know.

You actually loved Velevette. She was sassy and cutthroat but had a kind side to her as well. Valentino however... He'd been the source of a lot of suffering for the people you cared about. While the more obvious examples of Angel Dust returning to the hotel looking like shit came to mind, so did the times you had to comfort Vox after being yanked this way and that by the moth emotionally.

That was actually how you'd realized you'd come to care for him as deeply as you do. He'd been standing alone in one of the meeting rooms with a distant look on his face. When you found him and asked him if he was okay, he tried to play it off with his usual bravado, but couldn't. He never cried in front of you, he only vented his frustrations about Valentino and you listened. You sympathized. And eventually, you found yourself wishing you could be the one to treat him better.

Vox opened his mouth to say something, only for Valentino to slip his arm around his shoulder, appearing out of nowhere from the crowd.

"There you are baby," he purred, his fingers immediately slipping under the collar of Vox's vest. You resisted the urge to gag as Valentino took a long puff from his pipe and blew the majority of the smoke in your direction.

"I was wondering where you up and fucked off to," Valentino grinned as he leaned down to nip drunkenly at Vox's shoulder. "You left me all alone with our little fashionista, "Valentino scoffed. "She's in such a bitchy mood."

If it wasn't bad enough that Valentino was practically drooling all over Vox in front of you and pretending you weren't there, insult was only added to injury when Valentino grinned at you with sharp teeth when he called Velvette bitchy.

"Come back and unwind with me," Valentino hummed as he started to kiss up Vox's neck. "Some of my best toys are here tonight. Don't you want to play?"

If Vox had any doubt he was in Hell before, he had every reason to confirm the fact at this moment. He'd fallen out of love with Valentino, but the almost... the almost killed him. To make it worse, he was completely frozen, letting it all happen in front of you. He made no moves to stop Valentino, he made no moves to reciprocate. He simply froze.

Unable to watch any longer as Vox continued to fall for the very same game of tug-o-war he told you he was done with, you bite your lip and turn on your heel. You can't tell if you heard Vox say your name or if it was just a trick of the crowd.

"Anyone else gonna drink this?" You asked as you rejoined your friends still at the table and pointed to one of the more full glasses left on the table. When your friends who were sober enough to answer said you could go for it, you tossed it back in one shot.

You griped to one of your friends who had stayed behind to watch over those too drunk to make good choices. The two of you had been having a damn good venting session about how stupid you felt your feelings were when the entire bar swayed. Your words slurred as your body grew heavy.

One second you were sitting up, wondering why your friend looked so concerned. The next second there was a sharp pain against the temple of your forehead, followed by a heavy thunk, more pain, and darkness.

---

Vox had been desperately searching the dance floor for any sign of you. He'd torn away from Valentino and the moth hadn't bothered to follow. Vox would... handle that another time. For as much as he denied his feelings for you this morning, the second he saw the hurt look in your eyes he knew he had to tell you. There was no way he could ignore the sharp lurch in his chest at the sight of you.

He didn't know what it meant. He couldn't tell if it was just a sense of betrayal after he'd been so open with you about Valentino or if it was something more. Every time he found himself wanting to talk about his true feelings on anything, he wanted to talk to you. Every time he had a rare second alone in the middle of the night, the only touch he craved was yours. Yes, he had a history with Valentino, but he didn't actively want that. He wanted you.

He finally spotted you across the room, sitting at a table with one of the whores he'd seen at Valentino's studio and getting way too close to them for his liking. He made his way through the drunken idiots who were too far gone to notice him, keeping his eyes on you as you started swaying dangerously.

You tried to reach down for something on the table and Vox swore as you lost what little balance you had and fell over. Someone got in his way so he didn't see the impact, but somehow he heard it. Through all the noise he heard the sharp thud and the panicked swearing of the person you were with after.

Vox was suddenly shoving every idiot out of his way, ignoring their shouts as he ran into the small clearing and found you on the ground with blood seeping from your head. He was immediately on his knees, scooping you up as the sinner who'd been with you started freaking out.

The only thing Vox could hear was a high-pitched whine as he pulled you to him and tried to frantically find where you were bleeding from. Half of your head was dripping with blood and he vaguely registered your friend saying your head had hit the edge of the table.

"Just s̴̢̃ḧ̸̺u̸͇͋t̷̯͂ ̷̬̂u̶͖̓p̵̳͗!̶̳͌," Vox snapped as he whipped up and affixed the sinner with a violent glare. He didn't care that half the club was looking at him. For once, he didn't care that he'd made a scene. Logically, he knew something like this couldn't kill you, you were all already dead. But his hands were shaking violently and the buzzing in his head was getting louder because you weren't moving.

Everything around him flashed with bright blue light as he held you close and teleported out of the club without even thinking about it. The two of you reappeared in his room back at the tower and he let out a shaky breath as he placed you down on his bed.

Not knowing what to do, Vox quickly crossed the room and threw his bathroom door open as he searched for anything he could use to stop the bleeding. He was muttering furiously as he nearly ripped the hinges off the cupboard under the sink looking for anything he could use.

Vox let out a loud, angry shout as his body kept glitching. His movements were jerky and he'd hit his head on the sink twice now. Just as he was about to have an absolute meltdown, he heard you groan from his bedroom. His head snapped up and he turned around at the sound of your voice so fast he was surprised he didn't snap his own neck.

Vox yanked a towel off of the wall and scrambled across the nylon tiles as he fell into his room with all the grace of a CEO that he clearly had. He swore, picking himself up and coming over to you as you sat up and clutched your head.

"Shit, that stuff was stronger than I thought," you groaned. "Note to self, don't just chug random alcohol at the club." you tried to laugh, only to hiss as the pain in your head doubled down due to the movement.

"You're a fucking idiot," Vox sighed as he sat down next to you and lifted the towel to your head.

You flinched at the contact, and Vox grabbed your wrist with his free hand. "Stay still," he frowned, pressing again on the wound. "You're still bleeding."

Trying not to do more damage, you stay as still as possible while he tries to stop the bleeding. The silence is heavy between the two of you before you mumble quietly.

"Sorry..."

Vox blinks, frowning down at you. "For what?"

You avoid eye contact the best you can given your current condition and fist your hands on your thighs nervously. "For acting like an idiot. You've told me about how hard it is with Valentino. I should've said or done something and not have gotten..."

"Upset?" Vox finished for you quietly. You flinched, unable to read the tone in his voice. He sighed and slowly lifted the towel from your head, before lowering it. "Why did you?"

"It's stupid," you bite your lip, hand drifting up curiously to see how bad the wound is. Before your fingers could brush against your hair, Vox's hand grabbed your wrists again.

"Try me."

You couldn't say if it was due to the pain, blood loss, or alcohol in your system, but the moment you finally gathered the courage to look him in the eye, you said fuck it. Vox gasped as you surged forward and pressed your lips against his. He'd barely had a chance to process the feeling before you were already turned away from him and rambling some bullshit about how you knew he didn't feel the same.

He took your hand, ignoring the anxious nonsense flowing from your mouth, and lifted it to his lips. Your speech died on your tongue as his lips pressed against the palm of your hand.

"Do you have any idea how much you've been on my mind?" He growled softly, his lips trailing up your arm slowly as he practically worshiped your skin.

If it wasn't for the fact that your blood was still on his hands, Vox would have been so much more rough with you. He would have grabbed you and crashed his lips against yours. He would have torn the fabric that hugged your curves so tightly off of your body and shown you just how badly he'd been needing you.

Instead, he made do with tracing his claw under your chin and guiding you to face him properly. His eyes searched yours for any doubt or sign that you'd acted purely on adrenaline and not something more. When your breath hitched and your cheeks flushed, he knew. As he leaned down and pressed his lips against yours, as his arms snaked down and pulled you flush against him like you'd break, as your fingers found a home in his vest he knew.

You wanted him too. You fell for him too. This wasn't a game of "do they, don't they" like the one he'd played with Valentino for so fucking long.

His breath hitched, his arms tightening around you before he slowly pulled back and laughed breathlessly.

"Does this mean we're dating?" you ask, smiling at him like he'd hung the stars in the sky.

"God that sounds cheesy," Vox grimaced. The phrase felt so... high school bullshit. But it wasn't wrong. He wanted that. He really wanted that with you.

He reached down, hesitating before his clawed hand gently covered yours. "But yeah... I guess it does," he smiled softer than you'd ever seen before.

[unformula1]

happy birthday (LS2 x OP81)

synopsis: happy birthday oscar piastri. ur amazing. lovely lovely oscar!! w/c: 688 a/n: it’s oscar piastri day!! there’s a lot of logical flaws in this story but who cares right. day 13 of Loscar posts until we get a LOSCAR PODIUM (series masterlist) also remind me to write a part 2 to this on the 31st of December okay 

Oscar stares at his lock screen, his stare is blank and unreadable. He watches the multiple notifications slide in all wishing him happy birthday in one way or another. He swipes them away after briefly reading the first few words.

He looks back up at the clock again, 10am. He sighs and looks back down at his phone as it fades to black. He turns it on again, still staring at the empty lock screen.

He starts floating into a daze.

His phone rings, which snaps him out of his trance. It’s Lando. 

He picks up the phone

“Hey.” He says, trying his best to sound excited. Well, he is but he’s more excited for something else.

“Hello Oscar Piastri.” Lando says, clearly sensing Oscar’s lack of excitement, “Clearly someone hasn’t texted in yet.” Lando scoffs softly but Oscar can hear it.

“Shut up.” Oscar says, rolling his eyes, “I’m not expecting his text, we haven’t talked in a while okay.”

“Really?” Lando pushes.

“Yes.”

“Sure?”

“Yes. Very sure.”

“Liar.”

“Shut up.”

“You’re still waiting for Logan’s little happy birthday!” Lando says it in a childish sound.

“No I’m not.”

“Yes you are.” 

“No.”

“Okay once you’re done waffling on about it, Logan’s here… like outside the McLaren garage.” Lando says, which piques Oscar’s attention.

“Why are you there so early?” Oscar says, diverting the subject of the conversation.

“Needed to talk.”

“Liar.”

Oscar says as Lando hangs up.

He tuts and gets up, throwing on his coat and walking out. He briskly walks to the track, which isn’t that far.

Oscar anxiously walks into the paddock, his eyes darting around to find Logan. He doesn’t know why he’s so nervous. Maybe it was because he had the looming thought that Logan would never wish him happy birthday again, which wouldn’t be that big of a deal if it wasn’t Logan but it was and it meant everything.

Logan and Oscar were the closest of friends before all of this. Logan wished Oscar happy birthday every single year at 12 midnight sharp but ever since last year he hasn’t.

Last year, Logan wished Oscar at a random time in the day which disappointed Oscar a little by not receiving a message at 12 midnight.

However, this year Logan hasn’t even wished Oscar a happy birthday probably because they were nearing the final thread of their friendship. It suddenly dawned on Oscar that he would never get another “happy birthday!” from Logan if he didn’t do anything now.

He panics.

He fucked up real bad didn’t he.

He forgot to wish Logan a happy birthday last year and now Logan probably thought that meant the end of their friendship.

God he was stupid.

He beat himself up over forgetting to wish him and regretted everything.

He swiftly finds the McLaren garage but no Logan, he quickly wipes his disappointment and walks into the garage. His entire team is there to wish him a happy birthday and that made him feel slightly better. He smiles widely for the camera and blows out the candles. 

Lando makes some snarky remark which causes Oscar to chuckle stupidly again.

It takes them a few minutes to wrap everything up but when they do, Oscar takes out his phone and the message lingering there makes his face light up.

Logan: happy birthday oscar!! come outside please

Oscar shuts his phone off, being so excited he forgets to respond to the message. He darts past his team and pushes the garage door open and right there is Logan Hunter Sargeant.

“Happy Birthday Oscar.” Logan says, presenting Oscar a soft toy of a koala.

Oscar’s smile widens even more and he feels like he’s stupid smiling right now but he couldn’t care less.

He hugs the koala tight and snuggles it before running up to Logan and hugging him.

“Thank you.” Oscar says as he tightly grips onto Logan.

“Happiest of birthdays Oscar.”

“I promise I’ll never forget yours again.” Oscar says as he hugs Logan tighter.

“Are we still talking about this? I told you it’s alright.”

“No it’s not. It isn’t.”

“Whatever.” Logan chuckles.

[s-che]

who holds the mask? designing the Disguise

For the record, all of the playbooks in Beneath Pirate Flags are trans. Gay ass trans ass pirates. I mean, they don’t have to be — the magic of character creation means that you could make anyone, even (!!) a cis person, if your imagination can handle that. But they’re all more or less about being trans, or about types of trans people I know, anyway. Maybe none of them is as trans as the Disguise, though.

I don’t mean that, of course. The Disguise isn’t “more trans” than any of the others in any way that matters. What I mean is that the Disguise is maybe the most “obviously” trans, the most “typically” trans. The Disguise deals with a narrative that people see and go oh, oh, I know this—that one’s about being trans.

The Disguise is a pirate “on the run from at least two things,” inspired by tales of putting on a (you guessed it) disguise and escaping to adventure. There’s a lot of Jim from Our Flag Means Death in there, of course, as well as a good amount of Eowyn and not a small percentage of Alanna of Trebond. The Disguise is playing in a lot of tropes that make people conscious of the play of genders—which, for complicated reasons, reads as “more” trans than, say, The Hunk, The Dandy, or The Legend (even though all three of those are, to me, far more fundamentally drawn from my own trans experience).

One of the big things I wanted to do with the Disguise though, was offer more nuanced understanding of the work masks and disguises can do than we usually get in these types of stories. In the most traditional—the most recognizable—version of this narrative the Disguise is a cis woman who, frustrated not so much with her gender as with institutional sexism, takes on a mask in order to “play” as a man and trespass in the wider world (the historical erasure of transmasculine people into the cis feminist figure of “the woman in pants” looms large here). In this narrative, there comes a point where—as in Mulan, Eowyn, Alanna—she is unmasked but accepted as, to borrow a term from Tamora Pierce  “a woman who rides.” 

Here’s the thing: That’s a valid arrangement of what’s in the Disguise. There’s no reason the Disguise couldn’t be used to tell this kind of story—but I think there’s a more interesting version of this character out there, probably most clearly expressed (in popular media, anyway) by Jim Jimenez in Our Flag Means Death who, critically, does not return to their assigned gender after removing the “mask.” After all, there’s no reason to think that the mask must be something taken on (as opposed to, say, assigned). Rather, I like to think about the Disguise as playing across a border—dealing in multiple frames and knowledges, and trying to make space for themself between them. One day—if all goes well—they won't need the mask anymore. The playbook could equally viably tell the story of:

A cis woman under patriarchy, “playing a man” so she can run away and be a sailor (like Eowyn does).

A trans person, “playing” their assigned gender as they work to find out who they are really (like... most if not all trans people do, at one point or another).

A trans person, “playing” their true gender (or at least a new gender) as they build a new understanding of themself in a new context (this is the reading I think is closest to what happens with Jim, fwiw).

A person whose disguise has nothing to do with their gender at all—maybe they’re a prince in hiding, or they're pretending to be a prince in hiding, or there's something else.

There’s also no reason that the playbook couldn’t combine these stories—or even reach for new ones that haven’t occurred to me. The possibilities are endless. The core of the Disguise is not about secrets and falsehoods (although secrets and falsehoods certainly play their part), but rather performance and autonomy over your own presentation. The mask is a tool to control that presentation.

This brings us to the saddest part of the playbook—the ending.

Every playbook in Beneath Pirate Flags has three prewritten endings (although you’re naturally welcome to come up with your own). Each set of three has two happy endings and one sad one— sometimes bittersweet, sometimes tragic, and sometimes just bad. For the Disguise, that sorrow is all about the loss of control. The worst thing that could possibly happen—the most upsetting ending, which I want players to be aware of even if they aren’t interested in it—is not just the removal of the mask, but the removal of the mask without the Disguise’s permission or control. The world longs to control our presentations and, by doing so, control our lives. There is magic in a mask, and in the autonomy it provides—but there are people who want to rip both of those away. They want to hurt you, to control you, and to make you hurt yourself. That’s what we’re fighting against. Anyway, there you have it. Go hug a trans person—and check out Beneath Pirate Flags.

[futuremrsdrcullen]

This Love Came Back To Me - Epilogue

I can not believe this is the last part of Eclipse. I never thought I'd get here. Big thanks to my editors for dealing with this for two years. Biggest Thanks to you guys for waiting two years for this part. <3

Summery- I was completely overwhelmed with this looming dread. This wasn’t just about Bella anymore. Though that was bad enough, this involved me now. Despite how often Edward disregarded my safety and despite how desperately Carlisle tried to protect me from this;

My life was in danger.

It was never going to end was it?

Word Count- 1,184

Warnings- Vampires- and all the things that go along with vampires (blood, biting, age gaps, sparkling, dramatics) a lot more swearing this time. There's some minor injuries and some very minor character death. mentions of vomiting (2 actual vomits, due to injury) Battle, fighting and planning. It's all very happy I promise.

There is no imprinting and there never will be <3

Notes from me- My name is Claire and this! This is finally my third love child. I started writing this on the 27th of July in 2022. I lost hope a few times but it's here and I hope you love it. Thank you, so so much for staying with me.

I promise Breaking Dawn will not take as long! I'm writing it already! <3

As always, I DO NOT own The Twilight Saga. All rights go directly to S. Meyer.

Read on AO3 <3

Masterlist <3 (Ch 4, Ch 5)

I love you <3 Thank you for still being here <3

Alice managed to get me out of the house and to Seattle only three days later. She drove the Porsche and we made the trip in a little more than two hours. I felt like I was going to vomit the entire time. I trained my eyes out the front windshield.

Carlisle made her promise to make me drink water, but didn't insist on going with us. I was actually very excited for a girls day.

It felt normal.

Most things had already fallen back into a normal pace. Carlisle went to work that morning. I didn't feel unstable on my own two feet. We could go shopping in Seattle now that there wasn't an army of Newborn vampires being created to kill us. It was normal. I could breathe again.

Inside a small boutique, Alice and I discussed colors. Alice thought deep reds- maybe maroons would make the whole thing feel very classic. I thought maroons were a bit too on the nose for a vampire wedding and Bella would probably prefer more neutral tones, like greens and browns.

We went back and forth like this until she found a silvery lavender dress. I froze in my spot when she held it to her skin. I didn't know how to explain it, but I knew it was right. The color matched the undertones of her skin so well that I knew Bella would love it. It was a perfect mix of vampire and subtle.

She draped it over her arm and continued her search. I found a dress in a similar color that was a bit shorter and I knew she would look stunning in it. Before I could take it off the rack she said, “Yes! It's perfect!”

I laughed and handed it to her. She took it into the dressing room without another word, and though both of us knew it would be perfect, I was still excited to see her in it. When the door shut behind her, I sat down on the closest bench and took a deep breath, then a sip of water. 

Again, almost normal.

She came back out only a few seconds later and she took my breath away. She smiled at me and practically skipped over to the mirrors. She played with her hair for a few seconds before sighing.

“Can I?” She looked a little hesitant- not used to handing over fashion choices. I pulled a hair clip off the accessory rack and pinned back her pixie hair on one side. It was a style that was very reminiscent of the 20's. She looked frozen in time and utterly angelic. 

Suddenly she turned towards me and grinned, “It's your turn.”I almost shied away from her grin, but before I could she was dragging me across the store to where we'd found the other two dresses. Without hesitation she handed my one calf length dress and one that was to the floor.

When she was satisfied with her choices for me she promptly pushed me towards the dressing room. Before I even had time to zip the first dress up she called out to me, “Hmm… Not that one.” I chuckled, but swapped dresses. Even when I came out in that one she still wasn't content with the decision. She walked over to the rack and began her search again. 

This time it only took a second before she gasped and she pushed me back into a dress room. I knew without even trying it on that it was perfect. Of course she agreed with me the second I stepped out in it.

This dress was more modern than Alice and Rosalie's, but still a clean and classic look- soft tulle in a soft lavender color with delicate blue flowers. Her reaction only sold me on it further. She was speechless and when she pulled me to the mirrors, I was too. 

We stood there for a moment before she pulled herself back together. Her eyes fluttered like she was blinking back tears. “It will need to be brought in a bit, but your necklace is perfect- oh! And your hair tied back with that blue ribbon of yours- Now shoes…” She danced back to the sales floors. I giggled as she went.

I didn’t mind indulging her, even if Bella did. I loved to see her this happy.

“Has she picked a date yet?” I asked as she paced the length of the shoe racks.

“August Thirteenth. And yes I am aware that it's two months away, but I will make it perfect…” She trailed off, lost in thought.

“I know it will be.” She met my gaze and I smiled at her. “Thank you. For all of this.”

Her smile matched my own. “It's important to all of us. Edward wants to stall her, but we want her to live. She skipped over to me and took my hands in her, “I wouldn’t trade my life for anything I would have experienced as a human. But it’s so important… that you two live.”

She continued looking at shoes and went on, “If it's just prom, and graduation, and a wedding, it's still more than the rest of us had. We may be only living vicariously through you, but someday, she'll be grateful she experienced a little more life.”

“I'm grateful to live a little more life with her too. Though, I also think… at some point, we have to let her be happy with the life she's chosen for herself.” Alice seemed to deflate a bit at my words, but I added, “These are just small things you’re asking of her, and I do see the benefits for her mother and our dad, I just hate to think that she might be compromising some of her own happiness for the sake of all of us…” I trailed off, but she understood.

“You and Carlisle think so similarly sometimes. But she doesn’t have to compromise on anything more than a few hours and her dirty converse. Everything else will fall into place exactly like it’s meant to.” She placed a delicate hand on my arm as she said this. I had a feeling she meant more than Bella and Edward’s marriage- like she meant literally everything would fall into place. And I’d never bet against Alice.

Her smile grew “Plus- Who doesn’t love a Cullen party?”

I couldn’t help but laugh, “The whole town will talk about it for decades, I’m sure.”

“At least until they see what I do for yours.” She grinned.

My eyes went wide. “Oh god…” Though I wasn’t really scared. I could cross that bridge when we came to it. She went back to examine shoes. I pretend to get caught up looking at hair accessories.

I ran my fingers over a simple lace veil as my mind drifted back to her words.

He hadn’t asked me yet, but I knew he would.

And I knew that I would say yes.

I knew, without a shadow of doubt, that someday, maybe even someday soon, we would have forever.

Taglist!!

@jakanddexter67 @a-not-so-poetic-poet @bridge597 @cestlavie03 @gaymazinglula @short-potato @jennyamanda8 @daisydreamingsims @arg888cam

[dreamwatch]

Get in the Van

Written for @corrodedcoffinfest

Day #5 - Prompt: On The Road | Word Count: 999 | Rating: T | CW: chronic pain, language | POV: Eddie | Pairing: None| Tags: band struggles, touring in a van, author is not American, geographic inacuracies (probably) | AO3

****

“Fuck!”

“It doesn’t matter how many times you kick the van, man, it’s not going to make it start!”

“Maybe he just needs to kick it harder.”

“Shut up!”

****

Wasn’t this just fucking amazing? Wasn’t this just indicative of the bad luck that followed him around like some looming spectre? They’ve only been out on the road a few weeks, just a handful of gigs before the van broke down. Now they’re stuck at the side of the road in Somewhere, Minnesota, with a van full of equipment, dirty laundry and soon to be broken dreams. 

It started in Evansville, with a bunch of locals who heard about the satanists showing up to play their 'devil music' and decided to give them a warm welcome; there are dents and scratches all over the van that are definitely not going to buff out.

Then in St. Louis they had an amazing show, like objectively fucking brilliant. Eddie knows for a fact there was some local music journalist in the crowd, too. So of course that was the night Jeff’s amp decided it wasn’t just going to give up, it was going out in a blaze of glory. Literally. Fucking thing just went up in flames. Everyone thought it was part of the act, even when he stripped his shirt off to beat the flames out. So yeah, now they’re down an amp.

Gareth being plied with tequila before the show in Kansas City was another highlight. Don’t get him wrong, he loves to see Gareth happy and if a pretty woman wanted to buy him some drinks then good for him. He loved it less when they were on stage later. Eddie has no idea what songs Gareth was playing, but they definitely weren’t the same as the rest of the band. He also learned it’s really hard to get vomit out of a snare drum.

And then there’s the pain.

Thing is, its always there. It just is, there’s no point making a big deal about it. The doctors always told him it would be a life long thing but that it would get easier. It’s been three years now, and there’s been no improvement. Which is, well not fine, it sucks, but you know, it is what it is. But there have been days, shows, where he could cry. Where it feels like his skin has been flogged with a burning switch, where the muscles in his leg and back scream at him to stop, just fucking stop! But he pushes through, takes his painkillers, maybe doubles up sometimes with a couple of shots of JD to help them down, whatever. It’s all good.

And now they’re sitting at the side of the I-94 with smoke and steam billowing from the engine block, and nothing but truck after truck passing by. 

“What if no one stops?” asks Gareth, propping himself against the back doors.

Jeff rocks on his heels in front of him, hands jammed in his pockets. “Someone will stop.”

“I wouldn’t count on it,” Eddie mutters. He’s under the hood, poking his hand around into the hot engine parts; he’s only burnt himself twice so far. 

“Hey, don’t be bring your bad juju here man—”

Eddie storms to the back of van. “My bad juju? Are you kidding me? Gareth booked these fucking gigs!”

A huge semi screams past them, tooting his horn, making them all jump. 

“I booked some of them. Don’t blame this on me, man. It’s your van.”

“It is my van, correct, however we all benefit from it, and I don’t see any of you assholes dipping into your pockets when it needs work.”

Jeff shrugs. “Well, it’s never needed work.”

“It does now,” says Matt, merrily throwing pebbles into the long grass, like he doesn’t have a care in the world. Eddie cuts him a withering look.

Another truck passes, whipping up dirt in it’s trail. When he’s done coughing, Gareth says “I kind of think we should stand further away, actually. This doesn’t feel safe.“ He’s probably not wrong.

“Alright, go and sit by the fence, I’ll stand here with my thumb out,” Eddie says, mumbling “like an asshole” under his breath. He drops his jacket into the front seat of the van on the off chance it might seem less imposing, and then heads to the side of the road, standing as far out from the van as he dares. 

“You should roll your jeans up, show ‘em some leg!” Matt shouts at him.

“Fuck off, Matt!”

“Have you seen how white his legs are?” he can hear Jeff say. “We want them to stop, not call Ghostbusters.”

Eddie pokes his head around the side of the van. “By all means, one of you stand here with your thumb in the air while eighteen wheelers fly past.” When he doesn’t get a response he snaps back, “Yeah, I didn’t think so.”

Eddie stands in the blazing sun, hair whipping around his face as semi after semi speeds by; he’s sweaty and dirty and desperate for a shower. The nerves in his leg are starting to fire up, and he needs a cigarette but he smoked his last one just before the van decided it was done with this trip, so now he has the little tap tap tap of nicotine addiction to contend with as well. 

This sucks. Touring sucks. So fucking much.

But.

Last night they played a show in Minneapolis. The crowd was wild; a huge mosh pit opened up right in front of Eddie and it took every ounce of his being not to throw himself in the mix. They sold tapes and t-shirts and traded phone numbers with a band manager. They laughed all night and drank until three A.M.. It was amazing. It was everything he ever dreamed it would be.

Wayne always told him he was resilient, ‘more than you know, son.’ He holds on to that as another truck screams past.

[sanscat0414]

To Close for Comfort

Hawks X Injured Reader

This is a longer one shot.

Warning: Gore, Angst (don’t worry there is fluff too),

——————————————————-

The Previous Night….

“KEIGO!!! Don’t you get it? I don’t want you disappearing on me without notice!”

“Babybird please not now I just came home. I’m exhausted.”

“No we need to talk about this!!!! You can’t just go on a mission without telling me or at least text me that your okay! It’s been 2 weeks!!!”

“It happens you know that. I have a lot of work.”

“Keigo I know but a small text like a ‘hi’ or ‘I’m okay’ is better than ghosting me. I been worried sick!!!”

“Come on it’s not a big deal.” He said in a tried voice. He was slowly getting visibly annoyed. He knew you ment well but the tiredness that built up took over.

“Keigo! It is how would you feel if I had left for 2 weeks without a call huh!?”

He ingored you cries and just went to his bedroom.

“Find be like that.” You whispered and let him be.

You decide it was best to just sleep on the couch. You were mad and he was ignoring you. It was best had some time to cool off and you though you might be able to talk to him later

——— Time skip to current day

You didn’t bother to wake him up. You knew he was exhausted probably form many nights without sleep. You wanted him to have a bit of extra shit eye. You may be mad at him but you still care. You made him breakfast knowing he probably make something unhealthy if you didn’t. You left it in the fridge and left without a word to go to work.

Hawks on the other had had slept almost the entire afternoon. The mission he was sent to left him sleep deprived and it was the first in many days that he got any proper sleep.

Hawks woke up groggily and did this “morning” routine. He walked to the kitchen to for anything to eat. Hawks saw the meal you left him, he couldn’t help but smile knowing you still went out of your way to make him something dispute the argument form last night. As he eat his mind wondered back to the previous night. You were right, he probably should have told you but the commission didn’t allow that. He felt guilty for treating you so badly. He was exhausted but he knew that wasn’t a good excuse to blowing up on you and ignoring your distress.

After he finished his meal he went to get his phone to hopefully get to call you and maybe ask if you out on a date to make it up to you. It was then that Hawks notice alll the countless calls from you. Hawks called him immediately after seeing them and he rang up your phone. He instantly got extremely worried.

To his surprise it wasn’t you who answered.

“Hawks?” It was Fatgum a long time friend of yours and his.

“FatGum? Where’s y/n I just saw she called me a bunch of time. Is she ok?”

“*sigh* Y/n is in the hospital.”

As soon as he heard “y/n” and “hospital” He grabbed his keys and left your shares Penthouse.

“Which hospital and where?” He asked.

He flew as fast as he could to the hospital that Fatgum said. He end the call as soon as he got the address. He felt dreadful for not being there when you need him the most. On his way there all Hawks could think was how he fail at be a hero, your hero. The one person that he most desperately wanted to protect he fail to do so. He beat himself over as he got closer and closer as the since of dread loomed over him.

Once Hawks got to the hospital, he got you room number and bolted upstairs and straight to you. He was mortified; he was so focused on you taht he didn’t even realize that Fatgum was still the room.

You were in the medical bed-with few machines hook up to you and Iv in your arm. You had bandages covering most of your arms and probably most of your body. Worst yet you were unconscious. Hawks walked up to the bed and sat close to you. He gently held your hand and brought it up to his head.

“Babybird….” He said quietly

It took him a few minutes but he finally got the the courage to ask Fatgum what happened.

“I don’t know how it started but it was lucky that I was patrolling that area. I saw Y/n was being beaten up by a couple of thugs. I was able to stop them and got y/n here as fast as possible” Fatgum said.

“I should have been there to save her… I’m sorry baby I should I’ve been there…” he said mostly to himself.

“Hey, Hawks you shouldn’t been may yourself over for something you can’t control.”

“I could have been there! If only I wad awake maybe I could have been there for her!” Hawks said.

“Hawks…” Fatgum was saddened by Hawks’s loathing.

“What did the doctors say? Will she be okay? When is she going to wake up?”

“They don’t know when she is going to wake up or if she could wake up….” Fatgum said sadly.

Fatgum left you and Hawks alone after that. He had his own patrols but he prayed that you be okay for both yours and Hawks’s sake.

—————-1 Week Later——————

The past 3 days was hell for Hawks. He was distracted at work, he couldn’t get a proper night sleep due to nightmares and all he could think about was you. He was a mess. Everyday he go to work and come to the hospital to stay until he gets kicked out because visiting hours were closed. He would tell you about his day, even tho he didn’t know if you could here him; seeing you still alive was the only thing keeping him going. He constantly thought bout your last interaction. Hawks thought “why didn’t I just hear you out.” And “if only I had listened to you maybe things would be different.

This day was no different, Hawks sat there hold your hand telling you about his day. He held your hand as the days of loss sleep caught up to him. He fell asleep by your side.

You woke up feeling like a truck had hit you. You opened your eyes to the bright lights of the hospital room. You immediately closed your eyes and waited until your eyes where adjusted before looking around. It was then you notice that Hawks was sleeping while holding your hand in his.

You try to recall the events that lead to your hospitalization. You only remember trying to call Hawks after a couple to men trying to flirt with you then they got violent because you turn them down. You didn’t move much mostly because it hurt all over but also you didn’t want to wake Hawks up.

A few minutes later, you hear a bit of fluttering and Hawks’ eyes shot open. He looked at you, and you looked back directly into his golden eyes. It took a few minutes but he was finally able to process that your awake.

“Baby bird!” He sayer looking both relieved and surprise “let me get a doctor to check on you then we can talk okay? Just don’t move.”

“Okay.”

After the doctor checked on you, they let you and hawks alone.

“I’m sorry… I should have been there to help you.” He said avoiding eye contact and looking down at your hand in his.

“It’s not your fault, I should have been more careful.”

“Baby, I was so scared… scared I lost you. Scared that are last interaction wad an argument because of my stupidity… I’m sorry for ghosting you, I’m sorry for no being better…”

“Keigo, I’m here now right? Still very much alive. So don’t worry.”

He didn’t say anything as he felt guilty for not being there for you and not being able to save you.

“Keigo, I’m sorry for blowing up on you too, I know your busy and I could have been a little more gentle. I love you and I wanna know that your safe. So if you promise that you at least tell me that your okay by even just a 1 letter text when your on a longer mission. I’m happy and I would forgive you.” You said as you gently booped his nose.

“No, you shouldn’t be sorry; I’m the one who mess up. I’m the one who didn’t answer your call when you need me the most. I promise! And next time I promise all be there when you need me. I promise I’ll be better.” He said looking up at you.

For the rest do your recovery, Hawks was there to help with anything you need. He even tried to spend more time with you to the dismay of the commission.

Admittedly he got super overprotective of you making sure if your outside you have one person to be able to keep you safe wether that wad with him or with a hero friend. It was a little annoying but you get where he was coming from. He even gave you a small feather to keep you safe, you can use it as a dagger or just to mess with him a little. True to his words, whenever he was out on a longer mission, he al and try to call you or send at least a text every other day. At the end of the day Hawks truly loves you and you love him all the same even if he’s a little bird brain sometimes.

[hms-no-fun]

Currently struggling a lot with getting very excited about a project, writing a lot, editing that writing until it's way more polished than what I can come up with off the cuff, and then being too intimidated to add to the document anymore since the previous good writing still gives off this looming intimidation if that makes sense? The more I write the greater the fear is I'll crash the story into a ditch that reveals the premise can't work. have you had that "its not all coming together shit theres a snag thats really important that i missed" moment? I realize it's pretty inevitable for that to happen, but whenever I write myself out of a moment like that I always second guess that I'm still overlooking something important or taking the easy way out. I know it's probably just all about pushing through but I worry that by pushing im just further diluting the original spirit of the project? Sorry for the all over the place ask, hope you have a good day :3

this is always a tough situation to navigate as a writer. happens to me often, and it has taken me a very long time to come even remotely close to being able to deal with it productively. believe it or not, i actually have quite a lot to say about this, so prepare for that below the break.

first of all, no, it's absolutely NOT all about pushing through. i find "pushing through" can just as often make the problem worse. keep in mind that i can only speak to my own experience and process, so any advice i might give here should only be taken insofar as you personally find it useful.

this is a form of writer's block. there are many different types of blocks, each with their own causes and hypothetical treatments. a big part of becoming A Writer as such is learning the difference between them, and developing methods for dealing with them on a case by case basis that don't involve substance abuse. don't do cocaine. that's step one.

most of my blocks are in the vein you describe. i'll be writing a scene that feels good, until i cross a threshold somewhere and suddenly the whole thing feels dead in the water. the first thing i do when this happens is stop writing. it's hard to stop when you're on a roll, i know. life is short and it's hard enough to write even on a good day, but sometimes you can just tell that you're on the wrong track and at that point you're probably not gonna be able to write your way back on.

once stopped, i check the basics. have i eaten recently? am i hydrated? have i taken my medications? these are rarely my problem (i keep a big water bottle with me at all times and my gf makes sure i'm fed), though you never know how useful a snack break can be. most of the time if the problem isn't with the text, it's that i've been writing for too fucking long and i need to clock out. learning to clock out is SO hard. but as i've been getting into the habit these last couple months, while i generally write less per day i ultimately end up writing more over time. i can feel my brain cooking when i've been writing too long. it's a muscle like anything else. if you did a bunch of overtime shifts at a more physical job, you'd need time to recover too. your body isn't a machine, your brain isn't a computer, and living things are inconsistent. it sucks but you'll have a better time all around when you learn to work with your body instead of against it.

another question is, have i showered recently? i find showers tedious and boring. also i still have depression even though my life is a lot better than it used to be. i lived on my own for a very long time as a deeply closeted self-hating trans woman, so my hygiene habits are not always up to sniff. as much as i hate to admit it, showers help. i can't tell you how many times i've sat at a godfeels chapter or video script and just felt fucking miserable, only to come back forty minutes later from a shower, full of creative energy. i despise self-help shit. just not a fan of the culture of positive attitude wellness check stuff because you can't self examine your way out of your class position. sometimes the problem is that you're broke. sometimes life fucking sucks and you just don't have the art in you, and that's okay. there's a common misconception that if something bad happens to you, at least you can make an art to get through it. but in my experience it's actually a lot harder to make art about bad times when you're still in them. most of the time it takes months if not years of safety and recovery before you can really face it head on artistically. so like, be nice to yourself. it's not your fault that you live in a society.

but also sometimes literally you just need a shower or to eat some leftovers or to go to fucking bed. i hate it every time that is true because i want my problems to be real and philosophical and not just some dumb body thing that happens to everyone. alas, no one can escape the quotidian obligations of simple mortality.

THAT SAID! this stuff isn't usually my problem, and often i find that what's solving the problem when i do step away to eat/drink/shower isn't even the specific activity, but the act of stepping away at all. getting my mind off it for a sec. when i hit a block that doesn't feel completely insurmountable, i like to back away from my computer and pace around a bit. then i'll stare at my big whiteboard with a marker in hand and just let my mind wander. i don't even write anything half the time! but the mere act of trying to compartmentalize the problem into something brief enough for shorthand helps me spot the pain points.

one of my favorite books is Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, which despite what you might assume from its title is NOT a self-help book but instead a work of philosophy from 1974 taking the form of a travelogue. what Robert Pirsig explores in this book is what he calls the Metaphysics of Quality. basically he's trying to understand the split-second judgments we make of things we like and things we don't. i absolutely do not have time to go into the specifics, just know that his Quality refers to the abstract certainty you have when something is Good or Right or Correct or Qualitatively True. like how you pull your hand away unconsciously when you touch a hot stove, but for ideas. you just Know.

a scene that really sticks with me from that book (probably the most famous scene) is when Pirsig describes needing to fix a mechanical problem with his motorcycle only to be stopped dead in his tracks by a stripped screw keeping him from removing the engine cover. he talks about being so focused on the obvious solution to the primary complex problem that, on encountering a smaller, simpler problem that has to be dealt with first, he finds himself completely stuck, calling this "a zero of consciousness." it's a problem so annoying and minuscule and stubbornly unsolvable that you just want to hit the thing with a wrench and throw it in a river. addressing this new problem, this block, requires an adjustment in thinking. and here i'm going to quote a pretty lengthy passage, but don't worry, i'm typing it out by hand with the book in front of me so there's no time saved on my end:

Consider, for a change, that this is a moment to be not feared but cultivated. If your mind is truly, profoundly stuck, then you may be much better off than when it was loaded with ideas. The solution to the problem often at first seems unimportant or undesirable, but the state of stuckness allows it, in time, to assume its true importance. It seemed small because your previous rigid evaluation which led to the stuckness made it small. But now consider the fact that no matter how hard you try to hang on to it, this stuckness is bound to disappear. Your mind will naturally and freely move toward a solution. Unless you are a real master at staying stuck you can't prevent this. The fear of stuckness is needless because the longer you stay stuck the more you see the Quality-reality that gets you unstuck every time. What's really been getting you stuck is the running from the stuckness [. . .] Stuckness shouldn't be avoided. It's the psychic predecessor of all real understanding. An egoless acceptance of stuckness is a key to an understanding of all Quality, in mechanical work as in other endeavors. It's this understanding of Quality as revealed by stuckness which so often makes self-taught mechanics so superior to institute-trained men who have learned how to handle everything except a new situation. Normally screws are so cheap and small and simple you think of them as unimportant. But now, as your Quality awareness becomes stronger, you realize that this one, individual, particular screw is neither cheap nor small nor unimportant. Right now this screw is worth exactly the selling price of the whole motorcycle, because the motorcycle is actually valueless until you get the screw out. With this re-evaluation of the screw comes a willingness to expand your knowledge of it. [. . .] What your actual solution is is unimportant as long as it has Quality. Thoughts about the screw as combined rigidness and adhesiveness and about its special helical interlock might lead naturally to solutions of impaction and use of solvents. That is one kind of Quality track. Another track may be to go to the library and look through a catalog of mechanic's tools, in which you might come across a screw extractor that would do the job. Or to call a friend who knows something about mechanical work. Or just to drill the screw out, or just burn it out with a torch. Or you might just, as a result of your meditative attention to the screw, come up with some new way of extracting it that has never been thought of before that beats all the rest and is patentable and makes you a millionaire five years from now. There's no predicting what's on that Quality track. The solutions all are simple-- after you have arrived at them. But they're simple only when you know already what they are.

this is, in brief, my entire creative philosophy when it comes to writer's block. i share such a lengthy passage because i think it's useful to underline that we're not talking about a problem that is necessarily unique to the labor of writing. this process is a human process. it's just that with writing, the nature of the block itself is often much more difficult to identify than a stripped screw.

there's a couple things i do to try to identify what's got me stuck. a lot of times what happens is that everything in a scene felt good until it didn't, and then everything after that moment fell flat. so i'll go back and read the whole thing and just try to feel the scene. is everyone in character? is their dialogue too quippy, or too aggressive, too expository? are we in the midst of a conversation that has simply gone on way too fucking long? i know it can be torturous to reread your own stuff but idk what else to say except get used to it. especially when you're still early in the drafting phase! like if you know you're not gonna release this thing imminently, there's no reason to be precious about the stuff that's good or to beat yourself up over the stuff that's bad. i know that compulsion to try to Get Everything Right The First Time is strong, but it's completely unsustainable.

sometimes the block is that i just don't feel like writing narration. i've always sucked at grounding a scene with descriptions of the place. lately i'm trying to get away from relying solely on descriptions of staging/blocking, but it's hard for a bitch like me who mostly prefers writing dialogue. i've gotten a lot more comfortable with putting notes between dialogue exchanges like [character moves, looks at picture, has a dramatic thought, other character fiddles with object]. it can feel like cheating sometimes but it's not. there's no such thing. no one will know the route you took to get to the end. they will only see what you show them, when you decide to show it to them.

sometimes the block is in some minor or major betrayal of the story's spirit. the (Terezi) & Jade scene i talked about in this ask is a good example. i hit a point where nothing was working anymore. no one would talk to me. the light was gone. i can always tell when i made the wrong choice. it's such a particular sensation. as though i'm walking and i realize i no longer recognize the road i'm on and must've made a wrong turn somewhere. the solution to this particular block is introspection, retracing my steps, because the wrong turn isn't always obvious. maybe it's that someone in the scene is being too mean, or that i've failed to accomplish what the scene exists to do in some way, or that someone's made an uncharacteristic choice that now everyone in the scene is arguing about and it's like, man, this is taking too long, i'm not enjoying this anymore.

another example from A1 is the second half of the solo. i'd had most of the jasprose scene, the karkat-calliope-roxy scenes, and the vrisrezi-jade scenes written since i posted the A1 chorus. where i ran into trouble was that i needed to get jane, jake, and (terezi) to show up. my original plan was to have them arrive one by one, thus allowing their individual dramas a moment in the spotlight before being subsumed into the group. not a bad idea in theory but in practice it was fucking tedious. here we have a bunch of characters already immersed in the scene captured by the intrigue of Jade being enigmatic, and then some unawares jagoff wanders in and suddenly everyone has to stop what they're doing and be like "hey hello how are you what's up" and then they explain how they got there and then they ask what's up and it's such a DRAG. honestly i would say the majority of my creative blocks by volume are moments when the story really wants me to just cut to black for a smoke break and come back when somebody gets mad enough to throw a punch. i mean that's the the development of A1 in a nutshell. originally everyone was gonna start the track locked up in space-jail on the hopebringer, jade would show up all apologetic and say what she expects padua's deliberation to be, then the whole cast would see her throw a fit over a decision she knew was coming, they'd all be absolved of guilt and let free, then they'd all argue about who's staying or going with Jade in the morning, they'd split up to go pack their stuff and then...

well that was exactly the problem. i wanted to get all the pertinent things out of the way. jade's code switching, voidthought, some EWL teases. give the whole cast a chance to react to it. i thought that would be expedient, because it got the Plot out of the way and gave time to characters for Feelings. if that version of the scene had come at the end of chapter 8, it might have worked. but i realized that as soon as jade's audience was no longer captive, i had no fucking clue what to do with them anymore. we already knew who would go with jade, so acting like that's some kind of mystery is just lame. i started writing A1 from a place of desiring informational density & a quick pace, because we've got places to go and things to do. but if the real purpose of A1 is to explore why these characters choose to go with Jade, then that needed to be done with a lot more care and precision. that's when i decided to let Jade spend two days underground making the earth right again, so that she has to come to everyone individually rather than the other way around. and it muddies her motivations, if you don't mind the pun. it puts her at an appropriate remove from the others. i ultimately wound up conveying all the same information as in the original version, but i did it in a way that was more appropriate thematically and artistically. it wound up being longer road than i anticipated, but this is a long story and in this case the longer road was better for the journey.

take the chapter where Jade visits Roxy. i needed some time with Roxy alone to set the scene, since she's the first person Jade decides to visit and i like writing about the insides of trailer homes. i wanted to get some politics from Jane in this chapter, so hey, why not throw in a televised speech? oh, and then i can have some tucker carlson types remind us that Earth C is a fucking mess. i wrote all that, and it was good, but it was just Roxy watching tv. i tried to get into Jade's arrival and couldn't. so i went back and realized, oh, Roxy should be yelling at the tv the whole time! now we get Jane's politics, Roxy's reactions to those politics, as well as bits and pieces of context re: Jane's relationships with Karkat and Roxy. now when Jade arrives, we can play with the question of whether she heard the speech from outside Roxy's door, and why neither of them was physically at the speech in the first place. there's tension and imbalance in Roxy's state of mind when Jade does arrive, so we're more inside her perspective than we usually are, which in turn helps us identify with her when Jade starts infodumping about antimemes.

so often for me, working through a block is a matter of doing a better job utilizing what's available to you. going back to the A1 solo and trying to bring Jake, Jane, and (Terezi) into the scene. i finally returned to it after a couple months of being sick and dealing with life problems. i was frustrated because i'd hoped to be several tracks in to 3.2 by now, and instead i was confronted with just how much more of this thing is left and how long that might take if i couldn't pick up the pace. this thing NEEDED to get done.

and then i remembered that Jasprose is literally right there.

and that was it! problem fucking solved! i had jasprose drop all three of them into the scene completely unceremoniously using manic teleportation through a fenestrated plane, and from there the entire rest of the chapter erupted out of me in a single go. it's such an obvious solution to the problem that you as reader probably assumed it was the plan from the very beginning. but it's like Pirsig says: the solutions all are obvious-- after you've arrived at them.

then there's the problem of overwriting. i actually did i think four different versions of the opening to the A1 solo. the first person narration was a late addition. i tweaked that scene so so so many times. it kept feeling close but not quite. when i did the thing where i reread to find where the block happened, instead of actually reading the thing i just kept finding spots where i could write more. i can extend this anecdote. this line could be better. maybe a comma here would work better than an ellipsis...

this can be good because sometimes what's blocking you is that you skipped over something that needed more time. maybe some information or a dramatic emphasis that gives the stuff you can't yet write the momentum it needs to get going again. but i've gotta be real careful doing this, because i can do it forever. and then, as you describe (hey look, i'm actually talking about your specific problem now!), that hyper-polished section sets everything else up to fail by comparison.

i think the trick is knowing the difference between when a scene needs an editing pass vs when a scene just straight up isn't working. when it's not working, sometimes you do just have to throw it all out and start over. but if it's good enough that you feel like all it's missing is better dialogue and some more description, then you can hold off on that polish until the rest of the thing is done. this conundrum is most common at the beginning of a chapter or story in my experience, precisely as a result of the process i've been describing this whole time. when you hit a block and retrace your steps, you can always find things to fix. so it's sort of natural that any given chapter becomes less polished the further along you get in to it. that's why it's so important to understand the differences between all these different types of blocks, and to remind yourself that literally nothing you've written is finished until the moment you've made it public.

a big part of getting the A1 solo out the door was me swallowing my desire for perfection in every exchange and saying, no, this is good enough. it's not 100% what i want, but it's close enough that it just isn't worth the effort it would take to get there. sometimes there are scenes that are worth that effort, but they are always rarer than you think and they're never the ones you'd expect. i will freely admit that there are a lot of characters expositing their motivations in this chapter. i tried to embed as much of that in humor or drama as i could, but sometimes you just have to shrug your shoulders and walk away and hope your readers will be nice to you.

of course the funny thing is, once i finished the chapter and had all the panels sketched out and wiped my hands clean of the whole affair, janet needed two weeks to make the images. so i ended up having time to polish up a couple of those things that i felt were lacking after all. but those additions were radically small and intuitive, because i'd divorced myself from the raw production and had committed to so many directions that i *couldn't* change much. i'm so used to writing for release that i don't know what to do with myself when my part of the job is done before i can kick it out the door. i've come to find that waiting, taking breaks, walking away and coming back, do wonders for your ability to egolessly examine your work and identify what's wrong. sometimes you just need a day or two to sleep on it.

and sometimes you realize that you've really just over-written a scene, out of preciousness or insecurity or whatever else, and the result is so much bigger than everything else you want to do that it's more expedient to just scrap it. i hate when this happens, man. i did this with an early version of the A1 chorus, when Jade is stuck in space alone and shouting about how unfair her life has been. you know sometimes there's an emotion in a scene that's addictive. some bit of pathos that you just feel down to your bones, fuck me man, this is so GOOD, this is so JUICY, this shit has QUALITY. it's so good you don't want it to be finished. so you keep writing it, and writing it, and you rewrite it, and you add to it, because you really want to squeeze every drop of emotion you can from the thing. and then you wind up with a bloated melodramatic mess that's so overplayed you've annihilated everything that compelled you to write it in the first place.

i want to be clear that this isn't wasted work. nothing you ever put to the page, no matter how ultimately useless it might prove to be, is wasted work. the way i see this whole process, top to bottom, is that there's this thing. i don't know what it is, but it's there. maybe it starts with an image, or a line of dialogue, or a relationship, or a natural vista, whatever. it can be anything. what matters is it's a sign pointing you in a direction. it's something that has Quality that you can feel with such potent immediacy that you have no choice but to write it. the act of writing is something of an expedition, because the real magic of it comes when those disparate signs start colliding with one another. an image becomes a scene, a house, a world, a universe. sometimes these signs lead to dead ends, but with experience you learn to tell the dead ends from the rough patches. you learn how to make your own way. you do this by listening to what this thing is telling you. every story i've ever written has known better than me what it wants. i can impose so much onto it, i control 90% of the process at least. but that other 10% cannot, should not be quantified or controlled but simply understood. if you try to bottle the flame, you'll just end up snuffing it out.

no artist really knows why they do what they do or how they're able to pull it off. they can tell you their methods, their process, their coping mechanisms, they can write ludicrously lengthy diatribes on tumblr in response to an innocuous ask, but you can't pin down the soul of the thing. Quality is ephemeral, because it's first. it happens before you've had time to think, like putting your hand on a hot stove. you just know. and you have to trust that knowledge to carry you forward, not second guess it too much, not try to wrangle the thing into a shape it doesn't want to assume. sometimes this requires writing scenes that you don't love, because it's easier to build a messy bridge between the moments that drive you than it is to perfect every single moment out of an artificial commitment to like, Being A Good Writer or whatever.

a lot of this is just practice. you get better at communicating with your creative impulses. but also i think it helps to internalize that nobody sees the rough drafts, nobody sees the duct tape. and nobody knows the perfect vision you'll be convinced you failed to meet. nobody has ever made a perfect thing, and no one ever will. who wants to be perfect, anyway? godfeels wouldn't be what it is if i wasn't willing to let it be messy. if i'd tried to do it better, it never would have gotten done, and nothing i'm doing now would have even conceptually gotten to exist.

also, it's okay to abandon shit when it stops feeling good. i have so many unfinished books kicking around from my 20s, dude. i feel bad about some of them, but ten years not finishing books is still ten years spent writing. it's actually quite rare for good ideas to result in finished works, because good ideas are cheap and they're not all for you. but you gotta keep trying anyway because sooner or later you'll catch a spark that has real gas, and if you've done the work you'll be ready for it. it'll feel like destiny. it'll feel like magic, how matched that idea is to your skill level. but it won't be magic, it'll be skill. if you hadn't put the work in to know how to follow that intuition, it'd be just as dead an end as everything else you never finished. you do the work so that when you get lucky you can take advantage of it. so in that context, writing is quite low stakes. if it's not good enough, fuck it, try something else!

anyway i hope there's some decent insight buried in here somewhere. thanks for such a good question!

[xoxoavenger]

All I Want

pairing: Steve Harrington x Fem!Reader

summary: Steve's birthday proves to be a bigger deal to Y/N than Steve, but luckily all he wants is her.

word count: 1187

warnings: mentions of one blow job lmao, Steve Harrington's shitty parents

notes: happy birthday Steve Harrington!!! my greatest sadness is coming so close to sharing a birthday and only being one day off

masterlist

birthday celebration masterlist

"Dustin told me something interesting today." Y/N said as she walked into their room, Steve toweling his hair in just his boxers, fresh from the shower. 

"Oh yeah?" Steve had no idea what Dustin may have told his girlfriend while she was at work at the movie theater, and it made him worried. He wasn't going to show it, however, because there was probably nothing to worry about anyway. 

"Yeah," She began to strip, walking to the bathroom to take a shower. They had only been dating for a little less than a year, but they worked so well together that there was no reason not to move in when Steve asked her to. They only lived in the Harrington house for a month before they decided to move into their own home, a place they could make their own memories without the threatening loom of the Harringtons throughout the house. It was smaller than the mansion, but it was more homey and Steve couldn't fathom having to go back to the mansion, even just for dinners.

"What was it?" Steve asked, finding his pajama bottoms as Y/N turned on the shower and stepped inside. 

"Oh, nothing big." The water that she insisted a scalding temperature for was causing steam to cloud the bathroom and slowly spill into the bedroom. "Just something about birthdays." She said it nonchalantly, but he knew there was something under the surface that he wasn't getting, even with the hint. 

"Oh?" He walked out of the room to get a towel, knowing Y/N had forgotten hers. He threw it in the dryer so it was warm when she got out, knowing that's how she liked to settle down at night. 

"Yup," She popped open some sort of product while Steve grabbed his toothbrush. "And he told me the strangest thing." She mused, letting Steve take the time to finish brushing his teeth and think about what the hell he was going to respond with. Did she want him to confess to something? What did he even have to confess to?

"Is this a guessing game?" He spat the paste out and washed out his mouth, turning when he heard the shower shut off. "Let me get your towel." He put his toothbrush away and walked to the dryer, getting the now warm towel out and bringing it to Y/N. She stepped out and into the the towel he held before he wrapped her in it. 

"He told me your birthday is tomorrow." This was the last thing Steve expected. He froze, dumbfounded, causing Y/N to turn in his arms. "And of course I was wondering why my boyfriend wouldn't tell me this himself." Steve thought back to last year, when he let Robin throw a party for him at his parents house.

"Tomorrow is the twenty-ninth?" He asked, watching her eyes roll dramatically. 

"Tomorrow is your birthday, Steve!" She cried, and he just blinked at her. 

"Tomorrow isn't my birthday." He told her, and now it was her turn to be confused. "Well, it could be," He led her to the bed, but she dug her heels in. 

"What the fuck does that mean?" She asked, turning. 

"Baby," Steve brought Y/N over to the bed, sitting her down and helping her towel off. "I'm gonna tell you something, and I need you to not freak out, alright?" His words only made her more wary. 

"Steve, you're scaring me." She told him, and he chuckled, wrapping the towel around her hair gently and grabbing her clothes. 

"It's nothing like that," He turned handing her the clothes and helping her sit up to change. "It's just, I don't have a birthday." He said slowly, the two of them frozen in some sort of staring match. 

"Love," She started, a small smile not matching the crazy eyes she had going on. "What are you saying?" He could see the tears in her eyes and he ached to fix it somehow. 

"I don't know when my birthday is." He told her, pulling her shirt over her head. "My parents never celebrated it. I know it's in April, around this time, but I don't remember the actual date." He knew an approximation from when he was in elementary school, when the teachers would wish him a happy birthday, but he didn't remember the actual day and it had stopped years ago. 

"Steve," She muttered, tears beginning to fall down her cheeks. 

"It's okay!" He startled her, hands on her face to wipe the wetness away. He hated when she cried. "It's honestly okay, I'm alright." He kissed both her cheeks and then her lips.

"Steve, none of this is alright." She croaked out. "Your parents were so shitty that you don't even know when your birthday is." It brought her a new wave of tears. 

"Babe, I don't need a specific day." He kissed her forehead, moving her to stand and lay back. 

"It is not just a day, oh my God." She sat back up, and Steve sighed. 

"It is." He told her, taking her hair out of the towel. 

"Well, what does your drivers license say?" She asked, and Steve sighed. 

"I had to guess, no one could find my birth certificate." He remembered going in, forged papers in his hands that he had asked his father for. "So, I guessed April twenty-ninth." He flung the towel to the floor and pulled Y/N to lay back down. 

"Why didn't you ever tell me about this?" She asked, finally relaxing into the bed and putting a hand on his face. 

"Because it's not a big deal." He brought her into his arms, wishing Dustin had never brought this shit up. 

"Stop saying that." She smacked his chest, and he just pulled her closer so she couldn't do it again. 

"Okay, since it is such a big deal for you, then you can chose my birthday, alright? And we can do all the birthday shit you want, and make up for my shitty parents, and at the end of the day you can give me a birthday blowjob." He closed his eyes as she laughed slightly, and a small smile made its way to his lips. He was exhausted, not only from this conversation but also from the long day he had. He knew Y/N must be exhausted as well by the way she yawned and closed her eyes slowly. "But only if you go to sleep." 

"Why are you so nonchalant about this?" She asked softly. The heartbreak in her voice was evident.

"I have a house. I have food, and a job, and friends." He kissed her forehead. "I have you. My birthday is just a day. It doesn't mean anything to me. It never has, and it probably never will." 

"We don't have to celebrate." She muttered, pressing a kiss to his bare chest. "We only have to do whatever you want." And then her breath was evening out, her body slacking. She had fallen asleep. 

"All I want is right here." He whispered, pressing his lips to her temple soft and slow before falling asleep as well. 

//

tags: @avada-kedavra-bitch-187 @roxaya @sadbitchfangirl @gloryekaterinaa @oblivion-void @alexshaff2002 @m-rae23 @freezaz123 @mads-weasley 

[siriannatan]

I'm back with dragon Scott propaganda

I was writing a different thing and then had an epiphany. And then this happened. It got a bit more steamy and suggestive than o intended but I like the final result 😉

Warning: A/B/O/ nudity / suggestive / Scott being a menace

https://archiveofourown.org/works/55694242/chapters/142536340

fWhip felt weird since the moment he woke up. Even if his draconic side manifested rather recently he noticed he was warmer than usual. All his clothes felt strange. Not like itchy or anything. Just something he couldn't name felt wrong. Like really wrong.

But he ignored it. It was probably just anxiety to do with Scott coming to talk about Rivendell rejoining the Wither Rose Alliance. Talking to Scott always made him feel weird so it wasn't that big of a deal.

But when he was sitting opposite Scott, massive table between them, and absolutely couldn't focus on anything but his lips and how his pale blue scales reflected the sun he realised that something was wrong. Since when did he care how soft Scott's hair looks? Or his horns? Or anything but how hard he was to get along with?

“fWhip? Count fWhip?” Scott suddenly snapped his fingers right in front of his face and fWhip shook off some of the fog. “Are you okay? You've been spacing out a lot,” Scott sighed, arms folding on his chest. fWhip's eyes unable to look away… Why did he want Scott to hold him?

“I'm fine, I think…” fWhip grinned, so professional. Gem would smack him with her staff if she saw.

Scott just sighed, got up and as fWhip was about to apologise and try to salvage the day walked towards fWhip and not the door. fWhip blinked a few times to make sure. Nope. Scott was suddenly sat on the edge of the table right by fWhip. Looking at him with an unreadable expression before grinning widely.

“Oh this is hilarious,” the half-dragon half-elf chuckled. fWhip didn't ask what was oh so hilarious. He was too busy sighing and melting as Scott's ice cold hand touched his forehead. “You're probably usually warm but you're absolutely burning up. Thinking about it, you only recently awakened your dragon's blood, no?”

“Wha… yeah, hasn't even been a month,” fWhip managed no nod without sounding too dumb.

“So you probably have no idea what your second gender is,” Scott hummed, cold finger tracing fWhip's jawline.

“What the hell are you on about,” fWhip rolled his eyes but felt himself grow even warmer.

“Dragons don't have two genders like most other creatures. They have three. Alpha, beta and omega. Only two of them are capable of reproduction,” fWhip could not believe he thought Scott giving him dragon biology lesson was sexy. “And we, as half-dragons get one of the three genders on top of our normal gender,” Scott finished with a toothy grin that has fWhip blushing. Or was he blushing before that?

“And yours would be?” fWhip asked, trying to sound nonchalant.

“Alpha, and considering how delicious you smell at the moment, I think you're an omega. Lucky for us, unlike an actual dragon, it doesn't make you capable of carrying a child,” Scott mused, his grin growing as he leaned forward, looming dangerously, and unfairly attractively, over fWhip. “And I think you might be slowly going into heat, meaning you should find a room and lock it well unless you want us to share a bed for the next few days,” he chuckled darkly and fWhip whimpered. He freaking whimpered at just his damn words.

“Wha… Why?” fWhip asked a bit dumbly.

“Because, alphas like omegas a lot and I'm already having a hard time not bending you over this table,” Scott hugged out a cold cloud before leaning back. There was a light blush tinting his cheeks. “At this point it's probably too late to make me leave your house,” he sighed, running a hand through his hair. fWhip wanted his hands in Scott's hair.

At least his mind was slightly clearer with Scott huffing that cold breath into his face. “So I should lock myself and what? Wait for it to stop?” He huffed, annoyed to not know something about himself.

“Masturbate,” Scott tossed casually with a shrug. “What? You'll be in heat anytime now, meaning, you'll be super horny and desperate to get fucked, fWhip,” Scott said pushing away from the table.

fWhip's eyes widened in terror. There was no way he was ever letting anyone…. Maybe Scott… no. No one was ever touching him that way.

“Okay, I'll go and lock myself away then,” fWhip decided as a cold shiver ran along his spine and abruptly stood up causing his chair to clatter to the ground.

As soon as he took one step his legs gave out. He whimpered again as he heard Scott grumble something in elven. He more felt and smelt the other half-dragon approach. He refused to look up, closing his eyes tightly for good measure. He must look so pathetic, he thought before Scott picked him up.

Princess carry was impossible on account of wings, so Scott simply wrapped fWhip's arms and legs around his neck and waist and hoisted him up. “Try to not rub against me too much, okay,” he chuckled and fWhip grumbled in annoyance. “Yeah, yeah, you're a scary omega, I know,” Scott chuckled, far too close to fWhip's ear and carried him off.

To fWhip's guest bedroom where he's been staying. “Don't worry, I have no intention of touching you, but my smell will probably help you so no complaining,” Scott explained his decision once fWhip was sat, curled up, on the bed. “I'll lock the door and get everyone to leave,” he said and turned to leave.

fWhip was faster and grabbed his sleeve. He had no clue why. Just did. “Umm… is it really necessary?” He asked, not quite willing to let Scott go. He suddenly was smelling really nice okay.

“I have no choice but to stay unless you want me doing something dumb like asking Gem for her blessings to court you, then yes,” at least Scott's snarkiness was still there.

fWhip groaned. No, he did not want that. Gem still was wary of Scott. But he also didn't want to let go of Scott's sleeve.

With a sigh the elven king removed his short, military style jacket and wrapped it around fWhip's head with a chuckle. “There, if you like it so much then have it.”

And freaking left.

fWhip groaned as he sprawled out on the bed. Whole room smelled like Scott. His jacket was still around fWhip's head. And he felt warmer than the day he suddenly sprouted wings, tail and so on.

Well, he gave himself an excuse. This is his guest room. In his house. So he can do whatever he wants. Even get naked save for Scott's jacket around his shoulders.

fWhip had no clue how long his heat lasted. But felt thoroughly humiliated as soon as he woke up with a clearer mind. He refused to think about everything he's done while imagining it was Scott doing it, and much more, to him.

And by gods. Scott absolutely must have heard him moaning like some whore.

Why must he remember the whole heat?

He yelped as there was a knock on the door. “Hello? fWhip?” Scott asked, far too cheeky for what fWhip's just been through. “Are you awake, too tired to speak or still sleeping?”

“Five minutes,” fWhip grumbled realising the state he was in. He wasn't meeting anyone while naked and sticky with sweat and… other stuff.

“Need a bath? I can carry you?” Scott oh so graciously offered. Yeah, right. He probably just wanted to make fun of fWhip.

But going to the main bath did sound tempting. Soaking in warm water was always tempting. But now with how sticky and in pain everywhere he was? To hell with shame he thought. “Is it still us in the manor?” He asked, just to be careful.

Upon a confirmation he wrapped himself in a blanket and accepted Scott's generous offer.

Seeing Scott walk in, in the same outfit as when it started. Minus the jacket but we know where that was, under the bed. Wasn't something he was ready for so he curled up tighter as his imagination started to work.

“What? All my stuff was here, fWhip, and your clothes are too small for me,” he rolled his eyes as he picked fWhip up. Not really bothering with the blanket.

fWhip tried to protest but was ultimately far too tired. And Scott was pleasant chilly after everything. So he just his his face in Scott's shoulder, thankful there was one less layer to keep the cold in.

“Wash of first before getting in, I'll go get us something to change into,” Scott declared once fWhip was sat in the bathroom. A bit fazed as he stared to doze off in Scott's arms. To his own absolute humiliation.

Us? fWhip wanted to aske but didn't really care enough to voice it. It was a bit too late to feel shy around Scott. He decided with a sigh as he slowly and meticulously washed off all the stickiness.

Scott was back shortly after fWhip slinked into the water and got comfy with his head on his arms over the edge. He looked up to say something but Scott was undressing so he looked back down and closed his eyes.

“No questions? Who are you and what have you done with fWhip,” Scott joked and fWhip huffed in annoyance. Can't he be just pretty? Who needs that and wit?

“Does anything similar happen to you?” He asked, barely cracking one eye open. He didn't have to see Scott naked just yet.

“Yes. You're lucky my rut happened recently so it was harder to trigger.”

“And if it did?”

“No door would keep you safe,” Scott practically purred. At least to fWhip's brain it sounded like he did. Why did he suddenly wish Scott did badge in on him? “What? You like the idea?” The elf chuckled and fWhip just blushed like mad.

“How often?” He asked instead of gratifying that with a response.

“Once a season, and since we're in late spring I think you'll always fall towards the end of it,” Scott hummed, joining fWhip in the big bath. Why did he have to sit thi close? Their wings were almost touching and neither of them had them open all that wide. And why with his back to the edge? Elbows over it to keep him from floating away.

fWhip was tempted to push away and just float for an hour or two. The water here was naturally hot and heat didn't bother him anymore so he didn't have to worry.

“Annoying,” he hummed, doing just that and shifting to lay on his back once sufficiently far from Scott. “What?”

“Nothing, you're just cute,” Scott chuckled stretching out his wings. Blue and white looked annoyingly good on him.

“Gem's gonna hate you so much more once she hears of this,” fWhip grinned, secretly eyeing Scott's collarbones. They were too perfect, pale and unblemished. He wanted to bite him.

“Well, she probably already did, your advisors and staff weren't too happy when I kicked them out,” Scott chuckled dryly.

“What did you tell them?” fWhip asked. A bit worried. Well, if Scott did tell them the truth then it saved him the need to explain.

“The truth,” of course he did. “I’m assuming some went to Gem to verify,” he added and loud shout of fWhip's name reached them. “There she is,” Scott grimaced and swam away, to the other edge.

fWhip just floated. Watching with mild amusement as Gen rushed in, followed by Pearl and Sausage.

“Hi Gem, did you know dragons get heats?” fWhip grinned as they realised that he and Scott were naked and in the bath. Like there was anything else to do in this part of fWhip's manor.

“Talk to me once you're done,” Gem said, face the shade of her hair and pulled Pearl along as she left. Sausage just whistles, shot Scott a wink and followed them.

fWhip was so looking forward to it. But first he had another like hour and a half of soaking to do.

[lloydfrontera]

this hellsite can't stop me anyway in the switched protagonist au lloyd and damian are an absolute menace together they enable each other's most asshole-y traits and the levels of sass in the room grows exponentially for every minute they spend together.

they'll be going about their day and randomly start arguing about damian's pay completely unrelated to anything they're doing. full on haggling and negotiating "twenty-five percent and a week of vacation" "five percent and an extra weekend" "twenty percent and five days" "ten percent and three days but you don't mention my birthday for two months" "fifteen, four days and one month" "deal" lloyd does joke damian is the reason they'll fall in debt again. damian argues they wouldn't get nearly as much work done without him. lloyd can appreciate the commitment to getting fair pay even if it does put somewhat of a strain in his pocket. and damian does admire that lloyd never delays payments and he doesn't even has to ask for bonuses or hazard pay because lloyd just,,, gives them all of that (<- this is canon and no i am not mad the webcomic doesn't comment on it the way it should what are you talking about-)

also! they're sooooo good at squeezing shitty rich people out of their money. lloyd will draft the most ridiculous contract he can get away with and damian will loom ominously in the background until it's signed and then they high-five the moment they're out of the room not a single word needed between them.

plus the moment they see a monster and lloyd suggests running away damian agrees immediately, picks him up and fucking books it out of there. they are not in it for the heroics thank you very much. there would need to be a completely different reason for them to defeat the monsters and involve themselves in the drama cause they're both very much in favor of just. running lol

as for javier dealing with the fact that he can no longer protect rakiel the way he's supposed to because he has a demon king inside of him just itching to possess him and making hm as weak as possible in order to make him his vessel,,,, the mental issues would be delightful.

he would hate it with a passion, javier already has a big tendency to berate himself any time he's not strong enough to defeat whatever is threatening lloyd all by himself, so imagine the self-loath that would ensue if not only were he incapable of protecting rakiel but if he was the danger itself.

and then having rakiel push himself to exhaustion to keep him alive once acheros figures that if he can't put him in external danger than he can just make his own body attack him?? he'd be devastated. he'd feel ashamed and angry at himself for turning into a burden to rakiel, he'd try to brute force his way out of being ill only to crash and burn much the same way damian did when he tried to do the same.

javier is very much a 'gifted kid'. everything sorta comes easy to him, he never had to struggle too much to be good at things, not that he didn't apply himself or that he didn't put any effort, but he never encountered something he truly struggled with or couldn't simply surpass on his own. so when he's attacked by something he can't defend himself against, something that is so out of his league he wouldn't even have any idea of how to start defeating, he'd take it pretty darn hard.

i can see him trying to be more hands on while helping rakiel tho, like be it while he's trying to make the medicine for him or just in general around the clinic. like remember when lloyd told him to grow onions during the wetlands arc? and he ended up enjoying it?? he's just,,, a softie under the cool and badass exterior. so i think he would genuinely enjoy helping around in the clinic, he'd probably take an interest in learning some basic first aid or simple treatments. he likes helping people! he'd enjoy knowing how to bring some relief and heal instead of just fighting. and rakiel would be all over it because 1) free help and 2) hopefully if he keeps javier in the clinic they will avoid life-threatening danger that brings acheros out (doesn't work but it was worth the try)

oh my god now i am actually cooing a little over rakiel treating a patient only to look up and get startled by how close javier is leaning in to see, curious to watch the way rakiel heals his patients. and then when rakiel gently asks him if he wants to learn, he'd hesitate a little, worried that his hands, rough and callused from all the fighting he did in the gladiator arena, would harm more than help, but after some more gentle coaxing and a bit of teasing he accepts. and while he never quite becomes a nurse or attendant he's more than proficient at helping rakiel whenever they need some hands or when rakiel asks him to

i dunnot! the thought of javier being allowed to do more than just fight the way he was destined to makes me happy :]

[cypressmoons]

cross your mind [al haitham]

♫ listening to: cross your mind by role model

🕮 summary: do you think about me, do you fantasize? you're so cool around me, do i even cross your mind? modern au, lots of horrible jokes (i'm giving cyno a run for his money)

✎ word count: 1.3k

“do you want to be in the video?”

“what?”

“what?”

you repeat his question back at him, blinking innocently.

he forces a laugh, the air suddenly feeling a little more frigid.

finally your anxiety gets the best of you and you launch into yet another nervous ramble, “i mean, only if you’re comfortable- i just thought it would look good for the PR, that’s all- i wouldn’t want to force you to do anything you don’t want to do!”

he laughs genuinely now, and your face feels hot. you pinch the inside of your palm in a desperate attempt to calm the nerves, reminding yourself that this is just like asking any other person, he’s not anything special, and you most definitely shouldn’t be making a big deal out of this.

but he is.

you’ve secretly admired him for over a year now. in the summer months when you didn’t see him, you somehow even managed to forget he existed save for the occasional “oh there was this guy in my class” moment. but now that you’re seeing him multiple times a week and even having to — gasp — private message him, you’re not sure how much longer your internal organs can handle all the twisting and turning.

your friends might be sick and tired of your nonstop simping for a man you're too chicken to actually go talk to, but somehow that's the thrill of it for you: chasing after the one person you can't have, knowing that you'd probably never be cool enough to even hang around him.

sometimes you even question if you're in love with him, but the thought is quickly dismissed when you attribute it to pure physical attraction - a very strong and endless one at that.

and you almost drop all the heavy groceries you were carrying when you run into him walking with another girl one day.

the skies are a dim shade of grey-blue as the sun sets behind the clouds and beneath the horizon, headlights from the cars beside you growing brighter in contrast. another frigid gust of wind makes you shiver and you retreat your hands further into your sleeves, cursing at the heavy bags you're carrying for preventing you from warming your hands in your pockets, at the slippery ice and slush that were yet to be cleared from the sidewalks, at the winter winds that seem to cut straight into your bones, and at yourself for being too scared to go inside the restaurant to order takeout for dinner.

now you're cold, tired, the bags too heavy on your back and in your hands, and stomach protesting from the lack of your comfort food. sure, you could probably whip something up from the groceries you just bought, but on some days you just simply don't feel like it - especially on cold and gloomy days like these.

you're just not having a good day.

little did you know, your day is about to get a whole lot worse.

your apartment building looms closer and you feel the impending relief of finally being able to set these bags down. when you turn onto your street, however, you stop dead in your tracks as you see, without mistake, al haitham with another girl, engaged in animated conversation.

and walking towards you.

his expression freezes the moment he sees you, leaving the poor girl puzzled at his sudden pause in movement. her eyes dart from his face to where his gaze lands, until the three of you are gawking at each other like that one spider man meme.

fortunately, the gawking doesn't last long. armed with a new sense of spite-induced confidence, you hike your backpack up a little higher and decide to continue your journey on the other side of the sidewalk instead, purposefully ignoring him.

you did briefly consider a quick, nonchalant greeting - after all, that's what acquaintances do with each other, right? but looking at him, probably saying more words to the girl next to him in the last few minutes than he’s ever spoken to you in the two years you’ve known him, you couldn’t find it in yourself to even offer him that nicety.

so you take long strides away from them, never once looking back until you’re finally warm and toasty inside your apartment’s lobby. you’d like to think that he watched you leave, that he’d paused his conversation for you, but caught in a moment of jealousy, you suddenly don’t care if he did.

because you’re never gonna be like her, anyway.

being what you are, though - is it ever going to be enough? heart rate spiking a little whenever a red notification dot appears on your phone, only for you to sigh in relief when your friend’s name appears instead. cursing at him for taking years to respond to you while you secretly hoped he reciprocated your one-sided crush. your thoughts don’t have a flood gate, unfortunately, and when your very being is consumed by him at all times of day - putting your first name with his last name included - you just can’t get him out.

you’re growing increasingly frustrated at how much he consumed your time and energy. despite repeated attempts to convince yourself that he’ll do nothing but break your heart later, your mind still wanders to him, your stomach still gets butterflies, and at this point you just want to scrub every crevice in your brain like one of those scrub daddy-sponsored cleaning videos.

if you really think about it, he's nowhere near being the kate sharma to your anthony bridgerton, so why is he the bane of your existence and object of all your desires?

yet you can't forget about the way he smiled when you talked to him, how he literally looks like the grinning emoji. you tell yourself he looks at everyone like that, but part of you hopes that maybe the grinning emoji face is reserved just for you.

which is false, apparently.

you should've known better. even with all your thoughts running wild like an unmoderated twitch chat, containing every situation possible like a tumblr dash with mature content enabled and complete with filters and background music from the "romantic songs to make up scenarios in your head to" video that youtube strangely decided to recommend you one day, you should've known he is just a fantasy to you. maybe you've made him out to be a saint, to be better than he actually would have been in real life, but the hopeless romantic in you so desperately wants it to be true, even just one tiny part of it.

you delete the exclamation mark from the end of the sentence, feeling guilt tinging your body as you press send before promptly closing the chat window. the habit of adding exclamation marks and smiley faces as to not appear mean no longer has any place in this conversation.

if you want to forget about him, move on from him, you need to begin by telling yourself that it's not worth compromising your future over a man you can't have.

and that's not only because he acts so cool around you. if you ever crossed his mind, he surely doesn't show it.

because come on- surely it doesn't take a normal person three full days to agree on a time for a strictly professional, no-personal-feelings-attached, most definitely normal work meeting, right?

this is only for my job. i would've done the same for any other person.

you repeat the statement to yourself like a mantra, so many times that you start to fear that you would summon his spirit or something. you try to imagine any other person in his shoes. yes - this video is purely for the sake of advertisement, engagement and PR, and absolutely nothing else.

so why is it you offered to get coffee for the both of you?

i hope you enjoyed the subtle bane of my existence fic reference hehehehe i'm very proud of that one - if you haven't read that yet then you should >:(

requests open | masterlist

[purity-town]

Wasn’t feeling well yesterday so this is a bit late, but ask & submission responses are below the cut!

Hey now anon, that quote isn’t actually my doing, it’s in the game!

(Side note, I’ve significantly toned down the frequency in Purity Town from “multiple times a week” down to “it doesn’t happen too often, but it is frequent enough for the Nurse to notice the pattern.”)

Vaguely, yes! His tattoo includes the sun, a star, and the moon, notable as the celestial bodies and sources of magic. It has more personal meaning to him rather than just being a “Terraria-Cthulhu” tattoo, though.

Okay, so!

I don’t actually have an answer for how Andrew died the first time. He’s died a lot of times over the years, but I’m not sure if he stayed alive for long enough the first time to naturally realize something was up re: no longer aging or his mother/stepfather telling him what they knew from the Dryad, or if he figured it out later.

The revival was probably unexpected, but something that made sense in hindsight. Back when Andrew was born, Terraria was still weak; it was a very big deal that she had sealed away most of the spirits in Hell and created the first Guides. So revival wasn’t really a thing, even if there were still legends of a time when Dryads walked the Earth and Terraria revived heroes who had wrongly perished.

But Andrew wouldn’t be very effective if he were dead, so alive he shall be.

I think he could use a hug.

Still quite uncommon for people to be revived; Terraria’s will is a finnicky thing (outside of Andrew and the Dryad, who would always be revived). Terraria is not limitlessly powerful even in the modern day, with the threat of Moonlord looming and most magic locked away.

It definitely happens more than it did, at least, especially when it’s necessary to righting a wrong/restoring balance, and people can and do hope Terraria will intervene in a death that should not have occurred, but it’s not something to count on.

Chris is...kind of a special case, but it’s less about him necessarily and more that things are starting to reach their breaking point, it’s now or never, and if this hero dies there may not be another one to take his place.

Chris will never be jumping into lava to teleport home, though, haha.

We’ll actually be revisiting that scene later this chapter!

Who says Andrew will tell Chris?

.........He went to the doctor. He’s okay !!

In-comic, while their bond with each other will be very important to how they interact throughout the plot, there will never be an explicitly romantic scene between them, in the sense of dramatic confessions or anything of the likes. What matters more is how they care for each other and interact with external pressures, and that can totally be romantic or platonic!

That said, ultimately, this is a Terraria fancomic that I make for fun, so like...if you want to ship them, cool! Have fun with it! If you don’t like that sort of pairing, that’s cool too! There are plenty of fun Terraria ships I enjoy and some will be a little more direct in the comic while most are just me having fun and will have no bearing on the comic itself. Heck, I’ve mentioned before that I play Chris in a D&D campaign, and Andrew is literally “Chris’ weird religious partner” in his backstory of that game, which obviously should not be taken as any confirmation or denial of anything in the Purity Town comic proper. I do things for fun and you can too.

So...do as you please! They were always meant to have a close bond, and you can interpret that however you like, but I don’t plan for it to be direct whichever way in-comic.

Thanks!! I’m not always in a good position to add the little background details like that, but when I am, I have a good time with it. Andrew’s house especially is fun as it’s a weird mix of “things left by the previous owner” and “random housewarming gifts.” Andrew doesn’t have too many personal decorations!

👀!

The better question is “how much gear am I capable of drawing?”

In all seriousness, I definitely want him to get some fun new gear (I promise he won’t be in a normal shirt/pants/shoes and homemade cloak combo forever). I won’t be including everything, just stuff that makes sense for his build and will visually work well in the comic, but I’m excited for him to get some upgrades!

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

Last bit is a submission that made me smile! I wasn’t sure how to go about formatting/posting it, so I decided to add it in with the asks. Credit to @wingedcatgirl​ ! Thank you for the sticker :D

“found your comic yesterday through your... fanfics?? they're not really fanfics since you wrote purity town in the first place but they also are terraria fanfics... found your comic yesterday through the text you've posted on ao3, let's go with that

anyway this one panel was fucking hilarious so here have a discord sticker of it“

[whentranslatorscry]

Hitagi Honeymoon

008

The next day would greet us with clear, blue skies— except in my hometown. As an aside, the weather in Washington, D.C., where I currently have a foothold, also seemed to be quite pleasant.

What a convenient age we live in, being able to confirm the conditions of various localities through weather cameras online. Presently, at least, there was no rain in Tochigi Prefecture; there were no approaching typhoons, no signs of tornadoes.

It seemed that the ominous prediction— or should I say, the gracious advice— of the Eleventh Witch Oikura, was not an immediate cause for concern.

However, a low probability of rain is not necessarily the bare minimum condition for activities such as glamping or car camping. After all, we weren't going to be roughing it outside with no shelter, so we wouldn't need to cancel our honeymoon trip unless there was torrential rain, relentless snowfall (in summer), or anything equally pressing— that is, if stargazing wasn't the main event.

When stargazing is concerned, the problem isn't just rain; even a hint of cloudiness would be enough to render our plans null and void.

It had been quite some time since I had last gone stargazing. In fact, the only time I could recall doing so was the starry date with Senjougahara Hitagi. And even that had been a sort of surprise attack. I had completely forgotten that, when it comes to the conditions of the sky, one can only truly leave it up to fate. While we can try to predict whether it will rain or not by resorting to long-term weather forecasts, the matter of whether the sky will be clouded over is still, quite literally, up in the air.

“Don’t worry, I knew all that beforehand— that's what makes it an authentic experience of stargazing, including the looming uncertainty. To enjoy such thrilling moments, knowing that it could all turn out to be a wild centipede chase, is what makes a visit to the land of the giant centipede even more compelling.”

“That’s not what the giant centipede is about.”

“Even if it happens to be cloudy or rainy, there's nothing to worry about, really. It's not like we're in New Zealand; we can always make a return trip within our country whenever we please.”

That's how Hitagi comforted me as I fumbled around in a flustered panic.

It was something an astronomy enthusiast would already know, after all.

“Family is about repeating the cycle over and over again, getting another chance to make things right no matter what. That is what makes a family.”

Yeah, that was a good point.

Although I was happy to inadvertently learn that little bit about Hitagi's notion of family— and it became even more poignant when I thought of what her family had overcome— at the same time, I couldn't help but be painfully aware of my own shortcomings. No matter how well I'd thought to prepare for this trip, meticulously assembling the itinerary and drafting the roadmap, the harsh reality was that I still couldn't shake my lackadaisical, go-with-the-flow personality even at the age of twenty-four.

It's better to feel pain than nothing at all, right?

If, on our honeymoon, we went stargazing only to be met with impenetrable cloudy skies or rain so heavy that we couldn't even open our eyes, at least we could laugh about it later. Of course, it's always best if the sun is shining.

The uncertain future looms ahead.

“But what I'm most happy about is finally being able to meet Shinobu, after all this time. My dream has come true. I've missed so many opportunities to meet her, ever since that close call at the abandoned cram school. I was starting to doubt if she was even real, or just a girl from your imagination.”

Wouldn’t that be great.

It was a big deal to be suspected of such a thing, but at any rate, Shinobu, a very non-imaginary girl, was shy, so the process of persuasion— or rather, convincing her— proved to be quite difficult.

Even with my blood-related family like Karen and Tsukihi, she had managed to keep her secrets, so she argued that it wouldn't be a problem to keep the same secret from Hitagi (quite a sound argument). It was a pretty tough task to break down her reasoning. The former Fire Sisters had not known about aberrations, let alone the existence of vampires, but for Hitagi, aberrations were already an open secret; there was no reason to keep hiding them. Eventually, I managed to convince her through reasoned arguments.

Even so, if it had been old Shinobu, she would have probably withdrawn into the shadows like the elusive Sun Goddess herself. Nonetheless, she not only chose to reveal herself in this candid manner but even declared that she would accompany us on our honeymoon. Maybe she, too, was changing in some ways.

Admittedly, I failed to persuade Oikura to join us on this trip (truth be told, I genuinely wished she would have come even though I knew she wouldn’t). But, regardless, our quartet's journey to Tochigi has taken shape, with the Nasu Highlands as our destination. It's not exactly ideal, but we can only hope that at least in the open field of Senjougahara, it will be sunny.

When it comes to family outings, the time it takes to get everyone out the door can feel excruciatingly long. So long, in fact, that the hapless sort who forgets to check the weekly weather forecast might be tempted to just hurry up and leave, regardless of how well-prepared they are. But as much as I didn't want to keep everybody waiting, there was still one more thing I had to take care of while we were in town.

Before heading to the rendezvous at Kanbaru’s house, I needed to pay a visit to the very place where Hitagi and I had held our wedding just a few days prior— North Shirahebi Shrine.

There hadn’t been any remarks from Oikura about it, but it suddenly hit me while I was chatting on the phone with my childhood friend. Having held our wedding at that fateful shrine and pledging our eternal love, would it really be permissible for us to visit a shrine of marriage in another prefecture, even if it was a World Heritage site? It was a question that crossed my mind, right at the brink, due to my skeptical nature.

This was something Hanekawa had taught me when I had been studying for exams: praying too much for success at multiple shrines and temples might cause the gods to quarrel amongst themselves, so it's better to focus on just one. Now that I think about it, that advice might have been a subtle criticism of my usual carefree attitude rather than being a mere tip about praying for success. Well, besides, an attitude of indiscriminately relying on divine intervention might not be all that praiseworthy and it’s maybe better not to indulge in it.

That said, I couldn't help but feel that it would be a little excessive to go out of my way to respectfully avoid places like Nikko Toshogu Shrine and Futarasan Shrine, which we had already incorporated into our roadmap. Hence, I decided to settle the matter by informing the somewhat temperamental god of North Shirahebi Shrine about our plans before leaving.

When I had visited the shrine one early morning during high school, I had experienced a bizarre encounter with a huge sword supposedly slicing me into pieces. It felt like an appropriate time to overcome that trauma.

“What a surprise! If it isn't the newlywed Sakuragi Koyomi-san.”

“Although I'm honored, don't compare me to the recently made-into-a-film red-haired basketball genius. My name is Araragi.”

“Sorry, I stuttered.”

“No, you did it on purpose.”

“I stubbed.”

“It wasn’t on purpose?!”

“I slam-dunked.”

“Are you talking about the manga?”

“I read it back in the day without paying too much attention, but having Sakuragi, Akagi, and Miyagi all on the same team, don’t you think their surnames are quite the curious coincidence?”

“Don’t criticize an epic manga like that.”

Speaking of Akagi, the protagonist does have red hair… that, in a way, might actually make it more realistic.

“Real is also a basketball manga, isn't it?” remarked Hachikuji Mayoi, the shrine's resident deity, displaying her keen insight.

Although I'd like to introduce her as the same Hachikuji as ever, she appeared in her adult form in the shrine maiden outfit, just like when I saw her at my wedding. To me now, she appears to be of a similar age, but why? Isn't she supposed to be a lost eleven-year-old fifth-grader god?

“Didn’t we explain it at the wedding? From the moment I first met you, Araragi-san, time has continued to flow without interruption, public opinion kept being updated, and it was concluded that it's not desirable from a compliance standpoint to have a grown man and a school girl with a backpack in the same frame. So, this is how my character design was changed.”

“Is compliance stronger than even divine power?”

“Child labor isn't a good thing either, so we changed how I look, even if just visually. My essence is still that of a fifth-grader.”

While that could be a difficult setting in itself, I suppose it's true for everyone. We may have matured in appearance, but inside we remain fifth graders.

Since turning twenty-four, my character had not changed much from when I was a high school senior. I couldn’t plan a trip properly and I genuinely enjoyed the Slam Dunk movie.

“Yes, it was just a bit confusing with Sakuragi and Akagi.”

“That does feel like an adult perspective, but when it comes to last names, there's quite a bit to think about in recent times. It's the perfect topic. Would you listen, Hachikuji?”

Since we had a meeting time and couldn’t spend too long in conversation, I got straight to the point. This, too, might be the mark of being an adult. When I was a high schooler and Hachikuji a fifth grader, we would have spend three hours just talking about Slam Dunk. We would get carried away with Rukawa’s story.

And now, as I transitioned into describing the ever-flowing theme of honeymoon, I couldn’t help but feel a certain melancholy. The days of being able to control time, back when it seemed impossibly long, had slipped through my fingers.

“I see. So, you're going to Mount Akagi.”

“Listen. To me. Properly.”

“Mount Nantai, then? I can't really discourage you from going there, I guess.”

She may have had a complicated sentiment as a god, as Hachikuji had been living in such an unknown mountain. But she was a novice deity, and she takes pride in having protected the town from an infectious disease, even leading the virus astray. She’s done some pretty scary things, when you think about it.

“Personally, I think if you’re going to introduce Shinobu-san to Senjougahara-san— pardon, it was the missus.”

“The missus? Are you also taking the stance of Lieutenant Columbo?”

“If you're going to introduce Shinobu-san to Mrs. Araragi, I'd really like you to introduce me as well, and soon.”

“But didn't you more or less meet the other day at the wedding?”

“She can’t see me at all. That means she’s completely devoid of doubt. It seems she’s gone through a lot, but maybe, she’s never lost sight of her home.”

“Her home.”

“Or her family.”

That made me wonder if I had always been just floating aimlessly— from the day I first met Hachikuji Mayoi, the day I had that fight with my sisters and up until today when I was leaving for my honeymoon.

“If you were to remove your doubts, there would be nothing left of you, Araragi-san.”

“Spoken by you, it sounds like it’s over for me, like a divine prophecy. Well, honestly, it would be a sad story if my doubts were gone and I couldn’t see you anymore. From morning until night, I want to gaze upon you only.”

“Even the adult version of me?”

“I wouldn't be deceived by appearances, you see.”

“That means you see a fifth-grader in the adult me as well.”

Though the image of a high school senior and a fifth-grade girl messing around together may indeed not be modern, the reason for such a bond could be the length of our relationship, and how we've grown to have such conversations— sitting side by side at the shrine.

I wouldn't want to lose this. This sense of who I am.

“It may be for the best that doubts, like feeling lost, stay hidden. But it seems that you continue to be lost, both at home and abroad, so this ill-fated bond may persist for a while longer. I said it myself but I must admit, ‘ill-fated bond’ is quite the phrase.”

“Fateful alone would already be exceptional, but this is a persistent illness, It almost seems like I'm about to become unfaithful.”¹

“There's danger in using the word ‘unfaithful’ as a newlywed. In your case though, you’ve been unified with Shinobu-san for a long time, and so, regardless of your doubts, you might be able to see me. Being a member of the Hearsay Department makes you almost an expert, I’d presume.”

“Mhm. I hope that’s the case. It’s undeniably true that I’m feeling lost at the moment. You could say I'm wandering aimlessly— as ever. I’ve had a wedding, and we’re legally married, of course. The honeymoon we're about to go on could also be called a product of this hesitation.”

“It’s admirable that you’re pondering over a surname so much, Araragi-san. After all, names are very important.”

“Really? You say that after you just called me Sakuragi-san? And for that matter, all eighteen years of mispronouncing my name?”

“I've over-chewed it, and my jaw is growing tired.”

“Don't go chewing someone's name like it's gum.”

“I've brought it up a few times before, but when my parents divorced and my last name changed, I was bothered too. I was really fond of the name Tsunade, you see.”

“Yeah. It may sound strange to say, to me, you’ve always been Hachikuji, so now the name Tsunade feels new.”

Tsunade Mayoi.

Maybe for a snail, that might be more fitting.

“Well then, why don't you become Araragi Mayoi at this point?”

“Isn't that being too wishy-washy for the Araragi family? Are you trying to create a legitimate Araragi Harem?”

“Although there has never been such a dubious organization, now the mere thought of one is incredibly exhausting. It feels like there wouldn't be a single fun thing about Araragi Harem.”

“It’s so sad seeing you withered away completely… I can't bear to look at you, Araragi-san. I feel like saying I hate you. Please don't talk to me.”

Being told this by her adult version carried a different weight. On the other hand, the memory of a full-blown fistfight with a fifth-grader was far from becoming for a police officer.

“I'd like to bury you just to erase that memory.”

“What on earth are you saying in these harrowed grounds? Anyway, the idea of adopting Shinobu-san far outstrips the former Araragi-san.”

“So I thought I'd adopt you as well at this point, but it just doesn't work out.”

“Please, don’t create a project like a philanthropic attempt to adopt orphans from all around. No, you may create such projects, but… In your case, Araragi-san, the impression that you are indiscriminately collecting these orphans isn't a good one.”

In any case, adopting an adult version of Hachikuji as my child had a completely different sense of criminality than adopting a fifth-grade girl.

“If anything, I’d rather become your adopted son, Hachikuji. Hachikuji Koyomi— doesn't it sound dated and cool?”

“It certainly slides smoothly like the Iroha slope. There's a miraculous appeal to it… but what's a vampire to do by joining the ranks of god's retinue?”

“What’s more,” Hachikuji said while looking at my shadow that had fallen within the shrine grounds. “What does Shinobu-san think about it? I doubt that she’s very keen on the idea of meeting your wife, let alone becoming an adopted child to you.”

“Should we just ask her? Would have to wake her up, though.”

Since the early hours of a human morning were the late hours of a vampire night, Shinobu was currently fast asleep inside my shadow.

“You could say she’s sleeping bloody amd dead, completely exhausted from our debate.”

“There’s a debate going on? What do you mean, sleeping bloody and dead— is that some kind of vampire slang?”

“It's ‘cause we're family that we fight like that, you know.”

“Oh, you sound like you know what you’re talking about, coming from a dysfunctional family.”

“Who’s from a dysfunctional family?”

Actually, me.

Now, I may be slightly exaggerating with my words, but it was true that, especially during my first and second years in high school, the Araragi family had a tendency to lose its functionality as a family.

The sixteen-year-old Araragi could barely imagine a future where he could enjoy a carefree dinner with his sister— let alone one where she works the same job. I fell on hard times in high school, I had no expectations from my parents, and I had fallen out with my sisters. On graduation— or dropping out— I planned to move out of the house immediately.

It was a mess, pretty much.

“A mess, huh.”

“And it's not like we're functioning even now. My parents have both been dispatched to Tokyo, I’ve based myself abroad, and my other sister is nowhere to be found. The family's dysfunction is barely being maintained.”

“Please don’t maintain it.”

As I pondered repeatedly, Karen, the most untamed and liberated person I know, was beyond my imagination, protecting our home all alone.

“And that's precisely why I want the home I build to be filled with warmth and ceaseless laughter. Is that too much to ask?”

“A home filled with laughter? It's undoubtedly better than one filled with ceaseless abuse.”

“Don't even try to joke about that. You can't compare laughter with abuse.”

“In all seriousness, though, I'm rooting for you. Make sure that nothing like the cycle of abuse continues. Here's to proving wrong the ridiculous notion that children raised in dysfunctional families can't build healthy homes. Show them what you're made of.”

“I never thought I grew up in a dysfunctional family, but that's probably what it was.”

If anything, it might be that this reflects Hitagi's unwavering resolve. It wasn't about function or dysfunction, her family had already crumbled once before. And even as a single-parent household afterward, they were far from well-balanced or stable— there was a time when Hitagi was losing weight and had to continuously visit the hospital.

So, the idea of building a new family must have been a great leap that she resolutely took. It was for these reasons, her view of what makes a family, that I wanted to respect and support her.

If we really wanted to, we could have chosen to move in together, have a common-law marriage, or live together without changing our names to leave an escape route should things turn sour. But maybe she wanted to cut off any chance of escape entirely.

It wasn't like I was completely devoid of such sentiment while deciding to marry, after all this time of being together since Mother's Day during our third year of high school.

I can’t be a student forever.

“I still see you as a student of sorts, going to the FBI Academy and all.”

“When you put it that way, I can't really deny it…”

“Still, once you and the missus start sharing your life together, it's clear that you can't just leave Shinobu-san as she is.”

“Isn’t there any other way to call her? It's a bit confusing for a goddess to call her missus.”²

“Should we call her your spouse?'”

“Weird how wife doesn't seem appropriate, but spouse does.”

“Your wife knew about Shinobu-san and accepted her proposal with that knowledge, so I think there must be some understanding between them.”

“Yeah, she looks enthusiastic. Even said she was looking forward to meeting her today.”

“And she approved of the adoption too?”

“I have that prepared as a surprise for our honeymoon.”

“Sounds like a recipe for divorce.”

Hachikuji showed a concerned look.

With her adult version, it didn’t feel like a joke, there was a serious impression.

She really was a talented actress.

“I'm just dumbfounded. Making big life-changing decisions in some surprise. Regardless of whether or not it’s Shinobu-san, adoption is a major step that will steer the direction of your married life. Are you planning to push through with such a monumental decision just because of the starry, romantic atmosphere?”

“Maybe I should mention it beforehand?”

“It's not a ‘maybe,’ it's a must. If you don't bring it up beforehand, you'd do better not saying anything at all.”

Oh, such grown-up advice.

If she were still in fifth grade, she would've most probably gone along with the mischief and agreed enthusiastically, “Yeah, let's surprise her!” But being chastised seriously, she did make a point.

This wasn’t a conversation to have under a starry sky, and besides, it might be cloudy anyway.

“But… as long as you’re considerate of your wife's feelings, I do believe that adopting Shinobu-san into the Araragi family would be the best course of action.”

“As a friend?”

“A god.”

Quite the grand scale we're talking about here.

I made things that way, I suppose.

“I've been training with Gaen-san, so I've learned a thing or two about sealing away powerful aberrations simply by knowing their names. Shinobu-san was sealed away by Oshino-san more than six years ago, and yet, Oshino-san himself has been away from this town for a long time. The seal grows weaker.”

“It does?”

That's certainly not a comforting thought.

In other words, it suggested the potential revival of Kiss-Shot Acerola-Orion Heart-Under-Blade, the iron-blooded, hot-blooded, cold-blooded vampire— an event that a god could not overlook.

I hadn't considered this possibility. Not considering it felt practically like inviting risk.

“If anything, it's a miracle that Shinobu-san stayed restrained with Oshino-san’s name, the wandering specialist. If she were a Killing Stone, she would've broken free long ago.”

I’m not overly keen on singing his praises, but it's impossible not to recognize that Oshino was a remarkable specialist— it would be off the mark for an amateurish FBI agent to think that Shinobu's seal would break if the current situation was left unchanged, and it may be nothing more than a novice deity’s unfounded fretting.

I didn’t expect it to last for one or two centuries, but it could very well endure until Oshino’s death. In any case, I believe that time has come. Rather than allowing the seal to continue under the name of a random old man, it was only right that she was sealed under my name, both as the responsible party and her guardian.

“Well, yeah, there's no denying he was also a participant in that hell. Even if we leave out the name Oshino, it's perfectly fine to keep the Shinobu part.”

“That's an exceedingly condescending attitude toward our benefactor. But from a divine standpoint, it's probably for the best that Oshino-san’s name isn't completely removed. For example, giving her a name like Araragiaaaa wouldn’t be a good idea.”

“From a human standpoint as well, that would be a bad idea.”

This isn’t some RPG, after all.

However, once it's brought up, the matter of what name I should give Shinobu became a tantalizing question. This wasn’t mere whimsy. In fact, it was the pureblood vampire who had transformed her— or rather, Princess Acerola, or Lola— into a vampire: Deathtopia Virtuoso Suicide-Master had fully designed her current name.

While I had no intention of defying the divine advice that it's better to retain Shinobu's name, it might be amusing to play with the idea as an idle pastime— like considering names for my own child, what about giving her a new one?

“Hmm. It's not derived from anything in particular, but how about Araragi Tsubasa?”

“That’s too heavy! Besides, I think your wife mentioned something similar a long time ago.”

Was that the case? Well if so, we were a couple cut from the same cloth.

“Araragi Nadeko?”

“Not just heavy, that's a precursor to a dysfunctional family. Please don't name the adopted child after a woman you've cut ties with.”

“It's not just the names of women I've cut ties with.”

“I guess you’re going to say Araragi Sodachi next?”

“I was going to say that, yes, but I'm not actually estranged from Oikura. She's more of an ill-fated bond.”

“Whether you call her a childhood friend or an ill-fated bond, it certainly changes things quite a bit… Who else? Any other estranged women in Araragi-san’s life? Tsukihi-san, maybe?”

“Though her whereabouts are indeed unknown, I have no intention of severing ties with her. She's my sister.”

“You've always been consistent in that regard. Well, it's not ideal to name a living acquaintance after a great figure, a deceased one or the like.”

“Right, it isn't.”

“Oshino-san didn’t name her something like Oshino Mememe either.”

“Mememe?”

Shinobu’s character would have been quite different. She might not have been as shy.

“Who knows, she might've been a young girl who loved neatly prepared mackerel rather than donuts.”

“Shinobu Shimeshimeshime³ doesn't sound right either. So, in the spirit of you who is not only a great figure but also a divine being, how about Araragi Mayoi?”

“Terrifically heavy. And it's just plain creepy if you name your daughter something like that. Why are you so desperate to bring Araragi Mayoi into existence?”

“If we take you and Shinobu, divide by two, we might just end up with the perfect little girl.”

“What's with this little girl idea? It's creepy when you look at adoption like that. No one like that should be a foster parent. It's not cunning, it's just recklessly said.”

Hmph.

We had come up with many thought experiments, but in conclusion, Araragi Shinobu seemed to be the most suitable choice for now. There was no sign that an idea greater than that would emerge, whether in terms of this process or sealing.

The world works in wonderful ways, doesn't it?

“But you know, I can't help but think that if my name wasn't Araragi Koyomi, I might have turned out to be a completely different person.”

“Yes, you may have ended up dating someone else entirely, too.”

Although I didn’t want to believe that fate could be so drastically altered by a single name, actually, even during my junior and senior high school days, a different attendance number could easily change my position within the class.

Having a starting letter “A” in my name, my attendance number was always either one or two, and just after the class change, it was inevitably a conspicuously awkward position for self-introductions.

I had thought of it like a vile, loathsome four-syllable word that smeared on my beloved wife’s name, but I found myself grateful for the name given to me by my parents: Araragi.

And technically, it was the name of my father's father's father's father— maybe. It may have originated from a grandmother somewhere along the line, but the further back in time we go, the more unlikely that becomes…

“I should get going, though. I may not go on as many tangents as before, but I still lose track of time when I talk to you.”

“It's such an honor for a goddess to hear that.”

“Do you want to come with me? To Senjougahara?”

“Even the adult version of me is still a novice. I dare not venture into Takamagahara.”

Takamagahara? Oh right, that sacred place at Futarasan Shrine. Everyone's so knowledgeable about Tochigi Prefecture. If only I had paid more attention in geography class…

“Right, I’ll pray from this distant mountain for a sunny day at Senjougahara.”

“That's thoughtful of you, but you're the god of lost children, not the god of weather. Or are you going to make me a teru teru bouzu to ward off the rain?”

“Oh, no, although I now serve as a goddess at this snake-themed shrine, I was originally just a lost snail. I may not be as powerful as the sun goddess Amaterasu, but I still have some control over the rain.”

Hachikuji's smile was radiant, like that of a child, filling me with warmth like the sun itself.

“Rain or shine, it remains elementary for me.”

Prev Chapter | Next Chapter

腐れ縁, bad (but inseparable) relationship and 不貞腐れる, to become unfaithful.

The kami in 上さん、one’s wife、 sounds like 神、god.

忍野〆〆〆<- this weird symbol called shime, looks like katakana メ.

[vaporvipermedia]

Ahh I love thinking about interactions!!!!: Yume reluctantly letting Mitzy do their make up. (insert do you feel Bonita? meme lol) Yume is also affectionate and would have no problem holding hands with them!

Yume and Grace just seem to have a lot in common so I fell like Yume would like being around them! They would go thrifting and look at mugs and tea sets. Yume is good at hyping friends up and would give Grace lots of positive reinforcement! (They are both clumsy bumsy in alchemy class tho lol) Coco just straight up makes Yume at ease and reminds them of Yuuta! Definitely gets that big sibling vibe. He would hide behind her when Floyd comes to mess with him!

I love your designs so much!!! <3

Yume and Mitzy:

Poor Yume…the day you let Mitzy do your makeup is the day you give up your free time to be her guinea pig. If she comes to Ramshackle with new eyeliner or some sparkly eyeshadow, Run. Just run Yume. She’s coming for you 🫵

That meme is just so fitting.

Mitzy: Do you or do you not feel Bonita?

Yume: …I feel Bonita.

Mitzy: Wonderful! BECAUSE YOU LOOK BONITA!

Mitzy would be over the moon if Yume held their hand. Not only just for affection's sake but also for their tendency to squeeze things whenever they get excited. So, I hope Yume is prepared for that.(She has that Floyd-like strength and could probably drag Yume everywhere around the school) But hey, at least they now have a special place in her Bestie Journal! With sparkles and all!

Yume and Grace:

Grace and Yume? No, no, no. I think you meant to call them Divus’ Recurring Migraines. He would be so tired of the both of them but would give them a light punishment since Grace would most definitely vouch for Yume and take most of the blame for her Alchemy Partner’s sake. Just expect to see them mopping the classroom floors together.

THRIFTING FOR TEA SETS AND MUGS!?

Oh Grace would buy a star themed set for Yume if they were to go out to a Thrift Shop. Another person she’ll invite to her tea breaks. They all need to drink Butterfly Pea Flower Tea NOW! Grace would be in such a talkative mood with Yume and the girls.

Along with Yume’s positive reinforcement, Grace would just cherish him so much as a friend. Going so far as to, offer to hold his items and even try helping out with his homework only to blank out at the questions. She needs to brush up on some studies herself.(Trying her best to be useful)

Grace: It’s the least I can do for you. After all, I still need to repay you for helping me clean out that Cauldron. [So much sludge…]

But overall, she’s happy to make a friend that can deal with her as a person.

Yume and Coco:

I keep imagining Yume looking up at a tall looming Coco only for her to say,

Coco: Hey, you…what’s your favorite snack?

Just to buy him something nice at Sam’s Shop. Little does he know, that was Coco’s way of saying they're now part of her family and there’s nothing they can do about it. Big sibling things.🤭

I’m pretty sure if Yume were to ask Coco to use her unique magic on them, she wouldn’t bat an eye once. Because along with her UM’s healing properties it does have a calming after effect that makes the person more energized. Which Yume most definitely needs, especially after what I read. YES IS STILL REMEMBER AND YES I’M STILL RECOVERING!

Oh boy, Coco would be glad to deal with Floyd for Yume. She’ll start stretching, cracking her knuckles and to just turn around to and ask him-

Coco: Wanna see something cool?

Only to fucking German Suplex Floyd into the ground, leaving a crater inside the school hallway. And if Orval happens to walk over it's even better. Now Yume has a free WWE fight happening in front of him. [Insert JJBA Part 5 Meme here of the gang beating up a random man]

Probably texting their brothers while sending some pictures on the side. After that’s done, Coco would just go up to Yume like-

Coco: Wanna grab a soda?

Yume: Um…is Floyd-

Coco: Oh he’s fine. He loves this kind of thing.

And just walks off together to the vending machine, while Orval drags a giggling Floyd to Octavinelle.

Just some fun and silly interactions for The Sirens and Yume.

Thank you for reading this mess lol hope you enjoy it.

[radellama]

Games I played in 2020 (Reupload)

This post somehow got deleted when I removed it from my pinned, which is strange, cause all my other ex-pinned still exist... Anyway, good thing I kept a personal archive, so here it is again, unedited!

Excluding games like mario kart/just dance/jackbox games ect that are kinda just.. You play them, thats it; this is a (hopefully) comprehensive list of the games I played in this shitty year. Its a bunch of my thoughts and rambles, with somewhat of a rundown of what the games actually are. These are vaguely in the order I played them in this year, and I have another whole post on just the Resident Evil games I played that I’ll keep seperate, cause this got out of hand lmao.

Under the cut so I don’t clog you all up.

---

Owlboy

Owlboy… This game is so fantastic, I got it twice. Literally, I have the digital version on switch and bought physical for ps4. What can I say? I really love this game. The soundtrack, visuals and story are just incredible, and it feels right at home alongside other games I hold close to my heart.

You play as Otus, a shy and mute owl who tries to help out but often gets the short end of the stick. Things start to get serious when the threat of a pirate attack looms over his small and unassuming town, as he tries to help figure out how to help and stop the pirates. With the help of friends he makes along the way, Otus and pals start to discover that there’s something more sinister beneath everything going wrong.

Playing this handheld on switch feels just as nice playing console on ps4 (yes i know i can put my switch in the dock, but at the start of the year playing this i had no internet and my tv was packed in a box ready to move :P) I think I have a pretty strong resonance with this game due to the fact that I played it at a strange time in my life. Bushfires were burning up the country, the smoke from them was thickly hanging over my town as I tried to pack up all my belongings and move to the city, and no one could come help me due to the severity of the smoke. The stress of trying to move and start up at university all within a few days was getting to me and reflected in slightly more insomnia than usual, so this game kept me good company. There are a lot of really good emotional beats within the game, and it was well worth being a thorough player and dicking around to exhaust all npc dialogue; I believe some of the best emotional scenes are optional and could be missed if you don’t go searching for them. That said, even if you may miss one or two of the hard hitting feely stuff, there’s plenty of really nice moments in the main story that you can’t miss. I especially liked the way it touched on how to approach and deal with your friends when grieving through tragedies, and that there are moments where the characters tell each other how much they mean to each other. Overall its just such a gorgeous story about a young owl trying to help, and how far of a journey that takes him. I’ve played it probably 5-6 times this year across both platforms, I feel like I can’t get enough of it. While a shorter game, it doesn’t feel like it’s missing anything, and has a fairly satisfying end, even though it is rather open ended. 

Love this game, and would encourage you to play/watch a playthrough if you get the chance. (Also big fat win for this game being set on a bunch of floating islands!! Fuck yesssss)

Some songs I really liked were: 

Strato https://youtu.be/_JHq-jJZUlw

Such Perfect Peace https://youtu.be/aW1vcLi6IOI

Tropos By Night https://youtu.be/LUY7_Q600LM

~~~

Aragami

Oh boy, how do I start. I really liked playing this game, it was the first time I’ve really delved into stealth games, and I had a great time. It took me a while to get used to the controls, I feel like this is probably better to play on ps4 or pc, but it was still great on switch. While I do enjoy games set in Japan, that wasn’t the main draw for me to play this game. The idea of being a shadow assassin infiltrating the light clans during the night, it was so interesting and beautifully executed!

You play as an undead, malevolent spirit of the shadows, summoned by the young girl Yamiko to help break her free from the imprisonment of the light clan. While the story isn’t particularly deep or enthralling, it is enough to keep an interesting motive to continue playing. As you collect Yamiko’s belongings that are guarded, you slowly release the shackles of her imprisonment and share her memories that are attached. One thing of note here, not only do you have the option to choose which style of play you want, its actually encouraged to shake up how you go about each level! I plan on replaying soon and challenging myself to play differently, I tried to simply not be spotted by any enemies, and killed whoever was a nuisance. There are achievements to be had for complete stealth and never being spotted by an enemy, or killing every enemy in the map; every time you do well and receive points for excelling at a certain play style, you can buy weapon and attack upgrades. These were very fun to save up and collect, from adding more ways to attack and distract enemies for a much more thought out attack strategy, or sending out decoy shadows and having shadowy hands consume enemies in an insta-death. 

Not only did I thoroughly enjoy my time playing this game, I also felt like it was just well designed. I honestly can’t remember a time playing where I felt I was unfairly frustrated at a death, it usually felt like my own error and something that I could figure out myself. Perhaps a few of the boss fights were a bit mediocre in that aspect, but I can remember most the boss fights clearly enough to say I thought they were clever and creative ways for light and shadow to clash. It has been a while since I have played, and looking nostalgically to a game I played in Feb/March needs to be taken into consideration. However, if you wanna give stealth games a go, this is a great action-adventure stealth to play, and has a gorgeous aesthetic with a soundtrack to match! Well worth playing if this sounds interesting to you.

Notable songs for me were:

House of the Raven https://youtu.be/AAd9cm1nFfE

Trapped! https://youtu.be/vH7ehpPUIwI 

Main Theme https://youtu.be/m09et2hlLMk

~~~

Stardew Valley

Ahh Stardew. Honestly I played it more last year, it was a great way for me to relax AND rest my back to play this on my switch in bed after work. I still played it enough this year that it warrants being on my list, and I’ll say it’ll be on next years as well since the new update will be coming to consoles early next year, and I’ll bet this will be what I inevitably come back to playing to give my brain a break once uni starts up again.

Fairly simple game, you’re a newly appointed farmer taking over your grandpa’s old estate, you can farm… thats about it. Just kidding, there’s actually quite a lot to do so I always come back to this (also the ease of repetitive rituals make the autism go wheeeee!) It’s really nice getting to know the townsfolk, even date ones that catch your fancy. I’ve got like 3 or 4 files on the go, one of which is me playing as Captain Jean-Luc Picard of Enterprise Farm, just trying to grow a massive vineyard with a few animals and other plants just for fun. What can I say? The brainrot goes deep.

I’m very excited to see what the updates will hold, I had a lot of fun with the previous update that lets you befriend the sewer monster and move into your house. And also that you can get a movie theatre if you go the right path. This game has so much love poured into it, and it is genuinely one of, if not the best farming sims out there.

Not much more to really say except I love this game a lot, so here are some songs I really like. 

Fall (Raven’s Descent) https://youtu.be/idOmc35hlhU

Spirit’s Eve Festival https://youtu.be/gI3c4_K3smY

Winter (Ancient) https://youtu.be/Zr-PHm_qLgg

~~~

Cave Story+

I love Cave Story, it hits a certain sweet spot of nostalgia as I had it on wiiware growing up. It fascinated me as a kid but I think most of it kinda went over my head, so it was really nice to see it put on Switch! I played this a lot at the start of the year, but I also did a playthrough with my friend to show her what its all about. You can ask Nika, I did final cave (hidden) with joycon drift and somehow made it! /after like 20 tries lmao

You wake as a robot soldier with amnesia, and come across the mimigma village where you find that a girl mimigma named Sue has gone missing. As you try to search for her, you come in contact with her brother, and find out more about why they went missing. The further you investigate, the more dangerous it becomes, as it is made apparent that you are in fact meddling with a plan The Doctor has to take over the world or something, so you gotta fight a big toaster and a cute witch a bunch. Its a very charming and charismatic game, the wit of the old translations has pretty much been carried over, and this game is a pretty important part of the history of indie games. Well worth looking into how this game was created as its very interesting!

Definitely recommend playing, I love this game cause holy shit cute robot protags (and a floating island!!) I believe the original version of the game is still free to play on pc, otherwise cs+ is probably the best and definitive version to play, the main reason being you can stack a bunch of dogs on your head :P

Good songs:

Balrog’s Theme https://youtu.be/pcxw5QuqwZw

Plantation (Main Theme) https://youtu.be/td-evNdOvts

Safety https://youtu.be/l9Fk1e41_aA

~~~

Animal Crossing: New Horizons

What an interesting game in the series. Honestly I feel a bit conflicted with this one.

While I did enjoy the early days, and can see that its got some of the best gameplay/mechanics in the series yet, it feels a little soulless. 

I’m really not a fan of the way they were drip feeding updates out to us, the content should all be there from the beginning. Special events like holidays, I can understand them being free updates that are patched in, but things like Redd and the art section of the gallery? What the hell, why wasn’t that there from the beginning? I remember being very disappointed at the lack of art gallery, and not feeling all that satisfied when we eventually got it, because it should’ve been there? I know that I’m sounding a bit like a broken record with it, but while there is so many new things, like being able to terraform and having the most control over your town, I mean island, we’ve ever seen in an ac game - even the fact that we can put furniture outside now; that stuff is awesome. I won’t change my mind on that. But the taste is soured by the fact that theres so much stuff that feels like it’s missing. Brewster wasn’t a part of any museum update as far as I’m aware, it’d be awesome to set up his cafe on the island somewhere! There isn’t much expansion in the way of Nook’s store, and THE LACK OF FURNITURE SERIES. Collecting furniture series was one of my favourite things about ac, and I was so excited going from wild world to new leaf, finding that there were even more fancy furniture sets to collect. To have them all taken away.. I think there’s the cabana set still, but bruh I want to collect the sets I loved collecting as a kid, seeing what new additions to the sets will be added, seeing if Gracie will have any more expensive shit to buy. Gracie isn’t here :( There are a lot of the older npcs that just aren’t here and it feels pretty empty without them tbh. I know that the idea is that this is literally the next gen of ac as a series, and some of the npcs are the children/grandchildren of the old npcs we know and love, but I dunno it’d be nice to see them sometimes too. 

The text is also pretty bland tbh. I remember enjoying chatting for hours with villagers in wild world, I got tired out quicker with new leaf but it was still pretty fun chatting with everyone; but here they all have like 4 things to say and its a bit sad. It doesn’t feel like there's extra dialogue for when you get close with a villager, there aren’t as many games to play with them, even at festivals they’ve been pretty bland. It just sucks because I was so looking forward to it, and the intro to the game really hit home cause it really played into the whole ‘starting a new life in a new land’ kind of deal, and I got the keys to my apartment on the same day, so it was a pretty cool moment. 

I dunno, this is mostly complaining, there are things I like about the game, but theres a lot thats just pretty shit tbh. I expected better, especially because they pushed back the release from 2019 to 2020. Also oh my god fuck the flower breeding, I don’t want to spend hours crawling through various strategy guides trying to figure out the exact genetic makeup of my flowers just because I want a blue rose. I have put this game down and not played for quite a while cause of all my grievances, I also had a lot of trouble getting to my friend’s villages online so I only really did local play with my sister lol. I’m probably going to pick it up again soon, I plan on gifting a copy to my youngest sister so we can play online together when she gets her switch, so I’ll see all the updates that have happened over the second half of the year in one go and hopefully have a bit more fun than my first impression. 

To try tl;dr this; I’m not a fan of the way this feels like the mobile game, with drip fed content and kinda bare minimum stuff to do when previous games feel way more fun. I’ve felt more nostalgic to play ww or nl on my ds instead of picking up nh on switch, so I feel like something’s gone a bit wrong here lol. Still a pretty decent game and looks nice, but unless you’re really into these kinds of boring games, and maybe if you don’t care as much as I clearly do, it’s still worth playing. 

Some of the songs are pretty nice too, though wild world soundtrack will always and forever be the best one :P

12 PM https://youtu.be/xs4FJOvLPC8

5 PM https://youtu.be/uLtJIPu-Cns

Phase 6 (Rain) https://youtu.be/9JzOGqWbpmE

~~~

Paper Mario: Sticker Star

Let me preface this by saying, I knew it was this shitty one when I bought it. It was on sale and I was cautious about Origami King coming out, so I thought, fuck it, I’ll play the shitty one and then I’ll at least be pleasantly surprised at worst when I play the new one. 

It’s a pretty bland setup; bowser bad, stole something, use stickers, toads are everywhere. I really felt the lack of storyline, it was a little sad but honestly I expected it so I wasn’t that disappointed. There was still a few really fun and witty dialogues from the toads, so I’m glad that’s an important enough staple to still carry that humour. I only cleared like two or three worlds I think, before origami king came out and I played it instead. I might go back and continue playing cause I’ll admit, I’m curious as to how it pans out, but I’m also honestly not that invested.

Oh, I should also mention in the Egyptian level there are like. Human toads and human koopas. As enemies and murals on the wall. They were deeply unsettling and the cause of a lot of yelling at friends and forcing them to see that shit. Like, look at this. What the fuck

Overall, just a lame spin off feeling game, I wouldn’t really class it as a main entry cause it is so lackluster, but tbh it wasn’t as miserable as I thought it’d be to play. It just feels a bit empty, but it is also on ds lol. So.. it’s fine. I also enjoyed the soundtrack, it has moments where it sounds clearly inspired by pm64 and superpm. It’s not so bad, so if anything I’d be interested to hear the rest of the soundtrack in context too. 4/10 would not recommend, just read a wiki on it if you’re genuinely interested. I’m taking this bullet for all of us.

Decalburg https://youtu.be/tUpbaJePhLo

Intermission https://youtu.be/c9HJTxl15VQ

A Thousand Miles Away https://youtu.be/q4hC7X-fu4g

~~~

Paper Mario: Origami King

I preordered this game and got a cute origami set to actually fold myself. I like folding origami, so it was really fun to fold the characters while I finished up my last online uni class of the day before I was able to boot up and play for myself. I wanted to go in playing with an open mind, and feeling ready to appreciate anything that even vaguely resembled what I wanted (esp after playing sticker star lmao) 

Honestly? Not disappointed at all! This was a genuinely enjoyable game to play, had quite a few nice emotional beats and it was a gorgeous world to explore. It definitely feels more action-adventure than rpg, but I think that’s just the style paper mario is going in whether I like it or not. The turn based battle system (haha get it, cause its turn based, and you base your attacks on how you turn the staghea heahaa funnyyyy) it was a fun lil gimmick but it made me yearn for the battle stages of the first two games (haheheeee cauhsse yureee on a stagggheee) Honestly I think this battle system shines with the boss battles the most, having to turn the stage around to navigate it more akin to a snakes and ladders setup in order to land an attack on the boss was actually really fun once I got the hang of it. There is a training stage to get good at both regular and boss battles, but tbh trying to figure out the best methods to hit enemies in normal battles just became a brain-tired and I didn’t feel like solving the puzzle. I always gave it a genuine shot for the first few times encountering enemies, but honestly in late game I just paid the toads to kick their asses for me lol. 

Speaking of the toads, you have to rescue like, a fuck tonne of them. They’re literally everywhere. Its great tbh. They all had something to say and it often made me chuckle, so it was always well worth saving them to return them to their homes. 

Like most the pm games, theres a big baddie that get a big cool thing/powers that control everything, and you go through various worlds to undo the damage done until you confront the baddie at the end. One thing I really liked about this was that, with Boswer not being the enemy, you get to interact with the normal mario enemies we know and love, and get to love them more. It was really nice finding the hidden cafes and ordering a drink to chat with the minions, as every good pm game should be, it was just delightful chatting with all the npcs. I love that the classic dry wit and often sarcastic humour bled through into this game so thoroughly, it really gives life to the whole thing and eased my worries about being a cranky old gamer with a nostalgia boner for the classics. It feels like a pm game despite being a very different and unique game in the series, and despite it not really retaining as much of the rpg elements as I would’ve liked, it was a really nice game to play.

There are actually characters that join your party in this game! I was in such shock and delight that they’d brought that back; albeit not fully. Without spoiling too much, the party members are kinda limited to their chapters/sections, so while it would’ve been awesome to have permanent party members to swap out depending on how you want to navigate, it was nice that they added them at all when they’d been steadily phased out of the series. The only thing I will be a bit cranky about is that they’re pretty much useless in battle, they seem to have what feels like a 75% chance of fumbling their attack and missing, so its not worth relying on them to help out really. Other than that, the party members added some great depth to the game and helped really add character. They’re not as iconic as some of the party members in the first two games, but they’re still very loveable and I enjoyed having them join me on this journey.

Have I mentioned that the game is gorgeous? Cause it really is. While its not really the pop-up-storybook aesthetic the early games had, and really focuses on the whole paper thing, this game feels as though it utilised the origami aspect and the sets feel like paper mache dioramas, so it still has a strong visual charm which is lovely! The places you go to as well… I really loved the autumn mountain and shogun studios, and the desert+sniff city at night were really pretty. The music is awesome too, I enjoyed the full effect of my nice tv speakers I saved up for to get when I got my tv, everything sounds fantastic! Well worth getting your favourite headphones and listening to them. 

Before I go on and ramble on and on about how pleasantly surprised I was at this game, I’ll just leave it at that. I was pleasantly surprised, and will definitely replay at least a few times when I have that paper mario itch. 

Here’s some bangers:

Toad Town in Trouble https://youtu.be/kGv-4THIwjg

Autumn Mountain https://youtu.be/h-xnSuonaZw

Sniff City https://youtu.be/BZxhlRLjlOY

~~~

Everbody’s Golf (PS2)

I’m not a sporty person in general, I don’t even really enjoy playing sporty video games. But this? This was an iconic part of my childhood. And I’ve been playing it a lot recently. As I kid I didn’t understand how to unlock more characters and courses to play, but now that I’m not a stupid kid anymore, I’ve been steadily playing to unlock all the characters and shit cause I genuienly adore this game. Apart from farming sims like stardew and harvest moon, THIS is my go-to game for relaxing. 

The early stages, soundtracks and characters are so ingrained into my memory, that even when I found a second hand copy online last year and bought it, I still remembered everything, and it’s just as fun as it was back then. My roommate knows that I’m not sporty at all, and she told me she was thinking ‘Wow, Rads playing a sporting golf game? That feels a bit out of character, but it he likes it…” - and then she saw what it was, and described it perfectly. It’s a dumb anime golf game. And it’s the best.

I put this here because it’s awesome and I have been playing it a lot recently while in lockdown, and because I actually found someone on youtube that had the soundtrack. They’re all the extended versions, but here are some of the themes that I could probably hum by memory if prompted.

Mt Sakura C.C. https://youtu.be/izbThUSB8W8

Mini Golf 1 https://youtu.be/BwcCGW2rSvA

Character Select https://youtu.be/Gk90vCnuWJc

~~~

Everybody’s Golf (PS4)

Well, it’s the newest iteration of the game I loved as a kid, and it was really cheap if I bought the disc only online since it wasn’t the VR version, so ofc I got it. 

I was literally speechless when I boot up the game and hear Owl City first thing, I fucking love Owl City and I know I don’t really check up on the music as much as I should but I didn’t know this was a thing lmao?? https://youtu.be/TEfCCPEX8oY

/for context, this is the ps2 intro… really makes you wanna play anime golf mmmm https://youtu.be/MUPhWQ3fe38

Tbh this was a bit of a lame golf game… I mean its a golf game they’re all kinda lame, but I dunno, on PS2 it had a certain charm with all the characters you could select and play as, along with the courses all having some kind of uniqueness. Also, PS2 had not one but two mini golf courses, and a nice lil par3 course of fun and short holes. This one? Nothing of the sort.

It just kinda.. Is that you play really long courses and rack up points lol. It feels a bit sad without minigolf and shit, it is fun making your own character to play as, but I dunno I feel like it’d be better to have that create-a-characer ALONGSIDE the classic golf characters we know and love. 

Also, honestly the soundtrack is nothing special. It’s nice enough, but I would mute it and put on podcasts or albums I wanted to listen to instead. Just listen to Owl City

Eagle City G.C. https://youtu.be/OkSwUweo7cM

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Flower

Another game played out of nostalgia. My dad got a PS3 when our DVD player died, and really we only used it as DVD/Netflix on the TV, but one of the games he did get on there was the Journey Collectors Edition, which had Flower. 

It’s a very simple game, you are a single flower petal flowing in the wind, blowing over other flowers in the hope that they bloom. Its very relaxing and simple, and I played it when I was really not doing well with the pandemic and living alone during the worst of the lockdowns. Doing creative works that require some form of portfolio work when I can’t even leave my apartment to see my family, that really sucked ass. But, as much as I wanted to play Resident Evil, I held off to have it as a congratulatory game when I finished Uni for the year. Which is why I played the shit out of flower while I got to the final assessments of the year.

I don’t really have much more to say about this, other than its a very nice and relaxing game, and it was nice and relaxing during a time when I felt incredibly shitty and stressed. 

Life as a Flower https://youtu.be/uL1zvhZzxeM 

Sailing on the Wind https://youtu.be/4n-UpQJ6gRI

Peaceful Repose https://youtu.be/WN5jRb2ADto

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Chrono Trigger: Crimson Echoes

...I should’ve just played normal trigger. This rom hack is a nightmare. Ok it’s not that bad, there have been a lot of things that I genuinely (want to) enjoy. 

I don’t really know where to begin with this one. I started playing in my discord just to see the extent of what this is, with the sole goal of getting further than where I got as a kid. I got further, I’m almost done in fact, but I have to do so much grinding cause there is no way to beat the boss without seemingly maxing out everyone because the battles are so ridiculously unbalanced. 

Tbh, I have a whole lot to say about this rom hack, and although I didn’t really like it, I still liked it? I have a whole essay of incoherent thoughts stored in my brain, and one day I’ll talk about this more in depth. Without being too disrespectful, don’t play this game. I took the bullet for you all again, and I will continue shooting myself in the foot as I plan on recording footage of it again to make a video essay on it eventually, please wish me luck, I’ll genuinely need it lmao.

For songs… just go listen to the entire chrono trigger soundtrack, yasunori mitsuda will always and forever be a personal hero of mine and he did an amazing job on this soundtrack. You can hear the passion and hard work he put into it, which surprisingly is something this rom hack has in common. As much as I dislike a lot of the decisions made in this game, I have the utmost respect for the team that just sat down and made what they wanted to. There are some genuinely cool things that really show the passion these guys had, like making entire new animated sprites to put in the game. I will grumble and moan and try to be respectful in the same breath about this another time, so just go play normal chrono trigger. 

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Harvest Moon: Tale of Two Towns

Well. You saw my Stardew review. This is another farming game I like to play because it’s cute and I don’t have to use my brain. I’ve been playing this on my DS during summer cause I’m exhausted from moving house for the third time this year, and just wanna marry pretty boy Cam again. He likes flowers and cats and wears a purple hat and I fucking LOVE him. 

That is all I care to say, this is a really cute hm game so fuck yeah. 

Bluebell Town https://youtu.be/Zm0skaRnpeA

Konohana Town https://youtu.be/bDjOTuveJ8U

Music Festival https://youtu.be/QLAfmB7T-jE