#no sad feelings here

[cambria-writes]

happy holidays! this is arguably a little late but i’ve had a rough go of it these past few days so i only just finished this tonight lol. Ii insist that i’m not late because we’re still in 2022 and the new year hasn’t hit yet!

anyways this is just a relatively short fluffy feel-good thing because i wanted to feel warm and fuzzy. so it’s absolutely self-indulgent.

word count: 3,229 warnings: swearing, it’s christmas eve and that’s important so that should probably be a warning, no y/n, no mention of gender but ravenloft reader is AFAB, minor ravenloft spoilers if you squint

for reference, this scene (with a bonus crown) is what the reader would’ve drawn.

and for the record, since it was mentioned on ao3, i'm very well aware it shouldn't have been a perception check! ravenloft!reader was never written with the intention of making them a tabletop rpg wiz, they just know enough to get by and follow along if they're sitting in on a game.

𝕽𝖔𝖑𝖑 𝖋𝖔𝖗 𝕻𝖊𝖗𝖈𝖊𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖔𝖓

When the phone rang, you didn’t even greet the speaker. You immediately answered with ‘what do you want you fucking menace’ because there’s really only one person who’d call you near midnight like a heathen. 

“What’s your favourite colour?”

You snort and wedge the phone between your chin and shoulder and sit back down at your dining table to keep sketching. 

“Dunno. Like, all of them?”

“Dude that’s the epitome of unhelpful,” Eddie deadpans, and you can’t help but laugh. 

“Right, well like, is there any context to this? Cause you should know I don’t have a favourite colour,” you reply, frowning and erasing a small portion before swiping the eraser shredding away. 

“Come on,” Eddie whines, and you can practically see him throwing his head back in annoyance. “Not even one? Like, something that just always makes you happy when you see it?”

You hum for a second and put your pencil down. “I guess maybe black? I—“

“Nah, nuh uh. Boring as hell.”

“Rude, what—“

“Black’s not even a colour, that’s what you constantly say!”

You scoff and pick your pencil back up, switching the phone to the other shoulder. 

“Did you seriously just call me in the middle of the night to bitch at me for not having a preferred perceptible wavelength of light?”

There’s an unusually long silence on the other end of the line. You frown again and pull the handset away and follow the coiled line. Confused but satisfied that it hadn’t somehow gotten unplugged from the cradle on the wall, you wedge it back where it was. 

“Ed? You good?”

“Yeah, no. Yeah, sorry, just thinking.”

“Jesus, don’t burn yourself out there bud.”

“Oh fuck off.”

The rest of the phone call is relatively short, and colours aren’t mentioned again by the time you hang up. You don’t go to bed until nearly two in the morning, and by then you’re content with having gotten down the main lines of your portrait. 

The snowstorm that rolled in on the 23rd was entirely unexpected but wholly welcomed. You were scheduled to work on the 24th, but with the state of the roads and the fact that nearly half of Hawkins was running off of generators, you were graciously allowed to stay home until the new year. And given that this is your first Christmas in your new home, you were more than happy to hunker down and, ha, weather it out. 

You’d had plans, sure; Harrington had already made sure everyone knew to show up at his place on the 24th, your parents had been expecting you on Christmas morning and the rest of the day would have been spent going around to see extended family. And though the thought of not being able to fulfill your annual Christmas traditions did dampen your mood, just thinking about the astronomical amount of energy you’d save made it a bit more palatable. 

If the same thing were to happen next year, though, you might cry. 

You’d already called Steve to let him know you were staying home. Pleasantly surprised, he’d admitted he’d had a whole speech prepared about how he’s have The Swarm tear you a new one if you even dared thinking about touching your car keys. (Which would have been an effective threat, honestly. You really had no interest in giving Dustin a reason to get uppity at you, and you definitely didn’t want to have to deal with Max’s ire. Girl held grudges like you did trauma.)

Your parents were only slightly less understanding, with your mother trying to insist that your father could come pick you up. A little resistance put that all to rest, though, and with a promise to call on Christmas morning, that was dealt with as well. 

You’d just settled down on your couch, swaddled in the fluffy blanket you’d gotten from Eddie the year before, mug of hot chocolate held in both hands for warmth, when the doorbell rang. Confused, you look at the time—just after dinner on Christmas Eve—and sigh before heaving yourself off the couch to buzzer by the door. You hesitate for a second before pressing the button to let the mysterious visitor in. You’re already on your way back to your couch, having assumed it was just a neighbour who’d locked themselves out again, when you hear heavy footsteps outside your door. 

You quietly walk back up and carefully lean forward to look through the peephole. 

“What the…” you mutter, leaning back, nearly jumping out of your skin when the knocking finally comes. You quickly unlatch the chain and unlock the deadbolt before pulling the door open. “Ed, what the fuck—“

“Merry Christmas,” Eddie blurts out, thrusting a box out at you, though it really sounded more like ‘murr cr’sms’. 

“Merry Christmas to you too but Jesus come inside!” You pull Eddie through the door by his arm, quickly shutting the door behind you and getting started patting the snow off of him. “The hell did you do, walk here? You look like a damn yeti!”

“Y-yeah I kind-kind of d-did.”

You pause in your patting before grabbing Eddie’s arm again and turning him around to face you. You ‘reabout to ask if he was serious, but a quick glance at his face—reddened cheeks and nose, frosted lashes, dry lips—tells you he has, in fact, told you the truth. 

“Fuck me, okay,” you whisper, before shaking your head and getting a move on. “Stay there and take your boots and coat off and then get your ass on that couch, I’m making you coffee.”

You don’t hear any complaints. And though normally you would’ve been glad for the silence, even perhaps proud to have shut him up, Eddie’s silence is, once again, unsettling. And this time you’re pretty sure it’s not because he’s thinking, and most likely because he’s borderline hypothermic.

You try to be quick; you grab that one pair of sweatpants Eddie leant you when you got splashed by a car outside of the arcade. That one metallica shirt you borrowed one time when one Friday movie night turned into an impromptu sleepover. You make your way back to the living room, where thankfully Eddie’s listened to you, and has made himself at home swaddled in the blanket you’d left on the couch. You throw a quick glance to the front door, where his jacket and boots are slowly leaving a growing puddle of snow water.

You definitely need to get a welcome mat or something if this is going to keep happening. 

Your first instinct is to chuck the clothes at Eddie’s head. What you would usually do. But it’s Christmas eve, there’s a god damn storm outside and this maniac walked to your place. For some reason. You feel like you owe him to be nicer than you usually would be. Call it the ghost of Christmas conscience. 

“Here,” you say quietly, holding out the sloppily folded shirt and sweats. “You can change in here. I’ll be in the kitchen.” 

Eddie mutters a very stuttery thanks and takes the clothes from you. You pause for a second to see what’s on the TV—seems like A Christmas Story is about halfway through—before hastily turning away when you see Ed starting to lift his shirt over his head.

Coffee, right. You said you’d make coffee.

You’re being so normal about this, it’s absolutely fine. You’re totally fine. 

By the time you return to the couch in the living room, Eddie’s clothes are exceptionally neatly folded on your coffee table and he’s even more huddled up in your blanket than he had been before. You place his mug of coffee in his waiting hands and have to bite back shocked laughter when, even outstretched, underneath the blanket, he looks like a frozen T-rex.

“Alright,” you huff out when you finally take your seat on the other end of the couch. “You wanna tell me what’s in that box that was so important that you felt you had to walk here in a storm?”

Eddie sputters in his coffee a bit. When he brings the mug back down, he does look a little sheepish.

“Yeah, y’know it sounds pretty stupid when you say it like that.”

You nod and take a sip of your own coffee. “M’hm. That’s cause risking hypothermia to deliver a gift that very well could’ve waited until the storm passed is pretty stupid. No offense.”

Despite your disclaimer and your attempt to sound light about it, Eddie lapses into silence, again. 

“Okay, you keep going quiet, is there something—“

“I didn’t want you to be alone.”

You stop yourself, mouth agape. You bring your coffee mug back up to your lips to try and shake off the surprise.

“I—okay. What, uh, what about Wayne?”

Eddie gestures vaguely under the blanket, and you assume he’s waving the issue of. “He’s with the Hendersons.”

“Oh. That’s…”

“Dustin asked me to go. I said no.”

You frown. “In favour of walking though the snow to get to me?”

“Yeah, well,” Eddie starts, but he doesn’t continue until he takes another long sip from the coffee mug. “Walking wasn’t the plan. Van broke down halfway here.”

“Oh thank god,” you sigh, leaning back into the arm of the couch and pulling your legs up and under you. “I literally thought you walked from your place!” 

“God, never,” Eddie laughs, pulling his own feet up on the couch to sit cross-legged. “But I was halfway here and there’s no power at the trailer, so.”

You hum and nod, but otherwise keep your silence. And you both stay like that for a few minutes. And while you’re taking the time to try and bring your BPM down to something a nurse might not scream about, Eddie seems to be appreciating the warmth that you’ve thrown at him.

“So,” you say after a while, clearing your throat and putting your mostly empty mug on the coffee table. “What’s in the box?” 

Eddie grins and puts his own mug down. The blanket falls away from his shoulders when he reaches toward to grab said box, and he turns it around in his hands before passing it over to you.

“Wait,” you rush to say, just as he opens his mouth. “Shit, wait, I have,” you trail off, and nearly jump over the back of the couch to run to your room. You quickly snatch the gift bag you’d left on your dresser and run back to the living room, nearly tripping over your own feet. You throw yourself back down onto the couch and shove the bag towards Eddie.

“What—“

“Gift for a gift,” you explain shortly, a little out of breath.

Eddie laughs lightly but takes the gift bag from you, and you eagerly snatch the box from his hands. You’re about to start tearing into the tacky Santa-print wrapping paper, but glance up to make sure it’s okay. Eddie chuckles and nods and motions for you to go ahead. 

You make quick work of the paper and nearly tear the top off the box before turning it over in your hand and letting its content drop into your palm.

“Oh my god,” you breathe, turning over the giant cut glass piece in your hand. You hold it up to the do lamplight, and it looks like it’s shimmering from the inside. Every which way you turn it, it’s like each facet is a different colour that reveals itself to you with each new angle. 

You don’t miss the fact that there are nineteen carefully carved and painted numbers on each face, and the last one has a little flame where the 20 normally would have been. 

You look up to thank Eddie, throat a little tight, but you nearly choke on your own tongue when you see his expression. 

He’s holding your gifted frame in his hands like it might break if he holds it too tightly. You can’t really understand the expression on his face, and the more time he spends staring unblinkingly at it, the more unsure you feel. 

“I, uh, is it… do you not like it?” 

Eddie slowly shakes his head before lifting his eyes up to you. He tries to start a few different sentences before clearing his throat. 

“Is this—this is really what you see?”

You let your hands fall into your lap and nervously turn the massive D20 around in them and nod. 

“Yeah, I mean. The crown might be a bit much,” you chuckle lightly, looking up and away towards the TV. “But yeah. You look really, uh. You look happy, when you’re DMing for the kids. Really cool. Thought you should be able to, I dunno. See it for yourself.”

When you do muster the courage to turn to look back to Eddie, he still has that absolutely confusing look on your face. You lift the heavy dice in one hand and wave it around a bit. 

“This is why you asked for my favourite colour, huh?” 

Eddie blinks a bit owlishly at first, but laughs and shakes his head. Slowly, carefully, he puts your gifted portrait on top of his folded clothes. Leans forward to pluck the dice from your hand and gently put it down on the coffee table next to your mug. 

“Ed, what’s wr—“

You inhale the rest of your question when Eddie reaches out a hand to grab and pull at one of your ankles. You screw your eyes shut when your head meets the couch cushion below your with a soft ‘thump’. And when you open your eyes, Eddie’s hovering over you, hands braced on the couch arm just above your head. You swallow thickly and promptly forget to breathe for a second. 

The end credit music for A Christmas Story feels like it’s playing from miles away.

“You good?” Eddie asks, quietly, and all you can do is nod. “You sure?”

“Yeah, uh huh. Fine,” you whisper, holding your hands close to your chest. Close your eyes when he leans in to rest his forehead against yours. “Why did you really come over?” You whisper, hesitantly uncurling a hand to place it on his chest.

“Missed you.”

“You see me almost every day.”

“Worried about you.”

You snort and lightly slap at his chest. “Bullshit. I own more knives than you do guitar picks.” 

Eddie exhales sharply before pulling back a bit. When you open your eyes, you almost want to hide from the tenderness you see in his. 

“Don’t look at me like that,” you whisper, turning your head to the side to watch the TV turns from black to blue, now that the tape’s over. 

“Like what?” Eddie asks, and you can hear the shit-eating grin in his voice when he nuzzles at your neck. 

You grunt. “Like, I don’t know. Like you—like…”

“Like you’re the only person I’d drive and walk through a snow storm to see?” 

You hum but keep your head resolutely turned away. Shiver when you can feel his lips ghosting against your cheek. 

“Like you’re in love with me,” you mutter quietly, screwing your eyes shut. 

Eddie slowly peels a hand away from the arm of the couch to turn your head to look at him. You still avert your eyes. He brushes the hair away from your face instead.

“Come on, don’t be like that,” he says, almost whines, tilting his head to try to catch your eyes. “You’re smarter than me, you’re not that dumb.”

You huff and cross your arms and finally look up at Eddie. There was some kind of combative quip on the tip of your tongue but it dies there as soon as the look on his face properly registers. 

“You’re not fucking around,” you say frowning. 

“I’m not fucking around.” Eddie sighs and moves up to kneel on the couch, both knees boxing in your legs. You move up on your elbows and scoot up a bit to lean your back against the arm of the couch. 

“Since when do you—“ 

“Dude, you literally saved me from a swarm of hell bats, somehow managed to team up with a super powered teenage girl to save the world, still don’t think I’m an absolute coward and show up at my doorstep if I call you when I can’t sleep,” Eddie lists off, starting to wave down at your a bit frantically. “And you actually listen to my shitty garage band music!”

“It’s not shitty!” 

“You’re proving my damn point, woman!” Ed shouts, swatting your hand away when you go to slap his chest again. “Merry fucking Christmas, I’m in love with you!” 

You let yourself slide back down to lie on the couch and laugh when you throw an arm over your face. 

“The fuck, this isn’t funny!” Eddie whines, trying to slap your arms away from your face. “This is serious!”

You choke your laughter down enough to say, “Roll for perception.” 

“Excuse me?” Eddie squawks, indignantly, pausing his assault on your arms. You lower them just enough to be able to peek at him. 

“You heard me, roll for perception.”

Eddie scoffs but turns to grab the massive dichroic dice from the table and gently rolls it along your carpeted floor. 

“Huh. 18. Do I get to add my wisdom modifier to that?” 

Though you bring your arms down from your face, you still cover it with your hands.

“You’re the only name and phone number I keep in my address book,” you start quietly, biting down on your lips before continuing. “That portrait of you isn’t the first one I’ve ever bothered trying to do. The photo of us Max took in the hospital is the only one I have framed. I hate cashews.”

“But you keep a tin of cashews in the cupboard on top of the f… fridge…” 

You nod and part your fingers to catch a glimpse of Eddie. He sighs before shouting and shaking his head. 

“Ed, what the—“

“Why are we so stupid complicated!” He shouts again, but it peters out into laughter. “Jesus, why can’t we just say shit like normal people?” 

“We hate normal people,” you deadpan, slowly letting your hands slide down your face. “So, uh,” you start, curling your fingers under your chin. “Merry, uh, Merry fucking Christmas, I lo—I love you too?”

Eddie closes his eyes and tilts his head back to sigh like you’ve just given him a glass of water after spending weeks in the desert.

You move to half sit up on your elbows again. 

“Hey, you—“

“Does this mean I can kiss you now and you’re not going to think I’m just doing it because it’s the holidays and there was mistletoe over your door?”

You blink for a second and pull yourself up on the arm of the couch and twist around to look at your door. Huh. Sure as shit, there it is.

“Oh. Mrs H must’ve put that up when she came over,” you say nervously, but when you turn around you’re shocked, both because of the still-freezing hand that comes up to your jaw and the lips that are pressed almost chastely against yours. 

“God bless Mrs H,” Eddie whispers, and your laughter is a quick huff before you loop your arms around his neck to pull him down against you for another kiss.

[panthermouthh]

“Accursed creator! Why did you form a monster so hideous that even you turned from me in disgust?”

[newttxt]

leashes for zosan

[batshaped]

the continued adventures of an internet user who was frozen in 2004 and defrosted in 2021: some things are just the way you left them

previous 2004 internet user comics are here: one, two, three, four, five; or just in my 2004 tag

[astearisms]

fionna and cake drawings before and after watching the episodes so far. it’s nostalgic and somehow cathartic and poignant and relatable and—it just started

[ahhrenata]

when you catch your crush very obviously staring 🤭

| these two melted the shit out of my heart |

[verflares]

who's afraid of the big bad wolf?

[1v31182m5]

[shuaaflower]

I‘m a burden for everyone. I’m even a burden to myself.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Kiss Kiss Fallen Tree!

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[vaguely-concerned]

are. are you telling me that if the romanced mage warden dies and alistair is king, he deadass stares greagoir down over her dead body and grants the circle of ferelden its autonomy after ordering it rebuilt somewhere safer. first you have to deliberately leave him behind so he won't die for you and then he does that for you once you're gone, even when you're broken up??? absolute and literal king behaviour of the highest order????? the actions speak louder than words of it all??????? I think I hauve covid

[14dayswithyou]

💖 Day 3.5 is now available! 💖

For the last couple of months, only Server Boosters had access to the 3.5 update... Buuuuut now it's available for everyone to play in the 14DWY Discord — and soon itch.io once I'm happy with the QA and state of the game — so please don't feel pressured to join unless you want to!!

The full devlog + even more screenshots are under the cut ^^

What's been added to the 3.5 version?

📺 Streamer Mode!

I've been told that it's difficult to stream and monetise age-restricted videos on YouTube and Twitch, so I added an option to remove the sexual content and strong language used in the demo.

Now y'all can invite Ren into your bed for cuddles without putting your streamer career on the line /silly /lh

This won't affect the 18+ rating or dark themes/elements of the game, however! Although Streamer Mode will prevent you from seeing any "gruesome" CGs in the future, most of the core elements of the game will still be tied to the choices and decisions you make. So you won't miss out on the overall experience by using streamer mode!!

⚙️ Custom Pronouns!

It only took me one entire year to get around to it, but you can finally choose your own preferred pronouns (or use a set of pronouns instead)... At the cost of being able to change them mid-game ^^;

Since the original pronoun screen wouldn't update until a new scene was displayed, I temporarily disabled the feature. But once I find a workaround, I'll bring it back!

💗 Choose how others perceive you!

You can now choose how the cast and narration perceive you! Originally, the narration was kept strictly gender-neutral (outside of pronouns and genitalia picked by the player), but this will soon change in future updates.

For more clarity: you don't get to choose the words specifically, but you can choose between masculine, feminine, and androgynous terms!

📋 Separate top and bottom genitalia!

You can now choose your tatas and pps separately! >:3

Alongside that, you can also choose your preferred body type!

I removed the "both" genitalia option because a few players still assumed it was an obscure version of "intersex". That wasn't my intention and I don't want to mislead anyone, so I took it out for now ^^;

I also didn't want to include a screenshot of the new genitalia choices in action (because it's NSFW), so y'all get the same character menu screen for the nth time instead lmao

📱 Relationship Screen Overhaul!

You can now change your own status for more immersion, and long-term Server Boosters will eventually be able to submit and use their own icon within the game as well!

Stalking finding your friends has now become easier by using "Buddy Maps"; a new app that allows you to see the location of all the cast members!

I want to offer players more incentive to check the relationship screen since they tend to miss the status updates, so hopefully this might help ;v;

It also says it "updates every few hours" so folks don't go overboard and check every 5 seconds to see where Ren is gdsghf (also keep in mind that he's a hacker lol)

🖤 Additional Scenes Update!

Day 2 received a brand new CG!!!!! Originally, I planned on only adding a few CGs sporadically throughout the game, but it didn't feel right to leave Day 2 so... empty... so I added a brand new CG to (hopefully) make things feel more balanced and natural!

If you decline Teo's offer on Day 3, Leon will now call and try to convince you to reconsider. However, players are still allowed to decline, and if they do, they'll reach a dead end.

After listening to feedback on itch, I changed some of the dialogue during Days 1-3 to make it seem more consistent! They're only small changes though, so it's honestly not worth looking for sdgjssga

🎶 Updated BGM and SFX!

I wanted to try out a different style of music to see if it fits the vibe of 14DWY more! The BGM features more acoustics to suit the "beachy" theme of Corland Bay, though I made a conscious effort to include piano elements as well to stay true to the original!!

I figured it'd be better to give players a live example before I make a poll (to see if they prefer the change or not) and publish it to Itch.

Some new SFX have also been added, though it's very minimal and honestly not that noticeable.

How to download and play the update?

(warning: clicking on the following links will open Discord!!) To download the Day 3.5 update, simply join the 14DWY Discord server, verify your age, and visit the "14dwy-updates" channel!

Alternatively, you can also wait until the update is publicly released on Itch to play it as well!! (It normally gets released shortly after a round of QA testing/getting feedback from the server, though I may release it earlier if I feel like it hehe ^^)

Enjoy!!

[crescentfool]

reunion 🌸

[chiricat]

ryomina demons are winning

[divineandmajesticinone]

4 MINUTES (2024) I 1.03 "I didn't think you were like this. Like what? Like this..."

[megamagimugi]

I Was-a Too Late

CW: blood, implied character death(s)

[insert your favorite Mario game over jingle here]

I have nothing to say for myself.

I'm so sorry.

@wahooitsamee @peaches2217 You guys seemed interested, so... enjoy?

EDIT: I have a Luigi version (well, sort of) now too, called He's-a Gone if anyone's interested!