#so like... sprite is clear enough to work right

[crabsnpersimmons]

exam 5 for me... tomorrow!

honestly have been feeling really nervous for this exam since my classmates have either failed it or just barely passed. and i had less time to study this time around because i rushed to book the exam.

so i drew this little encouragement early cuz i need the reminder that no matter what happens tomorrow, i did what i could and i didn't compromise on my boundaries—and that is its own victory.

and i hope that you'll be reminded to celebrate your own big and small victories too!

"You are nervous and that's okay! You did your best! You set boundaries! You took breaks! We're so proud of you, Starlight! Whatever happens, we'll always be here, cheering you on!"

[honeyryewhiskey]

⋆｡°✩ no mini-skirts allowed

synopsis ✩ teasing older!dean has become your favorite pass time here comes trouble intro page for more age gap drabbles

warnings ✩ 18+ descriptions of dean being horny, skimpy outfits, undressing, flaunting/teasing, restraint 1.8k words

Dean’s pushing fifty, he’s seen every kind of mini-skirt a woman could wear—denim, snakeskin, pleated, painted-on tight. And you—you’ve got one of each.

Every damn day, it’s something new. One morning, it’s a little plaid number, all flirty and preppy, barely covering a damn thing as you lounge on the couch. The next, it’s tight denim, hugging every curve as you bend over the Impala’s hood, pretending to be interested in whatever he’s fixing. Then there’s the snakeskin one—hell, that one nearly did him in. Slinking around the bunker like some kind of walking temptation, flashing him that wicked little smirk every time you caught him looking.

But today—it’s the black one.

The shortest, clingiest, most offensive thing you’ve ever worn. And it’s been a problem all day.

Maybe it’s because you’re practically flaunting it in his face. Maybe you damn well know what you’re doing. Maybe it’s because Dean knows if he was his younger self, he’d have spent the whole day with his hips locked between your thighs—but you’re a case. A spritely little thing he swore to protect, not defile. Either way, Dean’s been fighting a losing battle, his patience wearing thinner with every step you take.

And you’re enjoying every second of it.

This morning, when he stepped out of the gas station, he damn near dropped the bag in his hand at the sight of you bent over the Impala’s vinyl seat, half inside the car, digging around the floorboards. The fabric was stretched to its absolute limit, clinging to every dip and curve, and that little triangle of pink lace peeking out from between your thighs was down right offensive to his resolve.

Dean stopped dead, heat crawling up the back of his neck, his grip tightening on the plastic bag until the rustling of it was the only sound he could process. That sliver of lingerie was a goddamn bullseye, branding itself into his brain. His stomach clenched, jeans tightening around his cock far too much for a man standing in a parking lot at eight in the morning.

He ripped his gaze away, clearing his throat like that might dislodge the image from his brain. “You lose somethin’?”

You wiggled. Hips twitching as you hummed back, “mhm. My phone.”

Dean turned on his heel so fast it nearly gave him whiplash, muttering something about being careful as he yanked open the driver’s side door and tossed the bag on the dash. No way in hell was he standing behind you. Instead, he slid into the seat, reaching under the passenger side until his fingers curled around the cool, smooth shape of your phone.

“Here,” he grumbled, practically shoving it into your hand without looking at you.

You only smiled, sweet and cunning—like you knew just how much you’d wrecked his entire damn morning.

Later, while Dean was working on Baby in the garage, he was trying—really trying—to focus on the engine in front of him, but that damn skirt was making it impossible.

You’d perched yourself on a barstool a few feet away, flipping lazily through some magazine like you had no care about what you were doing to him. Legs crossed just enough to hike the fabric higher, teasing the soft skin of your thighs.

He forced himself to keep his eyes on his work, tightening a bolt with more force than necessary. But his resolve slipped when your legs parted—slowly—before crossing again, like you were stretching just for the hell of it.

Dean caught the flicker of a smirk on your lips.

Son of a bitch.

He gritted his teeth, wrench working double time to keep his hands occupied. The garage was warm, but it wasn’t the heat making sweat gather at his collar. He knew better than to look again—knew damn well that every glance was just giving you ammunition.

But then you hopped down from the stool, the movement making the hem of that tiny excuse for a skirt ride up just enough to give him a peek at the curves of your ass. The little top you have on doesn’t help, the hem doesn’t even cover past your belly button. The plush skin of your stomach pokes out between the two pieces, another taunt. Another image burned into his brain that’ll creep back into his mind when he’s alone in his bedroom at night. 

Dean muttered a curse under his breath, dragging a hand over his stubbled jaw. You didn’t adjust the fabric, didn’t even pretend to be modest as you strutted past him like you hadn’t just shortened his lifespan by a couple years.

“That skirt’s a safety hazard,” he grumbled, voice rougher than he meant it to be.

You didn’t even glance his way, just laughed, light and teasing, as you bent over to grab a drink from the cooler. The motion made the back of your skirt ride up again, and Dean had to snap his gaze to the ceiling before his self-control completely crumbled.

“Right,” you chided, cracking open a bottle of water. “You worried about my safety, big guy?”

Dean exhaled sharply, rolling his shoulders like that might shake the tension out. “Yeah,” he muttered, wrench clanking against the metal. “Somethin’ like that.”

But you heard the strain in his voice. And from the way you licked a stray drop of water off your lip, eyes meeting his like a damn challenge—you knew you had him closer to where you wanted him.

The breaking point comes when you crouch in front of a bookshelf in the bunker’s library, back to him, that godforsaken skirt dipping low. The waistband sliding down your back enough for the strings of your panties to come fully into view. Slung around your hips, material so thin Dean figures it’d take one pull to tear the lacey pink from your skin. 

Dean’s hands clench at his sides. His jaw locks. His restraint is hanging by a damn thread, and he’s too tired to keep up his composure.

“All right, that’s it,” he announces, voice gruff, decisive. “No more skirts.”

You glance back at him over your shoulder, blinking wide, innocent eyes. “No more skirts?”

His stare is locked onto you like a man staring down a loaded gun, like he’s already taken the hit but is too damn stubborn to go down. “You heard me.”

Slowly, deliberately, you rise to your feet, turning to face him, that little smirk playing at the corners of your lips. “I don’t know what you mean, Dean,” you say sweetly, approaching him with your hands behind your back. “It’s just a skirt.”

Dean exhales sharply through his nose, a muscle ticking in his jaw. “You know exactly what you’re doing.”

Your head tilts, mischief gleaming in your eyes, and then—without breaking eye contact—you take another slow, deliberate step into his space. Close enough that the air between you turns thick. Close enough that he can smell the vanilla in your shampoo, feel the heat radiating off your skin.

“Take it off me, then.”

The words go straight to his growing bulge, all the heat in his body coursing to his core. He prays you don’t glance down, because he knows that triumphant little smirk will come back and he can’t do anything about it. 

Dean stills. His fingers twitch at his sides like he’s fighting the instinct to grab. His gaze flickers over your face, lingering on your lips for a beat too long, before dropping—just for a second—to the hem of that damn skirt. At the lace still peeking over the waistband because you, apparently, are refusing to adjust it today. 

For half a second, you think he might actually do it.

His hand lifts—just an inch, just enough for his fingers to graze across your hip and naval, the heat of his fingertips burning against the soft exposed skin of your stomach. A touch so fleeting, so barely-there, but enough to make your breath hitch.

Dean hears it. His jaw flexes, nostrils flaring.

And then—just as quickly—his fingers curl into a fist, like he’s physically snatching his own control back.

With a rough exhale, Dean steps back, shaking his head like he’s trying to clear it, like he's some damn teenager again, knocked flat by the first girl who ever looked at him like she wanted more. His restraint is hanging by a thread, fraying fast. “Go to your room,” he mutters, voice like gravel.

You laugh, soft and teasing, the sound sliding down his spine like a warm hand.  “Go to my room?”

Dean’s jaw clenches, fingers flexing at his sides. “Before I do something stupid,” he grits out. “This—” he motions between you, frustration rolling off him in waves, “can’t happen.”

His voice is strained, rough-edged, but his eyes—the heat in them, the way they drink you in like you’re something dangerous tells you that there's hardly any grit behind those words.

He’s not giving in yet, fine, but can't happen and won't happen are two different things. And besides, you’re sure as hell not done toying with him for the day. You tilt your head, all wide eyes and faux innocence, “Fine. I’ll take it off.”

Dean doesn’t even have time to process the words before your hands are slipping under the waistband, pushing the little black scrap of fabric down your thighs. The air in the room shifts, charged, like a storm gathering on the horizon.

Dean’s throat works as he swallows hard, pulse hammering in his ears as the skirt pools at your feet. His gaze—traitorous, desperate—flickers downward before he can stop it.

Pink lace. Thin. Damn near sinful.

Heat licks up his spine, tightens his stomach, makes his skin prickle like he’s seventeen again, fumbling through the backseat of a car with a girl he has no business touching. Only this is worse. Because he’s not some dumb kid—he knows better. And yet, he still can’t look away.

Then you turn your back to him and bend at the waist. Slow. Deliberate.

Dean grips the back of the chair beside him like it’s the only thing keeping him tethered to sanity, fingers digging into the worn wood. His jaw flexes so tight it aches. His eyes watch shamelessly as you give him full view of everything he's craving. Skin he can't let himself touch, hips he wants to grip onto while he fucks some of that attitude out of you.

And you—like you don’t even feel the heat radiating off him, like you didn’t just wreck him beyond repair—saunter toward the door in nothing but that little top and pink panties.

At the threshold, you pause. With a wicked little smile, you toss the discarded skirt over your shoulder.

It smacks Dean square in the chest.

He catches it on instinct, fingers fisting in the fabric, knuckles going white. The soft material, still warm from your body, feels like a brand against his skin, like evidence of the war he’s losing.

“You are gonna be the death of me,” he mutters, voice low, wrecked.

You glance back at him over your shoulder, a smirk playing at your lips. “What a way to go, huh?”

Dean doesn’t answer. He just stands there, burning, watching you disappear down the hall, still gripping that damn skirt like it might be the only thing keeping him from chasing after you.

You never got that black mini-skirt back. 

tags ✩ @titsout4jackles @deansbeer @daylighted @jollyhunter @soldiersgirl @bejeweledinterludes @bluemerakis @cowboysandcigarettes @littlesoulshine @couturewinx @ultravi0lence14 @figthoughts @snowluvvie

[archangeldyke-all]

ANGELLLL hear me out, club mom getting hit on at work🫡🫡🫡

AEWFHAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

men and minors dni

the thing is, you don't even notice it's happening.

nobody comes to a strip club and to flirt with the clothed people. especially not when those clothed people are spending their evenings kicking out touchy-feely customers and cutting off heavy drinkers. you're the resident buzzkill, that's literally half of your job. you are not the main attraction here.

so, you assume this woman's just chatty, just one of those people who'll talk to anyone. you don't even remember her name, but she's been chatting casually with you all night. you know she works in the mines. you know she's here for her buddy's birthday party. you know her favorite drink is vodka sprite. she says she likes the bubbles.

you don't even consider that she's flirting with you until cherry catches your eye across the club and frowns. after so many years working in the loud-ass club, you and cherry have become experts at reading-lips. what? you mouth.

cherry rolls her eyes. don't let sevika see you.

you frown in confusion. why? she loves these pants on me.

cherry laughs then nods toward the locker room. you huff and follow after her.

"what?" you ask.

"that lady's flirting with you mom, don't be stupid."

you burst into laughter. "why the fuck would she be flirting with me?!"

"you said the same thing about sevika on her first night here, and now look at the two of you." cherry says.

you frown. "well, yeah, but i like sevika."

cherry laughs. "and she likes you too. enough to have married you. which is why you need to steer clear of flirty-pants over there. you're gonna make your wife jealous."

the idea makes you laugh, but cherry looks dead serious. you frown in contemplation, and she kisses your cheek before heading back onto the floor.

you know sevika's the most loyal wife in the world, and sevika has full faith in your loyalty to her. she has to, seeing as the other half of your job is keeping a bunch of half-naked girls happy.

plus, flirting is obvious... right? flirting is a lower lip bitten, a heavy, calculating, lingering gaze on your hands as you work. flirting is bantering until you're too busy kissing to argue, it's sparkly grey eyes wide with lust, and giggles that sound like music.

it's not chatting about beer.

you head back out to the club only to run into ms. flirty pants herself.

"oh shit! hey, i was lookin' for you." she giggles. you frown.

"is there something i can help you with?" you ask. maybe she needs help with the atm machine-- it's been on the fritz lately.

"no, no, i was just... well, i got to talkin' to that bartender bimbo about you," you frown at the description of trinity, "and she mentioned that you're into the local music scene."

your shoulders sag in relief. she's not coming onto you, she's looking for a gig. "oh, yeah, love it. sadly, we're not lookin' for any more dj's at the moment, but if we ever have an opening--"

flirty pants cuts you off with a laugh, one of her hands landing on your shoulder. your stomach sours. "no, no, not that! god, i wish i was a musician. no, i got two tickets to this battle of the bands thing happening--"

"oh." you mutter. "no thank you." you say, enunciating each word clearly as you can over the music and firmly removing her hand from your shoulder.

you brush past her, making a bee line toward the bar.

"is that bitch flirting with you?!" trinity gasps. you groan.

"relax about it, would you?"

"relax!? mom, she's trying to break you and papa sev up!"

"you're so dram-- ew, papa sev?" you groan. "that's the worst one yet."

trinity laughs and pours you a shot. "here. drink."

you down the shot and sigh. "i'm wearing my ring and everything!" you whine. "i-i'm in this frumpy, stinky sweatsuit!"

trinity laughs. "i wasn't gonna say anything--"

you roll your eyes. "it's laundry day, okay?" trinity giggles. "but you're just proving my point. i am not the person to flirt with in this building!"

"sevika did." trinity points out. you groan.

"i looked good that night and sevika..." you trail off, the liquor hitting you and a warm fondness bubbling up in your tummy at the thought of your wife. trinity groans.

"ugh, mom, keep it in your pants."

you snort and roll your eyes. "i didn't mind sevika flirting with me. i mind this. this is awkward and horrible. what do i do?"

trinity shoves another shot under your chin. "drink this and tell her to fuck off. wave the ring in her face."

you drink the shot and cringe, then pat trinity's shoulder. "are you okay? have you taken your break yet?"

she laughs and rolls her eyes. "i'm good mom. let 'er down easy, then tell 'er if she's got money i'll let 'er flirt with me allllll night." trinity says.

you snort and shake your head, turning around to do that.

flirty-pants is leering at you from across the club. you groan, roll your eyes, then march over to her.

"there you are, pretty thing. had me thinking you were runnin' from me."

"right. about that--"

"don't tell me you're fuckin' married or somethin'--" you hold your hand up to show her your ring. she sags. "oh c'mon. that shit's fake, right?"

you scoff. "what?"

"'s a fake ring you wear at work so you don't get hit on."

you blink. "n-no! what the fuck?"

"wait... you're really married?"

"yes. she is."

you cringe and turn around, your wife standing behind you and glaring daggers at poor flirty-pants. you open your mouth to explain, but sevika simply reaches out and pulls you in for a nasty kiss by the front of your frumpy sweatshirt.

you sigh against her lips, letting her hands circle your waist, her leg shoved between yours, her tongue brushing your lips. you moan against her and she hums in response, walking you back until you're pinned to the wall.

"fuck, okay, i get it. sorry." flirty-pants mutters before walking off.

you snort a bit at her words, then reach up to thread your hands through sevika's hair, tugging enough to make her growl.

eventually she pulls away, a string of spit connecting your lips. you grin at her. "well, hello."

she snorts. "cherry waved me down when i got here and told me i needed to 'mark my territory.'" sevika explains. you giggle.

"i was handling it... but your way was a little more efficient."

sevika swoops in to kiss you again, much sweeter and softer this time. "hi, baby."

"hi. how was work?" you ask as you scratch her scalp. sevika purrs in your hold. you nuzzle your nose against hers.

"horrible. think we can leave the girls to fend for themselves for the rest of the night? i wanna take you home and mark my territory some more."

you cackle and kiss the tip of sevika's nose. "yeah, i think they'll be alright."

taglist!

@fyeahnix @lavendersgirl @half-of-a-gay @thesevi0lentdelights @sexysapphicshopowner

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@lavenderbabu @emiliabby @sevikasbeloved @hellorai @my-taintedheart

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taglist!!

@sevikas-baby @ghostscandys @sevikasllver @runawaybaby3 @lesbones

@chezze-its @lez-zuha

[bxunyx]

𝐓𝐨𝐨 𝐟𝐚𝐫 𝐠𝐨𝐧𝐞

Pairing-ModernAU- Elijah*Smoke*Moore x Black reader

Summary-After months of silence and distance, Elijah “Smoke” Moore returns home to face the wife he’s been drifting from. With their marriage hanging by a thread, they must decide if love is enough to rebuild what pride nearly destroyed.

A/N-This is only supposed to be for the first part of the song

Even Stack could see that—and he never liked to get in his brother’s business when it came to women, but the way Smoke had been pulling up to the trap, quiet, jaw locked, eyes colder. That said, enough.

They sat in the back of the shop late that night, after everyone else had cleared out. Smoke’s blunt burned low between his fingers, eyes fixed on the concrete floor like the answers might be hiding in the cracks.

Stack leaned back in the chair across from him, sipping a Sprite, watching his older brother fall apart in slow motion.

“You good, E?” he asked finally. Nobody ever called Smoke by his first name—only Stack did when shit got serious.

Smoke blew out a breath, smoke curling around his gold grill. “I been seeing the signs, bro. All of ‘em.”

Stack raised an eyebrow. “Like what?”

“Like her not lookin’ at me the same. Like the way the house feel colder even when the heat on. Like I pull in the driveway and sit in the car ‘cause I don’t even know if I’m welcome in my own crib.”

Stack didn’t say anything right away. He let Smoke talk.

“Took a trip last weekend,” Smoke went on. “Just rode out to the lake. No phone, no straps, just me. Thought I needed air. Thought I needed space.”

“Did it help?”

Smoke looked at him, eyes low, heavy. “Nah. Came back feelin’ even more lost. And she still so fine, man… but it’s like I can’t reach her. Like I’m stuck on the outside of my own life.”

Stack tapped the rim of his cup. “Y’all talk?”

Smoke shook his head. “We tried. turned into a screaming match with her leaving, slamming the door. It's like when the baby came, she got more annoyed with me”, Smoke mumbled, sitting back 

“Damn.”

“Man, I don't think we’ll even make it.” Smoke said, almost to himself. “I don’t know if we can fix it. And if we are, it's not gonna be the same

Stack exhaled. “Far like… It’s already over?”

“Far like… I’m still actin’ like I don’t love her just to protect myself. Far like she cryin’ in the next room and I still don’t go in. Far like she sleepin’ next to me and I ain’t touched her in months.”

He paused. “Far like… I’m here—but I ain’t there.”

Stack leaned forward, serious now. “You want this to work?”

Smoke hesitated for the first time. His throat tightened. “Yeah… but I don’t know how to be no more. Ain’t no blueprint for this. I know how to ride for my niggas. How to get to the bag. But this? Lovin’ somebody when they tired of tryin’? When you tired too?”

Stack nodded. “That ain’t in the streets. That’s heart work.”

Smoke sat back, looking defeated. “With me bein’ wherever I’m at—trappin’, movin’ around—and her bein’ wherever she at mentally? Bro, we takin’ this a little too far. I’m scared we gon’ break something we can’t fix.”

Stack tapped his brother’s chest, right over his heart. “Then go home. Don’t just pull up and sit outside. Go home. Talk to her. Don’t let her feel like she’s fightin’ for y’all alone.”

Smoke looked at the time. It was late. But maybe not too late.

He put the blunt out, grabbed his keys.

“Good lookin’, bro.”

Stack nodded. “You know what to do. Don’t let your pride be louder than your love.”

⸻

That night, Smoke sat in the car outside the house again.

But this time, he turned the engine off, stepped out, and went inside.

Maybe their marriage was too broken to be fixed.

But he’d be damned if he let her walk away without trying to pull them both back.

The house was quiet.

Not peaceful. Just quiet. The kind that comes after too many arguments and not enough apologies. The kind that settles in like dust and grief—subtle, but heavy.

You sat at the dining table in one of his old hoodies, hands wrapped around a mug of tea gone cold. The baby was finally asleep, the monitor blinking faintly on the counter. But sleep wouldn’t come for you. Not when your chest was still tight with things unsaid, and your eyes were still fixed on the front door, waiting for a man you weren’t even sure would come back.

Then—you heard his key.

The door opened slow, almost hesitant, like even he wasn’t sure if he should be there. He stepped in, wearing that same black hoodie, face shadowed, shoulders heavy. He looked around the room like he was stepping into someone else’s life.

Until his eyes landed on you.

“I ain’t come here to argue,” he said quietly.

“Then don’t,” you said back, flat but tired.

He stood there a moment, like he didn’t know what to say next. Then he came further inside, resting his hands on the back of a chair like he needed something to hold him up.

“You were right,” he started. “I been gone. Not just physically. Emotionally too.”

You stayed quiet. He’d said this before. Once. Maybe twice.

But tonight, he sounded different. Raw. Like the words were hurting coming out.

“I thought if I kept the lights on, paid the bills, kept the streets in check—that meant I was takin’ care of y’all. But it ain’t enough, is it?”

“No,” you said simply. “It’s not.”

He nodded. Took that hit on the chin. “I’ve been scared,” he admitted. “Of losin’ you. Of bein’ a bad father. Of showin’ up and not bein’ enough, so I just… stopped showin’ up.”

Your voice cracked. “Do you even understand how lonely it feels to have someone right next to you but still feel abandoned?”

“I do now,” he said, barely above a whisper. “I went out to the lake last weekend. No phone, no music. Just me. Tried to clear my head. And all I could think about was you. The baby. This house. The family we built… and how far away I’ve let it all get.”

You looked at him—tired, but not angry. Not anymore.

Just sad.

“I’ve been doing this by myself, Elijah,” you said, using his name like a weight. “I love you, but love don’t raise a child. Love don’t heal silence. You check in with your crew more than you check in with me.”

He flinched at that. Because it was true.

“I didn’t know how to handle this. How to be what you needed after the baby. How to say I was struggling too,” he said, finally sitting down across from you. “I felt like I was losin’ you and I didn’t have the tools to fight for us.”

“So why are you here now?” you asked, voice small.

“Because I’m done runnin’,” he said. “I’m done lettin’ pride ruin what we still got left.”

You looked at him. Past the chain around his neck, past the tattoos and the stress in his jaw, past all the nights he came home too late or not at all.

He looked like the man you fell in love with.

Worn out. But honest.

“I’m not askin’ you to forget all the shit I messed up. I just want a chance to fix what I still can.”

You swallowed hard. “And what if we can’t go back to the way things were?”

“We don’t have to,” he said. “I’ll take you how you are now. If you’ll take me—mess and all.”

You were quiet for a long moment.

Then, slowly, you reached across the table.

And he took your hand in his, gripping it like it was the only thing keeping him grounded.

You didn’t forgive him all at once.

But you let him in.

And tonight, that was enough.

His fingers were rough against yours—warm, trembling slightly, like he didn’t know if you’d pull away. You didn’t. You just held his hand, staring at the lines in his palm like they might tell you if it was safe to believe him again.

“I know I don’t deserve it,” he said, thumb brushing the back of your hand. “But I’m askin’ anyway.”

You blinked back the heat behind your eyes. “You don’t need to ask to be a father. You already are one. But to be my partner again? That’s gonna take more than words, Elijah.”

“I know,” he nodded. “That’s why I’m stayin’.”

He said it like a promise.

You studied him. His shoulders weren’t as square as they used to be. He looked tired—like the streets had been chewing him up and spitting him out. But beneath all that wear and weight… was the man who used to kiss your belly before bed. The man who held your hand through contractions. The man who held you when the baby wouldn’t stop crying, and you felt like a failure.

You remembered all of it.

The good hadn’t vanished. It had just been buried under the bad.

You let out a slow breath. “You say you’re stayin’… but that don’t just mean bein’ in the house.”

“I know,” he said again. “It means showin’ up. Every day. Even when it’s hard. Even when I’m tired. Even when I feel like runnin’.”

He paused. “It means you don’t have to do this alone anymore.”

Your throat tightened. You’d been carrying so much by yourself—bottles, diapers, fears, postpartum anxiety nobody warned you about. Nights spent rocking the baby while crying silently so you wouldn’t wake him. And all the while, Smoke was out, lost in a world that didn’t love him back like you did.

“Where’ve you been sleeping?” you asked softly.

Smoke shrugged, eyes dropping. “Couch at Stack’s. Car sometimes.”

You nodded, looking down at your intertwined hands.

“I didn’t change overnight, Eijahl. I just stopped waiting on the version of you who never came back.”

“I’m here now,” he said. “I don’t wanna be a ghost in your life. Or our daughter’s. I want her to see what real love look like. Even if we gotta rebuild it from the ground up.”

You looked at him for a long time, searching for a lie.

But there wasn’t one.

Just your husband. Raw. Worn out. Honest. Finally showing up.

“You can sleep in the guest room,” you whispered.

A beat passed. No joy, no celebration. Just quiet grace.

And for Smoke? That was more than enough.

He stood slowly and leaned down to kiss your forehead—light, reverent. Like he wasn’t sure if he deserved it, but needed it anyway.

You closed your eyes for the first time in weeks without flinching.

And maybe, just maybe, the hard part was over.

The healing would take time.

But it could start tonight.

With the door unlocked.

And him finally walking through it.

[manicpixiedreamlestats]

Some thoughts on Edwin tonight:

I’ve talked about how I think Edwin is so interesting because he goes against the grain of the very reserved and stiff Edwardian archetype, but something else I find interesting about him is he lets people know exactly where they stand with him. Here are some examples:

Niko:

This one is highly quoted. Admittedly, Edwin does not say this right to Niko because Niko could not see him at this point. To Edwin's knowledge she was not going to be able to see him. She is alive, and perhaps he did not anticipate the sprites a near death experience. All that being said, this was as close as he could get to expressing fondness to her at the moment.

Charles:

Edwin actually does a great job making sure Charles knows when he is doing well on cases, like when he praises Charles' quick thinking with the sprite jar. Even when Charles isn't present, Edwin identifies them as "best friends, if you must know". But of course, Charles is rattled after the Dead Dragon case for a lot of reasons. So Edwin reassures him that he is, in fact, the best person he knows (even after he has met many new faces).

Crystal:

Although they got off to a rocky start, Edwin lets Crystal know (tentatively perhaps, but earnestly still) that he does value having her around. He pushes back against the assertion that he did not want her on the case to find Monty's friend "Gladys" because he did- and he ultimately believes in Crystal and has built a relationship with her.

Monty:

This scene is really interesting to me because we tend to think of Charles as someone who fawns more out of these two (and Charles does-he'll be the first to put his feelings aside to try and smooth the group dynamic time and time again). But here we see that Edwin also has some capacity to fawn, especially with people he considers friends. He continues to try and smooth things over with Monty well into the evening.

Until Monty was revealed to be a crow, Edwin was still working on smoothing things over. Edwin tried to reassure him they were friends, even if his feelings were for Charles. He did seem a bit (or a lot) disappointed by being misled about the whole witch-familiar thing.

The Cat King:

I don’t think we talk nearly enough about this moment :

Their bond is a bracelet. Ultimately, Edwin probably would have left TCK behind in the cannery if not for the caging spell. Some often forget Edwin would not have entertained all of the harassment, taunting, and interruptions to his casework if he hadn’t been trapped in a caging spell- a spell which trapped him in Port Townsend, allowed him to be located by The Lost and Found Department, and ultimately led to him being sent back to Hell. As an aside, that trip back to Hell was the only reason the bracelet fell off- it was never removed intentionally. The Cat King even had his own final cat count wrong- whether by accident or on purpose is debatable (however, TCK did threaten to “stop playing nice” in this forest scene, so it is debatable if he ever would have given Edwin a clear answer).

Charles (again):

When Edwin realizes his feelings for Charles, he attempts a confession before he is sent to Hell- but is sadly interrupted by the giant spider made of babydoll heads. His second attempt on the stairway is much clearer.

Edwin makes it abundantly clear that his feelings for Charles are romantic- and he needs him to know, for better or worse. It's brave to lay a heart bare like that (and admittedly, Charles does his best to meet him where he can, while they are being chased by an eldritch horror).

In short, Edwin is someone who actually knows how he feels about the people in his life and articulates that more clearly than many give him credit for.

[noxiatoxia]

is komaeda as self deprecating in japanese as he is in english? in his introduction he’s moreso humbly denying hope’s peaks offer than saying he wasn’t worthy. so i was wondering if komaeda comes off as incredibly humble more than self deprecating. or if the translators just really went ham on the self deprecation and got rid of any nuances

Hi! Thank you for the ask and I'm sorry it took so long for me to get to it! I had actually written a reply a few days ago, but Tumblr deleted it...😭 I was too mad to re write it then and there lol. But also, I think I could have been more clear (I wrote it while still recovering from being sick), so I'll try my best this time.

Firstly, if I'm understanding right, you're wondering if Komaeda is NOT self-deprecating, but instead just humble. There's a short answer and a long answer. The short answer is no, he does just blatantly put himself down in the text. The long answer is it may not be as bad as it is at certain parts. So now, I'll explain.

Firstly, let's re-visit the prologue. I've spoken about this specific line more than once.

KOMAEDA: Um, honestly, at first...I was humbled, but I refused. But, well, they wouldn't stop insisting on it…

In this scene, yes, Komaeda isn't putting himself down...necessarily. So, the word in question being used here is 恐れ多い. This word seems to give translators trouble. Back before there was an official SDR2 translation, there was a fan-translated version on the SomethingAwful forums by user orenronen.

Generally, I consider orenronen's translation to be more faithful at times. But NISA actually was closer in this case.

恐れ多い literally translates to "extremely scared", but it's really not used in that way. Think of it like any phrase or idiom...."You can't have your cake and eat it too" isn't meant to be literal. It's just a way to say "you can't have both things at the same time".

恐れ多い is a common phrase in Japanese when declining a big offer. For example, your boss gave you the chance for a big promotion, but you declined. You would use 恐れ多い. It can be used to indicate you feel you aren't good enough for the position - this is not a weird thing to say, as being humble is a core part of Japanese culture.

However, at it's core, 恐れ多い just means "I'm very sorry, but no, thanks".

Back to that example. Your boss gives you a chance for big promotion. You would take it, but your boss needs you to move cities for it. You don't want to move. So, you say, "Oh...Thank you so much, but I must humbly decline."

In the past, I explained this phrase kind of poorly and made it sound like it's only used to say you feel you don't deserve the position...what I meant to say was that the word gives the feeling of you not feeling good enough to accept, but that doesn't mean you actually don't feel good enough. Does that make sense? It's like saying "Sorry" as a courtesy when you do something wrong, but maybe you don't actually feel sorry.

In short, this line is ambiguous. The text literally says, 恐れ多いって断ったんだよ, which means (literally) "I refused by saying "No, thanks (humbly)"." Komaeda tells us what he told HPA verbatim, but he doesn't elaborate on why he said that. Did he decline because he did feel undeserving? Maybe he actually was scared to accept, maybe because of his luck? Or did he simply have no interest, and declined without much thought? - It's left to the player to speculate on his reasons.

This is a big part of Komaeda's character, I think. As discussed, he speaks very softly - sounding unsure, or making his statements sound less forceful. The SDR2 artbook itself states that they went back and redid all of his sprite work to make his emotions appear more ambiguous. It's very apparent that not knowing what Komaeda is truly thinking or feeling is a big part of his character. Hinata himself laments about this in many FTEs with him.

I think the writers simply took advantage of the humble culture in Japanese to drive this home. Is he simply humble, or does he really mean what he says?

Now...don't get me wrong: Komaeda does go beyond being humble. He does outright insult himself in a way that is unmistakably not humble.

Take the chapter 1 Trial:

KOMAEDA: ボクは決定的に最低で最悪で愚かで劣悪で、何をやってもダメな人間なんだ。 KOMAEDA: I am, without a doubt, an awful, horrible, ignorant*, inferior, worthless person, and that will never change no matter what I do.

*Komaeda isn't calling himself stupid necessarily. I don't really know how to put it, but it's like...you do stupid things, but you yourself may or may not be intelligent. It's kind of like no matter how smart you get, you will always make dumb mistakes. I hope that makes sense.

This is not being humble. This is very self-deprecating stuff and things nobody would (or should) say about themselves in any sort of casual setting. This is a very shocking turning point because, up until now, Komaeda was just humble. Putting himself down lightly, saying his talent "isn't much" and that he's not as important as the Ultimates sound reasonable, sounds humble. This isn't reasonable or humble, and he says it with very strong assertion, indicated by なんだ and the end.

Also, he never says he's "made peace" with it (which I take to mean he's okay with it?) but that may have been this NISA translators' answer to the なんだ at the end, as it makes Komaeda sound like he's stating a fact. I don't agree simply because I feel like his feelings should be left ambiguous as said earlier...but I understand the mindset.

By the way, before that...the team totally mistranslated a line that had me tilting my head for five minutes trying to figure out how the two connected.

KOMAEDA: 夢や希望を持つのもおこがましいほど・・・努力をするのもずうずうしいほど・・・

I couldn't quite figure out why the NISA translation felt so off to me but the Japanese didn't, and it took me a bit of thought but I figured it out. It's because NISA got the topic of the conversation wrong.

See...Komaeda never says "I'm" in this sentence. It's normal not to say "I'm" in Japanese, though. Topics can be inferred. But then, the next line, where he talks about how he's awful, horrible, etc., he does start with "I am" (ボクは) indicating a change in topic. Meaning the topic of the sentence before it is not about him but about the subject of having dreams and hopes/trying hard.

That might sound confusing, but let me write what this line should look like:

KOMAEDA: It'd be pretentious of me to have hopes and dreams...it'd be audacious of me to try and work hard...

Basically, Komaeda is saying having hopes and dreams is too good for someone like him, and that him working hard to strive for something would be an insult to others.

This definitely makes sense for the next line, where he then says this will never change no matter what he does.

The official English gets it backwards, and now it sounds like he's too...good for these things? To me, at least.

To be fair, because of how it's written, it's easy to make that mistake. But I feel like they should have realized it makes no sense translated that way. Hm...

Anyways, as you can see, Komaeda does say things that are not merely being humble. He truly does have awful opinions of himself, or at least states them in a very pointed, factual manner.

You can argue that his humbleness is an extension of his self-deprecation...or maybe he's just both at the same time. Up to the audience to think.

Lastly, Komaeda often times says ボクなんか or ボクなんて (boku-nanka and boku-nante), which translates literally as "someone like me". It puts yourself down, like, "Someone like me can't be in such a cool club..." or something. This can be humble as much as it can be self-deprecating. It depends on the context of its usage, which I think does hit home with that ambiguous vibe.

I think that's it...I really hope this answered your question! Thank you for the patience!

[nagito-kissmaeda]

Hi I am going to complain about Eito from 100 line now. Warning for spoilers from day 98 onwards and a BUNCH of routes. Just to be clear, he is my favorite and i love him, my complaints come from love only.

OKAY SO UH, Eito 100% has a komaeda-style heel turn towards the back end of the game and reveals himself to be NOT on your side at all. Very cool very sexy. I was anticipating this, hoping for it, fingers crossed begging for it. There's a very sexy sprite where he is winking and covered in blood, it makes me insane. NOW, the reason i am MAD, is because his motive is just....lame....and dumb....and bad. It honestly kinda ruined him for me. It's nonsensical. NOW, i must clarify that i don't have the time, nor energy to finish all the routes but i have consulted a friend who has already done so, and will be leaning on him a little bit here, but even his assertions that his motive does have SOME legitimacy is not enough to make me calm down so. Eito, sees all humans as monsters. literally, visually, smell-ually (not a word). he claims this is due to a birth defect. First of all, if this is how all humans have always looked, then you wouldn't......consider them monsters? why would you be disgusted by them if you have never known any different, had no point for comparison? Second of all, how boring, how lame, how stinky. It has none of that emotional depth or comprehensive motivation that uhhhhh.....my favorite guy komaeda has. It's just "i hate all humans, they smell, i read a book about WW2 once." couldnt he have just been a regular person abandoned by the system? Determined to send a message? That would be surface level but at least it would be emotive and understandable. Now, my friend who has actually finished the routes has some clarifications, so ill be going by what he has said here, but FIRST. if you are reading this and dont already know what happens after day 98 then BOY HOWDY do i have some news for you. So. Eito fucks everything up and ruins your plans. hes so cool. you kill him and doing so gain some immense power that allows you to GO BACK IN TIME and try again. very cool genuinely very cool (would have been cooler if i didnt have to play 30 hours of pretty boring game to get to it, but okay). Here is where the routes come in. You get to redo the 100 days and each route is a different attempt based on your choices. Now my friend says, that some of these routes do contain more explanations about Eito and imply that his 'disease' was implanted into him by a group that wants humanity dead and that he is a plant. Now. i dont hate that, BUUUUUUT, why did they have to do that at all? Why not just....send down a guy who hates humans and get him to do the dirty work without having to mess around in his brain? And DONT say that they need someone with hemoanima and maybe there was no one on the team who fit the bill because NOZOMI is right there and she snuck in without hemoanima soooooo. W/e, it doesnt fix the problem TO ME, especially since you aren't always going to learn this and learning it doesnt fix the hours i already spent being angry about it lol, if it was something that could happen at the beginning of the route and actually 'fix' eito that would be interesting, but apparently you can only do this around day 60-ish in various routes. Now the reason i say these complaints come from love only, is because i really really liked eito. he was cute, i liked his design, i even support him hating and wanting to kill me. i just think his motive does the game a disservice because it just doesnt have enough interesting layers DESPITE him being otherwise very well written and fun to talk to. he can be such a little shit in the re-dos where he doesnt need to pretend to be nice anymore and i LOVE IT, i just wish it came from a place of more narrative cohesion. There were so many other ways the could have done it, and HONESTLY there are even ways they could have better resolved what they were already working with by giving more solid answers instead of just 'implying' his disease may not actually be genetic. Implication has its merits, but in a game with this many endings, you would hope that at least one of them gives a sufficient explanation, but whatever, that's just my onion.

[sp1resong]

Mordred's Deltarune Red-String Board, Part II

Or, "Here's how inferno theory* can still win!" Or, Or, desperately screaming "I'm not owned! I'm not owned!" as my flimsy raft sinks beneath the waves (...but the point was never to not be owned, really).

*"Inferno Theory", while catchy, isn't fully an accurate title - it's not a theory, per se, just me dissecting the thing i like through the lens of another thing i like, which happens to be a literary classic. For fun. Recreationally.

Note: this is a follow-up to this post, which was written before chapters 3 and 4. Preferably read that first.

Note II: This post contains major spoilers for Deltarune chapters 3 and 4.

First and foremost, I'd like to expand on the idea I initially brought up, of the secret bosses representing the circles of hell in reverse order (so Jevil is Treachery, Spamton is Fraud, et cetera. I'm sure I don't need to explain how those two fit). By that logic, the chapter 3 and 4 secret bosses would represent Violence and Heresy, respectively, which I do think can work!

Chapter 3's "secret boss" is the Roaring Knight itself. There is already a surface-level connection to Violence, as the Knight is, well, a knight - necessarily a Violent occupation - and also comes off as extremely Violent and ruthless in its personal demeanor; with the point of many of its encounters being that it one- or two-shots you without saying a word. I think it also somewhat fits in to the Violence against God part of Violence against God, Art, and Nature; Violence against God being defined by Dante as blasphemy. The Roaring Knight being the Roaring Knight, it seeks to bring about the Roaring, or the apocalypse - it is part of the prophecy, yes, but it is specifically the villain of the prophecy (and thus, much of the religion), at least as we've seen it so far.

Now, I thought Chapter 4's secret boss would be easier to fit into this whole schema - Chapter 4 takes place in a church, so the secret boss representing Heresy would fit right in, right? Or so I expected.

However, Chapter 4's secret boss is Gerson Boom - a nice old man seeking to mentor Susie, and the father of Alvin the pastor. Not what one would expect from a representation of Heresy! But I do think I can make this work. Gerson firmly believes in the prophecy being malleable - that the final chapters are not yet written, that fate can change. From what we have seen, the religion is very deterministic, and I am certain some would call him a heretic for that. Also, the specific Heresy specified by Dante as sending you to this circle is not believing in an afterlife - believing that there is nothing after death. As essentially an urn of ashes resurrected by the power of the Dark, Gerson is somewhat an inversion of this idea.

So, that's it, right? We've gone over the bosses, there's not much more to talk about. A "brief" (not brief at all, actually, but brief enough that not much information is added - as brief as I can make it, despite my tendency towards the overly verbose) addendum to a complete analysis.

Right?

No, actually. There is one more thing I would like to talk about.

Within the Church world, there are two specific parts of the prophecy I think are worth mentioning.

When describing the actions of the heroes, the prophecy states the following:

THEY'LL HEAR THE RING OF HEAVEN'S CALL. THEY'LL SEE THE TAIL OF HELL TAKE CRAWL.

The following sprites are used for the two lines, respectively.

The usage of the ring for Heaven is - pardon my reference - very, very interesting, in more ways than one. The line itself is a clear double meaning - Heaven's call "rings out", but with the sprite, it's clear that there is also a Ring of Heaven involved, as in the object, or at least the shape. Rings, of course, are very closely associated with Noelle, who has a lot of angelic imagery (and so too is the Tail of Hell with Susie - Susie, who has a romantic plotline with Noelle, and contrasts her in many ways, has a tail which she is repeatedly shown to be embarrassed about having). However, that is not the point of the post.

However, just as interesting, if not more, and perhaps more relevant to the point of this post is the Tail of Hell, or specifically the sprite used for it. If asked to envision the "Tail of Hell", I doubt I would come up with this string-of-spheres design. There is also an alternate version in the files which has an arrow-shaped design on the end, like a stereotypical devil's tail, so it is clear that this specific design was chosen for a reason.

(Tangentially, the number of spheres - 11 - remains the same between designs despite the composition change, which could mean it is relevant, or could mean nothing at all. I will leave you all to do with this information what you will - this post has a topic, and this is not particularly relevant to it.)

Finally getting to my point, within the Divine Comedy, Hell is made up of nine concentric rings and Heaven is made up of seven celestial spheres. The imagery here is an interesting inversion of this - tying pretty neatly into Deltarune's overall themes and the way it depicts religion. Much of Deltarune has a lot of contrasting and parallel imagery, and its religion - while clearly inspired by Christianity, and with many similarities - is also different in a lot of ways that matter, with the morality of Heaven seemingly being one of them. After all, the Angel's Heaven is to be banished by the three heroes in order to save the world.

[friendship-test]

The making of Friendship Test:

I have always wanted to make a RPG Maker game. Throughout the years I have played several games with small pixel sprites as characters, as worlds, and I have always been fascinated that you can create a beautiful, funny and interesting story through them. I can not code and I do not have any 3d art skills, the chances of me ever making a videogame were very limited, but I have always wanted to make one. RPG Maker always seemed like the most available objective I could achieve, but I was never motivated enough to try anything cause I never had any good concept in mind for a videogame.

The year of 2024 started with a big robot obsession for me. Robot Dreams had recently came out and I did not stop thinking about it ever since, and soon after I started playing Toontown Corporate Clash, needless to say I adored those corporative robots too. I have always loved robot characters and thought it would be fun to create a story with them, I had several OC projects in mind but none of them included robot characters, so I thought I should change that.

I daydreamed about the concept of a story with robots, suddenly came with an idea: “what if an army of robots turned ‘good’ and only one of them was still ‘bad’?”

A very simple concept, one that would change and develop a lot, but an idea that I really liked. Of course, I like writing character dynamics, so it could not be a solo story, I gave the corrupted robot a companion in their journey. It was the story of a robot that was built to be kind turning ‘mean’ and a robot that was built to be a weapon turning ‘good’, traveling through a laboratory of abandoned robots that had all turned ‘good’, but how maybe that’s not as nice as it sounds.

I had that idea in mind, but I wasn’t planning on doing much with it. Perhaps a quick drawing, post it on tumblr and move on to other projects for now. But an image showed up in my brain that I could not shake off: I imagined this game as a rpg maker game. I imagined the sprite of the protagonist walking around this abandoned lab. And the strangest thing? It looked good. It looked promising. At least, it did in my brain.

The story was nothing but a mere simple concept, but it was good enough to give me enough motivation to look up tutorials on how to use GameMaker. Yeah, you read that right, GameMaker, not RPG Maker. I wanted to try out a more complicated engine, spent three days learning how to build one single room. I followed the steps, but somehow, I ran into a bunch of issues and it was not working properly. It did not feel great to waste three days for nothing, I was ready to give up and just go back to drawing simple drawings, go back to something I already knew how to do just fine.

But the image of the little robot still roamed around in my brain. So I decided to look up tutorials for RPG Maker.

Needless to say, I should have done that from the beginning.

I didn’t become an expert immediately, I still am not an expert whatsoever, but even if it took time and effort, RPG Maker was easy to use. No wonder so many use it to make videogames.

Again, the concept of this game was still very limited, I had a lot of ideas in my mind on how the story could go, drew a lot of concept art, wrote a few lines of dialogues, but nothing was set and stone yet. I decided to make one short area at the very least, and while I was creating it, I could think on the story some more.

I did just that, the first area is basically exactly what I had in mind since the beginning: a dark, empty abandoned lab. FriendProgram’s character design was very stuck on my brain too, they did not require a lot of concept art, their final design was very clear to me.

I made a couple of rooms, learned the basics on how to move from one room to another, how to change the character’s speed, how to make them interact with things, how sprites worked, all that stuff. But I needed to make FriendProgram interact with SOMEONE at some point. I needed a couple of funny NPCs for them to interact with. That’s how I came up with FUN and GAMES.

Now, I already had a few ideas for characters we would meet later on the story, but these two were not planned ahead, I just needed a funny duo to introduce us to the test ‘battle’ mechanic and to showcase the overall humor and dialogue style this game has.

However, I ended up liking them so much that they became part of the main cast of characters, even if their role is smaller than others.

When it comes to the tests, I was a bit concerned with that aspect. I knew that was the main gameplay of this game, the friendship tests you are put through, but I was not certain how I was going to pull that off. Would it be boring? Would it be repetitive? Would I not be able to program it? As flawed as they are, I am pretty satisfied with the results.

You have only seen a pretty simple friendship test, they get a bit more creative later on.

When it comes to the ‘battles’, I wanted them to be short and simple, nothing that takes too much time and nothing too complicated either. It’s the reason why there are so many, cause they are all meant to be pretty short, and the game allows you to save whenever you want. I hoped that getting a game over would not be too punishing to the player, since I’m aware some battles can be a little difficult to figure out what you are exactly supposed to say. Game overs are a bit essential to the point the game is trying to make.

Still, I am aware the battles can hurt the pacing a little in the first act, which is why they are better distributed in later acts, instead of getting 5 consecutive battles at once.

The mechanics of the battles change a little in each act, with act 2’s probably being the most complicated. But battles are not the main point of the game, which is why you might see less of them as the story progresses. Still, I’m okay to have a flawed ‘battle’ system, at least I have one at all, which I was worried I might not have been able to have.

The other gameplay ‘mechanic’ are of course, the friend_test_mode. They are however meant to be more story-focused than anything else, the first one is very simple, the other one can be a bit more annoying to get to the correct answers, but both of them do not punish you with game overs and are not meant to be anything too complicated. It’s presentation, part of the story, less a gameplay mechanic.

But enough about gameplay! This is a videogame that is more about characters and stories.

Before arriving to the new location this act takes place in, you find yourself with two experiments and learn all about the battle system. One of the two experiments is Exe, a strange mysterious rabbit. Exe was originally not part of the story, I adore characters like Exe, the funny annoying comedic relief characters, I tend to include them a lot in my stories. But so far, I hadn’t included any characters like that, I thought that maybe they would annoy people and it wasn’t necessary to the story. This changed however, I realized that if I’m making a game that I would like to play myself I had to include a character I would love, even if there were people who wouldn’t like them. So I included Exe, who serves as a tutorial and overall guide to the player. She started out as a small funny character, but as I wrote the story she became so essential that now I can not imagine the game without her. Sometimes the annoying comic relief character can save your story.

But now we arrive to the Reprogram Town! Very early on I knew that the first real area of the game should be a place full of nature, a huge contrast to the rest of the lab. It’s not just the nature, but the people are also very different from what you will see in this lab. The reprograms have sealed themselves away from everyone else, which means they can live in peace, away from the rules of BestFriendProgram, the program in charge of the lab.

The concept I had for this first area was to evoke something familiar: a cute little town with fun and kind NPCs, a bunch of simple quests, a bunch of simple battles and a story that ends with a nice lesson and with the characters being happy and loving each other very much, all thanks to you, the protagonist. I think it’s something we have seen in plenty of games, you play this area and you have an idea on what to expect, it is something pretty simple and easy to swallow. You are a nice protagonist that helps others and becomes friends with everyone, this is a game where you will meet a lot of programs and become friends with all of them and make everything better through kindness! This is what you are meant to believe.

The protagonists of Reprogram Town are Hammer, Keys and Wrench. The story is all about them, you are helping them but you are not part of their story. You are just a kind silent protagonist that doesn’t steal the spotlight from the story we are witnessing.

I knew from the beginning I wanted a simple but emotional conflict between these new characters, something that you could solve in one episode, but still has meaning to it. Just because you are a little deceived into thinking this game is going to be one way and then it turns out to be a little different than expected, doesn’t mean that the emotional conflicts have no meaning. What these three go through is real and they still have a lot to go through, specially Keys, who will get more things to do later on.

Something I really like about Keys is that he is a character that has kind of already went through his big character arc, there isn’t really much you can help him with when he has already grown as a person on his own and with the people he is close with. It doesn’t mean his journey is over, but it makes his interactions a lot of fun.

His asexual side plot is the first aspec-related story we see in the game and it is very essential to the character, at first I mostly implied it but I wanted to make it very obvious, this is not the ‘implied aspec’ game, this is the ‘stated aspec stories’ game after all. Keys is asexual and is a huge part of his story, as we will see later on.

Kindness is a big theme in this game too, and I really like the story of Hammer choosing to be a kind person despite everything. I like Wrench a lot too, even if he doesn’t show up as much I wanted his personality to be so vibrant that you will forget he has very little screentime. I really like when stories focus on siblings so of course I wanted two of the main cast of characters to be siblings and this is the act where they get to shine.

This first act establishes a lot of world-building as well. There is still a lot of things to find out about, but little by little you learn how this world is supposed to work. The mandatory tests, the water damage, the reliance on metal, the unconscious days, the data corruption, the old organisms… So much information in what appears to be a very silly and cute chapter of a bigger story.

Speaking of a bigger story, seems like that’s where FriendProgram and Waterbottle will truly get to shine. Waterbottle shows up very little in this act, and FriendProgram barely acts like a character, but this changes completely after the ending the demo. The rest of the game is very different from these first few hours and it’s all because of this program duo, especially FriendProgram, but it is also not different enough that it’d feel like a completely different game. The demo gives you a very clear idea of how the tone, pacing and dialogue of this game is usually like, even if there will be improvements later on.

Waterbottle is, in my opinion, probably the best character in the game. They are very fun to write and I enjoy every moment they are on screen, I think this character genuinely makes my game way better, which is why the demo is one of the weakest parts of the story, simply because Waterbottle is barely in it. Not for any other reason, it’s just cause Waterbottle doesn’t have enough screentime.

Now when it comes to FriendProgram, I did not want Friendship Test to be a cynical story where I “criticize” games that “force” you to be kind just to get what you want, I thought that would be very dumb and against everything that I am. FT offers a funny scenario of a character that has no other option than to be a really good friend to be able to advance the story, but it doesn’t mean they are not a complex person with no kindness in their heart. It doesn’t mean that helping other programs is meaningless, it doesn’t mean that FriendProgram hates everyone and would kill everyone if they could. There is a lot of layers to this story and this character.

You might be wondering however: ‘Where are the aspec themes? You said this game was about lovelessness!’ To that I say, patience! Don’t worry, the rest of the game does NOT shut up for a second about the main message of the story, but it was very important to establish the world building and characters first before fully focusing in the main themes. Besides that, the demo is also meant to trick you into thinking this is another story about the power of love, there is a reason why it is not really discussed at the beginning. There is more to the story and to FriendProgram than you might think.

I am very proud of my game, despite the flaws, I’m happy that I finally had the motivation to make the rpg maker game I have always wanted to make. Perhaps this game will help me make a better game one day, who knows, for now I am very happy with the result so far.

The first update was more about the making of the demo, but the next ones will all be about previews and presentations for the rest of the game! Next month I will talk about the next area of the game: The Emulation Area!

Thank you for reading and supporting, see you!

-------

Get your updates 1 week earlier and extra posts in Patreon!

[hero-of-the-wolf]

So here's a thing me and @crazylittlejester have been working on. Enjoy :)

Summary: After a difficult journey during the day full of obstacles and hard battles, Time finds himself trapped repeating the same battle over and over again. He has no choice, if he wants to save his brothers. However every time he uses his ocarina to reverse fate, he finds the price of saving his lost companion is the life of another.

or: Time loop fic where everyone keeps dying and Time is the only one who can save them all.

Someone was talking.

Already?

Time sighed, resigning himself to wakefulness and opening his eye. Warriors was leaning over him, his hand already resting on his shoulder.

“It’s your turn for watch.”

Right.

Time sat up with a groan. It felt like no time at all had passed since they’d first set up camp. And before then, they’d been stuck in a grueling battle that had burned through most of their supplies. It had been a long day.

He glanced over to see Warriors smirking at him. “What?”

“Oh, nothing.” The captain walked over to his own bed roll, no doubt excited at the prospect of a good night’s rest. “I was just thinking about how much ‘old man’ suits you, is all. I swear I could hear every bone in your body pop.”

Time rolled his eye, even though he knew Warriors couldn’t see it. “Very funny.”

“Thanks, I try.” Warriors flopped down on his roll dramatically with a sigh. “How are you doing, by the way?”

Time hummed at that. “I’m sure we’ve all had worse battles.”

“You’re not answering my question, Sprite.”

“I’m fine. Truly.” He sat down on the log Warriors had previously been sitting on. “We'll head to the nearest town to pick up some more supplies in the morning. Hyrule mentioned that we should be able to reach one by the end of the day.”

Warriors hummed in response. He fell silent after that, no doubt already giving in to his exhaustion. Good. He needed the rest. Time knew his shoulder was still bothering him, though the captain would never admit it.

He glanced up at the sky, noting the stars. They weren’t as bright here as they were at home, but they were beautiful all the same. The moon was out too, an almost sinister looking sliver of a smile. Time shook his head at the memories of a different moon with a sinister face and turned his attention to the fire in front of him. It was low already, but he was sure that it would last until morning. He took in a deep breath, savoring the peace that only being this deep in nature could bring.

A bokoblin’s horn reverberated through the previously still night air, making him jump.

“Everyone, up!” He shouted, springing to his feet. His sword was already in his hand. There was no time to put on his armor. The monsters were already pouring into the clearing.

Everyone scrambled to their feet, grabbing their weapons. There wasn’t even time to reach their shields. Time was lucky enough to have had an extra precious few seconds to grab his.

He felt Warriors’ back press against his own. He felt far too exposed without his armor. All of them did. But Warriors wasn’t afraid. He was annoyed.

“I can’t believe this,” he grumbled. “I got like, what, five minutes of sleep? Couldn’t they have waited until morning??”

Time's lips twitched up at that, despite their unfortunate circumstances. The poor captain had taken first watch. He’d gotten basically no sleep since their earlier battle, and he was prepared to make it everyone else's problem.

Time pressed harder against him, dodging the blow of an incoming lizalfos, and Warriors’ whining switched to complaining about his still sore shoulder.

Everything passed in a blur after that. Once the last monster was felled, Time hurried to do a headcount. They’d been at a serious disadvantage. He had faith in his boys, but he needed to make sure everyone was okay and accounted for.

Warriors was next to him, dusting himself off.

Twilight was helping Four back up to his feet.

Sky was sitting on the ground, looking winded but otherwise okay.

Hyrule and Legend were chatting off to the side.

That left….

“Has anyone seen Wild and Wind?”

Everyone’s attention shifted to him at that.

“I thought that they were with you,” Twilight frowned.

“I thought that they were with you,” Legend retorted.

“The last I saw them, they were over… there.”

Time looked where Sky was pointing. It was still far too dark to see clearly, so he cautiously approached, jerking to a stop when his foot almost slipped off the edge of a sheer drop. His heart plummeted straight down to his boots.

“They must have fallen down.”

The cliff was steep, but Time managed to find his way down to a sizeable ledge. The aftermath of a battle was strewn everywhere. They must not have been the only ones who had fallen. Warriors followed close behind, dropping down next to him.

By the time Time found them their bodies were still warm.

He fell to his knees, desperately checking for any sign of life. He was too late. Too slow. He—

From behind him, Warriors came to a sudden stop. A horrible keening sound escaped him, one that would haunt Time for the rest of his days. He stumbled to his side and drew the two younger boys into his arms. Time forced himself to his feet and stepped back. Almost on instinct, his hand reached down and clasped his ocarina. He could still fix this.

“Captain… it’ll be okay.”

Warriors looked up at him, distraught. Even after a whole war of losing people, the grief of death was something nobody could ever get used to. Not even the captain. “How can you say that? This- This isn’t okay.”

Time smiled at him sadly and raised the ocarina to his lips.

The song was one he knew all too well. The rhythm of time slowed to a stop, then started reversing. Time went as far back as he could, before ending the song and breaking into a run. He knew where they were now. He could get to them in time.

The ledge they’d fallen down to was hard to see from up top in the predawn darkness, but he knew exactly where to go. When had they even fallen? Everything had happened so fast. He climbed down as quickly as he dared. He needed to be faster.

Wild and Wind were surrounded by monsters. Wild was already hunched over, clutching at a red stain on his side that was rapidly growing.

Time almost lost his grip when Wind yelled in pain and collapsed. No.

He dropped down and unsheathed his sword, swinging it in a wide arc. The three lizalfos in front of him were cut down before they could even blink, let alone jump out of the way. A large black moblin rounded on him next. He parried its spear and stabbed it straight in the gut. He didn't have time for this.

“Tell me about your island, Sailor,” Wild’s voice, as quiet as it was, seemed to echo in his skull. Those were dying words. But he was so close!

Everything else drowned out but the sword in his hands and the words in his ears.

“It’s beautiful,” Wind whispered. “There’s a fairy fountain at the top… top of the mountain, y’know. And a bridge… bridge’s broken, though. And my sister… and grandma….”

Another moblin.

“Champion?”

Two bokoblins.

“I’m here, kid.”

“Not a kid,” Wind rasped. The fire in his voice was fading fast. They were running out of time.

Only a lowly bokoblin was left, standing between him and his fallen brothers. Time glowered at it, leveling his sword.

Nothing was going to stand between him and his brothers. He swore to Hylia that he wouldn’t let this be the end for them.

The bokoblin charged. A fatal mistake. Time easily deflected its blow with his sword, twisting around to stab it in the back.

The last monster fell. Time sank to his knees at his boys’ side again, heaving a sigh of relief. He reached into his pouch with trembling fingers, grabbing the first bottle he could find and pulling it out. The fairy flew out without delay and circled around the two boys. Their wounds disappeared. Like none of it had ever even happened.

Wild sat up, a smile already on his face. “Hey, old man.”

Wind was still clutched in his arms, blinking up at them both. Then he smiled, too. “Took ya long enough.”

Time closed his eye, just for a moment. They were okay.

He didn’t really have the time, but he couldn’t stop himself from clapping a firm hand on both their shoulders, checking them both over with his eye for any lingering injuries before getting up from where he was crouched in front of them. Sounds of clanging swords and frustrated shouts came from overhead where the others were, and Time knew he had to get himself and the boys up there to help as soon as possible.

Wild was easiest to help back up over the ledge. The kid was terrifyingly gifted at scaling up cliffs, and only needed a bit of a boost from Time to help him get up there faster than he could have on his own. The second the champion completely disappeared over the edge and back onto the cliff top, Time turned to Wind, locking his fingers together to provide a hopefully steady foot hold.

“Ready, kid?”

Wind nodded sharply, a determined look on his face, before placing his small boot in Time’s hand and reaching up towards where Wild’s hand was extended down for him to grab. Time helped shove him up as far as he could, supporting the little pirate’s weight as much as he was able to until Wild got a firm enough grip to haul him back to safety.

Unfortunately for Time, there was no way the two younger heroes would be able to pull him up as well. The ledge was high enough that he couldn’t get a firm grip by jumping for it, not that he wanted to risk falling to his death should he lose his footing, and it was too dark to properly see how much space he had.

Warriors’s face poked over the edge, giving him a familiar crooked grin.

“Well you’ve gotten yourself rather stuck, Sprite,” his brother teased, and Time couldn’t help but instinctively cross his arms over his chest and glare up at the captain in defiance at the tone in his voice. It wasn’t his fault he’d gotten trapped down here, he was saving Wind and Wild’s lives!

The image of their bodies flashed across his mind and his expression dropped as he felt his breath catch in his chest.

He forced himself to shake his head to free himself from the sight of a fate that no longer existed.

Warriors’s hand reached down just low enough for Time to grab when he ran and jumped for it, and there was a moment when his hand clasped around his brother’s where he was terrified his weight would drag them both down over the edge, but a second pair of hands reached down and grabbed his forearm, helping the captain pull him up.

Time allowed himself five seconds to pant in the grass on his back before forcing himself to sit up, giving Sky a grateful nod for helping him before taking Warriors’s offered hand and letting his brother drag him to his feet. He looked around for Wind and Wild, squinting to make out their shapes in the dark, and spotted them with swords raised, helping Legend fight off a large group of Lizalfos. They were moving okay, they were breathing, they were fine.

He saved them, and now he had to help the others finish this battle.

They could do it, they’d done it a hundred times already. There was nothing even special about this group of monsters, they were all going to be just fine.

He hated that he hadn’t been able to go back far enough to give them enough time to put their armor on before the battle started. Time couldn’t help the surge of anxiety that blossomed when he felt Warriors’s spine press into his back when the captain’s shoulders met his, unprotected from his usual amount of armor. His brother was too vulnerable like this, they were all too vulnerable like this.

The captain groaned when Time’s shoulder slid against his.

“You okay?” He asked quickly, shifting so he wasn’t leaning too much on his brother. Warriors’s shoulder had been dislocated earlier in the day during the previous battle, and while he’d had a red potion or two shoved down his throat, Time had no doubt it was probably still sore.

“No, I’m not okay,” the captain whined, and he didn’t have to be facing him for Time to know with certainty there was a pout on Warriors’s face. “Can a man not sleep for more than five minutes without having something happen to him?? Hylia!!”

“What has the world come to?” Time sighed, overdoing it a little on the sadness he forced into his voice.

Warriors pushed against his back roughly in retaliation, grumbling something under his breath that he couldn’t hear.

They worked together to beat back the monsters that had surrounded them, and Time tried to focus on his brother behind him instead of letting his mind drift back to Wind and Wild’s bodies. Each bokoblin he cut down made him feel further and further from what he’d just seen, but he couldn’t shake the feeling of shock he’d felt.

Life was a very fragile thing. None of them were going to live forever, but those two were just kids. This was not their place to die.

“We’re so fucked, why are there so many of them??” Warriors sighed, and Time couldn’t find his voice to agree with him. Not after what he just saw. Not after what he’d erased. He refused to believe they were ‘fucked’.

He had a second chance, he wasn’t going to let anyone die, not this time. He’d already healed Wind and Wild, he just needed to keep an eye on them and all the others and they’d pull through as they always did.

Something swooped down towards their heads that Time couldn’t quite make out in the dark, and while he’d managed to duck out of its path, the thing hit Warriors square in the face.

“What the fuck!!” The captain screamed. “What was that?!”

“Keese!” Hyrule shouted from somewhere to Time’s left. He couldn’t spare a second to look over at the traveler, he was too busy trying to defend both him and his temporarily stunned brother.

“Why!!”

“Fuck you mean, ‘why’??” Legend yelled.

Time swatted at the damned keese with his shield when it swooped down at his head again.

“Just be glad you didn’t get hit by a swarm of them!” Hyrule laughed. “That one must not be from this era, my keese never travel alone!”

It took Warriors an embarrassing number of tries to cut it down, and by the time he had, Time had mostly cleared out the bokoblins around them. He took a moment to breathe and try to spot Wind and Wild in all the chaos.

“Look out!” Twilight screamed, and Time ducked, shoving Warriors out of the way as well when an axe went flying overhead, glinting in the light of the moon. Thankfully it embedded itself in a nearby tree as opposed to any of the boys.

“Thanks, goat boy!” The captain called back, brushing himself off as he got up, holding out a hand to help up Time.

He missed the concerned look Warriors gave him as he steadied Time on his feet, he was too busy looking around the clearing, counting seven hylian heads still up and moving. Once sure everyone was safe he couldn’t help but feel anger towards himself for being so distracted that he’d almost allowed himself and Warriors to get hit by a flying axe.

“Hey, everything okay?” His brother asked, kicking a bokoblin he didn’t recognize down when it waddled a little too close, bringing his sword straight down into it and ending the little creature. “You didn’t hit your head on the way down to get Wind and Wild, did you?”

Time didn’t have a chance to open his mouth before Warriors grabbed his chin and started moving his face around to check for cuts or marks where he might have been hit.

He swatted away the captain’s hands, ignoring the way Warriors raised an eyebrow at him and narrowed his eyes in suspicion.

“No, I’m fine,” he told him, and he meant it. He was fine, so were Wild and Wind, and so were all the others. He just had to get out of his own head and focus, this was no time or place for mistakes.

“Are you sure?” Warriors questioned, because of course he wouldn’t just drop it. “You seem really distracted and a bit out of it.”

“I’m fine,” Time repeated with an annoyed huff. He could argue with his brother later, right now he had to focus on killing monsters.

He got lucky when a lizalfos jumped down on the other side of the captain, freeing him from whatever lecture on hiding injuries Warriors was no doubt prepping to give him. It didn’t take long to deal with the monster, and in all the chaos it was quite easy for Time to slip away to another side of the clearing.

He headed over towards Four, who was singled out by a group of bokoblins. The poor young man was doing his best, but there was no one near him to help at all, and from what Time could see through the darkness, no one else was in immediate need of assistance.

“Oh Hylia, thanks,” Four wheezed when Time was able to take out a huge wave of bokoblins in one swing with his significantly larger sword.

“Any time,” he said quickly, swinging again, this time in a large arc right over Four’s head when the younger hero ducked.

Legend came sprinting past with an enraged cry, chasing after a moblin that kept bouncing out of the way of his swings.

“Fucker!!” He screamed when he missed again.

Time snorted, taking a moment to check on Wind and Wild one more time. They were a terrifying duo, with Wild dancing about and weaving between the monsters, shoving them right into Wind’s sword. Every time they successfully got another one, the pirate let out an evil little cackle, the faint light making his eyes sparkle.

They were fine, and the number of monsters was finally getting smaller as less and less of them swarmed into the clearing.

His mistake had been allowing himself less than a second to believe that they were all going to be fine.

He hadn’t even seen it happen, his back was turned, all he’d heard was a sickening crack followed by Legend’s awful scream. He felt his breath catch in his throat but he couldn’t hear anything besides that awful sound the vet was making and his own pounding heartbeat. He knew what he was going to see when he turned, he knew, and he didn’t want to look, but he couldn’t stop himself. Time whipped around to look at them, so quickly that he felt nauseous, although that might have been because of the angle Four’s neck had been twisted at, or the way his lifeless eyes were still staring up at the sky, or the horrible way his dead body was sprawled in the grass.

Time didn’t waste a second, he couldn’t bear the sight of one of his dead brothers a second longer. With trembling hands he brought the ocarina to his lips and began to play as warm tears ran down his face.

READ THE REST ON AO3!!! :)

[snoozykazoo]

happy springtime allergies! 🌸

The flowers at this time of year are so lovely! sniff sniff sniff… They’re pretty enough that I’m THIS close to forgetting the pollen up my nose. So it goes. Regardless of springtime allergies or not, it’s Snoozy Devpost time!

If this is your first time seeing us, hey! We’re Snoozy Kazoo, a game dev studio of six guys who make dumb, silly, and fun games. We made the Turnip Boy games, and we’re currently in the midst of working on our latest game, Hobnobbers!

This month, we're getting into our task management workflow to help all you fellow indie devs out there!

What's Snoozy been up to?

Ah…! We’re so, so close to being able to announce something really exciting…! But you have to forgive me. I can’t say anything yet. Keep your eyes peeled — there’s going to be a LOT of exciting Snoozy News™️ come May. Even if I can’t say the big deets yet, I can at least drop this link right overrr here for you merch heads out there…

Cool Makeship Link 👀

Buuuut since we can’t talk about our projects, let’s talk about the next best thing: Project Management! This past month, Snoozy switched from our old task-tracking system to a new system called Codecks. Imagine if you could track your project progress with a deck-building roguelike, and that’s what Codecks is! It’s a nifty little tool specifically made for Indie Game Developers, which we just happen to be.

And to clear the air: no, we are not sponsored in any way by Codecks. Though if Codecks is reading this — we’d totally love to be!

We wanted to share how this system has been working for us, so any aspiring indie devs out there can see if this system is appealing to them and potentially benefit from it!

How it works

What’s made Codecks click for us is how it blends structure with playfulness. It doesn’t just let you organize your work — it encourages you to think about it in terms of clear progress paths, visual layouts, and deck-building metaphors.

We kept falling off of our past task systems because jugging a game’s worth of art, code, design, writing, marketing, and bug-fixing while ALSO needing to come up with constantly updating organization methods is. Hard. Codecks simplifies that process!

Codecks organizes itself into Cards, Decks, and Projects. Cards are tasks (like “Animate a Hob’s death!”), Decks are chunks (animating a Hob would go in our ‘Art’ Deck, but you could split it up further into a ‘3D Animation’ deck while also having a ‘3D Modeling’ Deck), and Projects are, well, projects! (‘Hobnobbers’ is, well, our project!)

What we like

Myyy personal favorite bit of Codecks is how it handles Conversations. Conversations can be had on any card, which makes it really easy to find discussions and notes on particular topics. In the past, we’ve used Discord to talk about ideas, critiques, and problems as they’ve come up. When notes are discussed quickly, they don’t necessarily quality for opening up the whole task itself, which has made remembering clarifications like “Wait, what resolution did this sprite need to be, again?” as simple as pulling up its relevant card.

Other people on the team love the ‘Required Effort’ settings, which allow you to set an amount of effort for each card and then see how much total effort a single person has. Basically, all of us adore the fact that you can use Markdown (which I, Yukon, am currently converting this post into for the Snoozy website haha). There are just a ton of little quality of life features that really feel like this tool was made by indie devs, for indie devs, and it’s really smooth to use!

But I’m just a little guy. Just a Small Man. With Few Dollars?

Codecks is free for up to 5 users on a team! If you’re a solo developer working on a project in your spare time, it’s probably more than suitable for you.

Aaaand that was our non-sponsored shilling of this tool we really like! There’s only so much we can say without going too into the weeds of it, but we hope that giving you a peep into our processes helped you out!

Team Corner!

It’s back a second time! Almost like it’s always going to be here!

This week we’ve got… badadadum, Jake! Our musician and developer!

What are you most excited for in Hobnobbers?

I’m most excited for the physics. Some of my favorite games have really robust physics simulations like Gang Beasts, Motor Town, and BeamNG.drive. I love sandbox games that have fun and unexpected environments to explore in a tactile way.

What’s something you’ve worked on in Hobnobbers recently that you’ve found particularly frustrating?

Audio Volumes and spatialization. In a 3D game, each space needs to sound different, and sometimes dialing that in just right can be a pain. Large open rooms and tiny little tunnels sound different in real life, and they will do the same in Hobnobbers, after lots of tweaking and iteration. Coming from 2D development, this literally opens up a whole new dimension of sound design.

What kinds of feelings do you hope for the Hobnobbers’ music to bring about?

I really want to mix dreamlike folktale and plastic consumerism. I am super inspired by I spy books, grimms fairytales, folk/americana music, and toy instruments for the Hobnobbers musical palette, and the music comes very naturally when the inspirations are so vivid. A lot of Hobnobbers is about simulating something tactile and physical in a digital space, and I hope to channel that into the music.

Yay! Thank you for your time!

Andddd we’re all wrapped up!

As a reminder, feel free to send in questions for us to answer right here on our Tumblr, or join our Discord and ask questions in the “ask-the-devs-❓” channel!

Keep your eyes peeled for this upcoming month in particular — we’ve got a lot of cool announcements coming up!

As per Devposts, see you next month!!

[hanafubukki]

Hi ! Here cottage life with Lilia and the Knight of Dawn as Silver mom in the past Anon (I think I will need to find myself an smiley-)

First, thank you ! I'm happy this idea please you and other people 😊

But yes this OT3 is so so cute- My brain run free for it since then.

The relationship those three have...it's just melting my heart 🥹 The perfect trio. Lilia is a bit jalous that the first baby isn't from him -bat boi have his pride- but he just love Silver so much it doesn't matter much 🥺 Little funny fact about Lilia/Knight bromance: before Silver birth, him and the Knight (need to find a proper surname for him-) had a discussion. Like they didn't know who was the father between them, they had a unique way to deal with it: after the baby birth- when who is the father will be more clear- the guy that isn't the bio dad would name the baby. So no one would felt left away from the family.

Lilia blessed the baby at birth, and like in Chapter 5, the baby hair turned white. So Silver's name was back like that 😂

So much things about them...like, rumors runs fast thanks to the forest fairies. But the little family -except when Lilia is called to the castle- don't go often outside to not scare any fairy. So...one day, a toddler Silver ran away to the famous "Castle" were "Dada Lilia" was kept against his will by "This cruel brat of a Princess who want him to "babysit" (Something really cruel and scary from Dada Lilia word-). So Meleanor first encounter with Lilia rumored "son" was this child -monkey- pleading her to -politely- give his Dada Lilia back.

And this is only some funny story 😭 The guilt our time traveler could felt is also interresting. Silver was born and will grow up way before what he was supposed to do. Did this child is -will be- even the same Silver she knew ? And he will never met Sebek in this life. Will this child will be ressentful ? What kind of right does she have to change history -fate- like that ? What will happen if she dissapear, like she came- and go back to her time ? What will happen to her new found family, her husbands, her child ?

But a single giggle of her lovely silver haired baby is enough to make her worries dissapear in a smile. How scary it is, to be so happy at the point you fear the day it will be end.

(References: Fanfic, Ask 1, Ask 2)

Hello Cottage Life Anonie 🌻🌺💚

I’m labeling you Cottage Life Anonie until you find a emoji or nickname you prefer ☺️🌺 please feel free to choose whichever that makes you comfortable and happy.

Anonie you have no idea how happy I was when I saw you in my inbox, I was already kicking my feet in excitement ☺️🌺

Hehehe my evil plan of getting more people to like this OT3 is working 😈🙌 lolol I’m really happy that you and others like it. It makes me happy and I’m glad I can share these thoughts with others who like it too.

A knight of dawn x reader x lilia vanrouge pairing has so much potential and routes that I’m just thrilled at all the possibilities 💞💞

Lilia being jealous of the first child not being his is adorable. I can just see him make that face that says he’s pouting but denying it 😂 but he adores Silver so much and he’s also your child, so how could he no love him? Baby Silver with his glittering eyes and you just being so loving with him is perfect.

I adore that agreement Knight and Lilia had about naming the child. It’s so sweet and smart! And another way to include the mutual partner! No one is left out and everyone is loved 🥹 it’s so sweet!! (We need a name for Dawny, I hope we get one for him in twst 🙏)

Oh oh Anonie! Now that you mention the hair color change, some theorize (because of the sprite) that the upper layers of Knight’s hair is blond and the bottom layers are silver!! So if that’s the case, Lilia just turned Silver’s hair fully silver which is also what Dawny has on his lower tresses so this bromance keeps getting sweeter and the connection is still there 🥹

Absjsjshs tiny Baby Silver just toddling away to the castle to save his Dada Lilia like a true knight in shining armor!!! That’s so freaking adorable 🥹💞😭 I can imagine that the little fairies that love Silver and love mischief helped teleport him to the castle where he meets Meleanor and Lilia. You have this sweet child asking so nicely and the Queen’s heart just melts (she also adores his bravery). Meleanor then tries to smite Lilia because of the “bratty” comments 🤣🤣

Now I can imagine Meleanor require a weekly dinner with everyone, she can see Baby Silver, and if malleus is hatched, he can have a playmate. She can also meet the Knight and the Reader (not on the battlefield for once). It’s awkward at first but nothing that time and Silver’s bubbly laughter can’t fix 🥹💞

There’s so many angst potentials! Ahhhh the guilt of the time traveler wife. Silver not growing up with Sebek, not living in the same timeline ( would his friend be mama zigvolt in this case? 🤔).

Would wife tell the husbands about her situation? What happened in her timeline? I feel like if they knew they would understand, and their hearts would ache from the sacrifices she made to have them be happy. 🥹😭

I want to focus a little bit on the if she ever went back to the present, well, this new present that’s the same yet so different. I feel like if YN did go back she would at first be devastated once she realizes she’s back and what she lost. But but but, we have powerful fairies on our side. 👏🙌

I believe in this case, with the help of Meleanor and Lilia (maybe even Levan? He’s smart so he might know more about it). They would put both Silver and The Knight of Dawn to sleep until they are reunited with YN 🥹💚

So, this would solve a few problems actually! Sebek would be in the picture again, and we have Malleus and his parents, and of course, we have Lilia too.

Lilia could be waiting for YN at the spot she said she was teleported from the first time and they could have their reunion before waking the other two. 🥹💞💞 The reunion would be so sweet between the four. Lilia was waiting but at least he had his sister and baby malleus and the rest of his family and friends while he waited. He can go to that cottage and relive memories and remind himself of his loves.

The way this OT3 AU has a grip on me 😭💞💚

Anonie, Anonie, I am shaking you.

“How scary it is, to be so happy at the point you fear the day it will be end.” This line!! This line!! Oh my heart. 😭💞💞

Thank you for sending this in Anonie 💚🌺, ahhh I’m enjoying this so much and my mind is whirling with so many possibilities. You’re my partner in crime now ☺️🌺

[sodafrog13]

finally was able to get down my visual hcs for mary :] i think she, hench, and the son have a Very interesting dynamic. more thoughts under the cut if u care to peek (careful, it's wordy)

i think hench and mary have been together long term by events of the game and i specifically think they started dating when hench wasn't working for the son yet

i actually think he used to work for the columbians, based mostly on mary's intense shock that the son would be so willing to let him leave and also the fact that his skin tone matches the default skin tone of the normal columbian mobsters (though the latter could admittedly just be attributed to dennaton's heavy use of palette swapping and sprite refurbishing). in my thinking, he and/or mary got into some sort of trouble with his former boss and pledged his loyalty to the son and his family if they would be able to get him out.

in doing so, it was made specifically clear to the henchman (likely by the father) that if he were to ever double cross them, he'd have both him and mary killed. thusly, the henchman did everything in his power to be an asset to the russian mafia, so much so that the son, more lenient when it came to the terms of their agreement than his father though perhaps more willing to actively test them, took a shine to him.

the son is curious of mary. as a gay man who doesn't really know he's gay, he honestly has the tendency to be misogynistic to women he doesn't see as his equal (ie the bodyguard), as his interests truly lie in patriarchal views of masculinity and power. he at least has enough foresight to recognize how important she is to the henchman and is fine with letting her be (past the occasional remark about her to the henchman directly). that said, he does consider her a bit of a hindrance re: the henchman's ambitions, but again, never to the extent he'd do anything about it.

mary is genuinely unnerved by the son. she has every right to be, considering both her and her partner's safety are basically up to his family's whims, but she lets the henchman go as he pleases. she recognizes that he has a genuinely fondness for his boss (because it's the same kind of fondness that he has for her) and quite honestly, she doesn't mind him having another partner so long as he's honest with her. it's just the fact that it's him that puts her off. she, however, also has concerns re: the henchman's plans for the future. she doesn't really Mind that they're not married but it is something she'd enjoy. that, and she really does wonder how much longer he's willing to keep doing mob work. he's not old per se but he's definitely not as young as he used to be, and even she can see that he won't last very long with the life that he leads and that scares her.

the henchman is... well, he's indecisive. doesn't really know what he wants until it's hitting him in the face. he's honestly just fine coasting around until some other force leads him off his beaten path, something that annoys the son and concerns mary because it really does sometimes come to a battle of who can get through to him first, even if none of them really know it. he loves them both, he really does, but he's also fickle. because even though he wants them both, he also secretly wants a certain level of freedom that he just can't have by being both tied to people and also a job (as seen in that dream he has where he's driving out of miami, not only without his girl or his boss but in spite of the hurricane that he's sure to run into). so maybe it's not even that he's indecisive, he knows what he wants it's just that he knows, logically, that it is something he cannot have. so he just willingly keeps himself in that loop until something breaks, that something being all those dreams that richard was sending him in an attempt to break the bigger cycle of things.

in a different world, i'd like to imagine that they can work things out. i truly do not blame mary for what she did, because i truly would have done the exact same thing as her in that situation even if it wasn't necessarily what was 'right'. but i feel that in that same vein, hench could have done more to reassure her that things would be fine, esp considering he has a personal enough connection to the son to know that he's different from his father.

but also i mean we all know that nobody in miami has communication skills. that'd be ridiculous there'd be no game otherwise

[hydraamalia]

The Sprite Thief Nr. Uno.

Connor Stoll x Fem!Reader

Full on fluff oneshot. Words:2421

WARNINGS: SPOILERS (maybe) TO THE MAIN SERIES PJO, Bad Grammar, Kinda OOC.

Summary: Lately you can’t help but notice that Connor had gotten a hold of a LOT and I mean A LOT of Sprites. And not those fake sugar free sodas that the nymphs usually hand out, nope. The real kind. He had gotten so many to the point you start questioning where he gets them… And why he always offers you one.

It was a normal Saturday afternoon at camp, you were walking through strawberry fields by the saturs who was busy at work, spring this year had produced a lot of harvest, so there was plenty of fresh strawberries. The smell of the heating sun and clear skies were enough for you to come outside, your winter depression had finally poofed, passed.

You adjusted your posture just for a second before completely getting cut out of your day dream by the one and only Connor Stoll. The tall lanky guy had put his hand on your shoulder, that smirk on his face only meant trouble. Blue iced water eyes stared into yours.

“Are youuu busy?” He asked in a half whisper, trying to make this whole encounter seem like a secret meeting for some odd reason.

“I mean… Not really, why?” Your answer obviously fueled his engine, making him yank your arm before sprinting out of the fields. His long legs faster than you could keep up with, making you trip over your own feet in the progress. The faint giggles from the group of nymphs and Aphrodite girls was clear after you passed them. There was definitely a faint whisper of rumors about you and Connor between the four. But you and Connor were just friends.

Your mind was scrambled with confusion as you neared the parts of firework beach that no one usually visited. The usual hidding place that he would drag you too every week or so. For a messy Hermes kid, he was surprisingly consistent on this.

"Just wait here." Connor said before climbing behind some stones, leaving you to stand on the colorless, black and grey rocks. He had done this a few times lately, dragging you away from whatever you were doing to somewhere more private. At first you could have sworen it was a prank by the Stoll brothers, maybe to waste your time? But it wasn't. The warm beach air waved, blowing your face softly from the sweat that had been starting to fog up.

Just to the second your frame of vision was blocked by a cold can of Sprite, again.

"Another one?" He just hummed to your question, watching you take it from hand. The bubbles inside roaring for you to just open the can already, wanting the lemon-lime flavours to flood not only your tastebods but your sense of smell.

"Just thought you needed one, since you have been working all day with the satyrs and stuff." He moved close to you, standing right by your left side. Both of you staring into the endless waves from the ocean. The sun reflecting onto the water surface, what a wonderful sight.

"How do you even get this many? Seriously... I know you're like from the god of thieves but this is starting to worry me." Silence hit the both of you and you had no clue what the boy was thinking. What did a Stoll even think about? How to pull the next prank or steal some candy?

His choke of a laugh, which kinda sounded like a donkey mixed with a high pitched chicken type of laugh, did not help the situation. "Don't worry about it."

He was already chugging down his own can of Sprite. He looked like your average frat boy at a college party, just a lot thinner and more elf like. "And why did you drag me out here again?" The corner of his eye moved to your face, you could see the smile lines of his semi-permanent smirk coming in again.

"And why do you ask so many questions? I'm just a guy."

"A guy with dangerous tendecies, like filling a girl's shirt up with poison ivy or covering the Demeter cabin with chocolate bunnies."

"Oh come on those were one time incidents! Besides they were funny as hell." His comment only made you roll your eyes... And maybe crack a little smile. But only a small one. It wasn't because he was funny, god no.

"Is that a smile? Did the lady with a permanent frown actually smile?"

He poked your side with his elbow, wiggling his eyebrows a bit in excitement. If that guy knew one thing, it was to tease you to death over the smallest things. "It wasn't a smile." Maybe you were in a sour mood or flustered, you couldn't tell. You just knew that the last sips of your sprite was amazing. A refreshing drink which was a real soda? Not something you get often at C-H-B.

"Do you want another can? I got a few more left." He asked while already taking out another long sprite can, offering you the end of it.

"Okay seriously, why do you have so many and who’s your supply?"

"A dealer never tells his secrets." The finger over his lips and the wink he gave you, made you frown again. You knew you wouldn't get an answer out of him. He was persistent like that.

"The quote goes; a magician never tells his secrets. Not a dealer. You make yourself sound like a drug lord by saying it like that.” Another donkey chicken laugh escaped his lips by your statement.

The afternoon ended with Connor walking you back to your cabin, passing by the nymphs yet again. The sun already coloring the sky a beautiful orange as he bowed you a goodnight, calling himself your personal thief. You paid him back with a slap behind the head, before turning your head into the wooden building. The 'See you next Saturday!' he let out was loud enough for you to react with a thumbs up.

The two of you kept up this 'meeting up by fireworks beach' every saturday in May, with him always taking you from whatever you were doing to the secret layout, as he called it. Before handing you another cold beverage. How was the can always so cold when he gave them to you?

-

Connor and you had sneaked out of your cabins and sat by the beach again, sipping to the totally natural lemon-lime taste of Sprite. Fireflies slowly drifting between the two of you. You could feel Connor's eyes on your face again, yet every time you tried to catch his gaze he would turn away or laugh awkwardly. You knew the rumors about you and Connor had spread a lot since your last meetings, no thanks to the nymphs and that small group of Aphrodite girls. People were saying the two of you were secretly dating or maybe even something more, which was insane. People would whistle at the two of you if you just glanced at one another's direction.

Was... Was Connor uncomfortable around you now? Had the rumors made everything between you two, weird? By the fact he hadn't made a single joke yet was freaking you out. Hell, he hadn't even spoken to you. He only had that weird smile and avoiding eye contact. It was unnerving and awkward. The only thing keeping you from spiraling further down the classic overthinking rabbit hole, was the can of Sprite you were holding, your fingers glancing over the bold letters, stopping by the t.

You decided to say screw it, try to start a conversation or lighten up the mood. "Seriously how do you get so many Sprites? I'm starting to think you are an actual drug lord and selling drugs just to have a delivery-man come with a truck full of Sprite."

The bold letters of silence hit the two of you again as he sipped on his can, still avoiding eye contact. His bony thin fingers holding the can so tightly that it left an indent on the green metal. "Well haha, you know that old married couple by the camp?” He started out, finally making eye contact with you. “Yeah… They might have a whole attic filled with Sprite cans for some reason. So I just took some.”

Some?

SOME?!

No, Connor hadn’t just taken some, like a small handful. You had started counting after the start of May, the two of you had at least consumed over 10 gallons over the last month… Okay maybe you were bad at math, but still. He was playing it off as if he only stole five when he knew damn well it was over that.

“Connor, respectfully. We have drank over the number of ‘some’ cans.”

Travis picked up another two can from behind the large stones, coming back to your side. “Okay fine, I might have taken a few boxes… 3 boxes.” He quickly came back to your side, like an awaiting puppy full of energy. He did remind you of an energetic puppy now that you really thought about it… A mix of a racoon and a puppy.

“What? 3?! Seriously why do you even steal that many- not to mention the fact you had to carry them.” His lanky arms could not possibly have carried 3 boxes or crates of Sprite cans, that was just… Insanity. He had probably gone multiple times by those poor old married couple, stealing their sodas.

“I steal them for you.”

You choked on your can of sprite, the spicy carbonated liquid burning the back of throat, as your eyes adjusted to the new found tears that had started forming in your eyes out of instinct. Connor quickly came over with his hand on your back, completely confused and concerned about what was happening.

“Y-you what?!” You stammered not fully there yet, wiping your eyes from tears.

“I steal them for you..? Are you okay-“

You coughed out an ‘I’m fine’ before adjusting your seating. Your heart beat in your ears again, beating against your eardrums and canal.

“What do you mean, you steal them for me.” Your question was more of a statement than a question, and Connor just awkwardly smiled. Taking his hand off your back again.

“Well, remember December when that Christmas party was happening?” He asked while you slowly nodded. “I heard you complain to that nymph who was serving the drinks, that the sodas didn’t taste good, like different, and how it was a disgrace to the Sprite gods. Since I knew the old couple had a secret stash of Sprite, I stole them. Thought it would be a good enough excuse for us to start hanging out..?”

The thing inside your head called a brain? Yeah it was set on pause for a moment as you took in his words. The flickering of fireflies moved around the two of you, one of them landing in Connor’s curly black brownish hair. He had done all of this… Because he wanted to hang out with you?

“Okay, last time I say this word this night, but… Why?”

Even if it was late at night and the only forms of light you had were the fireflies and half-moon, you could clearly see the pale boy’s face turn a red scarlet color, the tip of his elf like ears turning even darker than his cheeks. His freckles covered by the red hue, his blue eyes focusing on everything at once, shifting from the corner of his eye to straight forward.

“I thought it was kind of obvious by now, but I like you. Like more like like than like? Like if I don’t see you just for a second everyday my day is ruined- god this is an awful confession.” He coughed this time, not because he had something stuck in his throat but because he didn’t know how to react.

Confession, that word didn’t leave your earshot. If anything it was like a worm, wiggling its way through your ears, passing by your eardrums and going past your brain. Down your throat and making it to your heart, squeezing it just so it would beat faster.

“You have a crush on me?!” You yelped and somehow managed to trip while sitting down. Making your head smack down into the small rocks of the beach. Connor came to try to help, but his hands stopped mid air as he looked down at you.

He was red, and no… Not just a normal red or the scarlet color from before. But neon red.

“Yeah..? Is that so strange?” The Sprite in his hand was completely crushed, maybe out of panic that his confession had gone wrong or maybe something completely else. But either way you say up, looking at his drenched hand, covered by the sugar sirup liquid.

“No… I guess not, just a strange way of showing it.” You tried to put on your calm face, but eternally you were panicking. The fireflies that used to glow a golden color had gotten scared by the two of you and all that sudden movement that had gone on. So the only light source was the moon, which only made The Sprite Thief Nr. Uno look even more handsome. Screw his cute red elf ears.

“Well..?”

That got your attention right back on track and he could tell his word confused you by the twist of your eyebrows.

“Do you like me back?” He wasn’t delighted to ask that question, it was more like he wanted to hide away from ever confessing this to you at all. Meanwhile you didn’t know what to respond. Did you like the thief who would always steal your attention from anybody? The answer is more apparent than 2 + 2 for everyone but you, until this very moment.

So with a happy smile you answered “Do I like you back? I think I do. I think I really like you, a lot. You dork.”

That seem to put Connor back on track, laughing normally again. The weird tension in the air drifting by, floating with the fireflies to a place you would never know off.

His normal donkey chicken laugh back as he cleaned his drenched hand with his t-shirt. The Sprite can he had crushed before down between his legs. The red hue still stirring on his precious face and you couldn’t resist but move closer, just to give him a peck on the cheek. It wasn’t anything special or spectacular at all, just a small gesture of appreciation. Maybe those nymphs and Aphrodite girls knew what they were gossiping about.

“Glad the Sprite Gods helped your personal thief with the whole romance department.” He wiggled his eyebrows just one more time, before bursting into another set of laughter by your last response.

“You completely ruined the mood by saying that.”

[nevermore117]

🎤 can you share your thoughts on ysme's glamor reveal

yes absolutely, putting it under a readmore

ok so. Still processing everything, bc that was a lot of information at once. I don't think I have anything groundbreaking to say, it's just a deeply fascinating development.

My impression was that her appearance after the chimera crunched her is what she "really" looks like currently and her "normal" appearance is a glamor that she puts up. To me this is heavily implied both during the reveal and at the end of Ch1 where she has a similar appearance and explicitly muses that she doesn't have the energy to put up a glamor.

So let's talk first about 🏳️‍⚧️

There's the obvious (to me) "hey! that's a transgender person!" part of the reveal, this very feminine person having a flat-chested traditionally masc body underneath a glamor. It's not just a one-off thing. This is the second time that she's been really explicitly depicted that way without her being in some kind of heavily stylization, and the first time it's really had a lot of attention drawn to it.

She appeared slightly differently in her original Weird Magic Form, back when she'd just died and before Loic pledged to her, but not that different. Longer hair, but the same silhouette otherwise.

It's not just these two scenes, either, because she's been depicted as being flat-chested multiple times, with the last image below being the most clear and least stylized (the end of Ch1).

We don't know if this is how she looked under her glamor before getting stabbed, but I think that seeing her body before becoming Exalted (and the fact that she's been depicted this way in art outside of the game) feels like a pretty solid basis for me to say this is just what she looks like.

pog

Anyways.

"Of course I had noticed it that morning after her exalted revelry. But seeing her again like this, the resemblance strikes me anew." Loic doesn't specify who the resemblance is to, but we can make a pretty good guess.

What the fuck is up with that?

Even her hair is short here, shorter than the end of Ch1 when her glamor dropped. Her features seem stronger too, though it's hard for me to say if that's just from the lighting and higher detail vs usual sprites. Is she the Builder in some way? Is she related to the Builder, perhaps his twin? Is this somehow just something that happens to people who become Exalted? Who gave Pallisia the right to do this to me?

I don't have enough information to answer these questions, but the thing I'm compelled by is how this kind of blending of the masculine and feminine is a recurring theme in alchemy as a symbol of divinity/perfection.

The Rebis is an allegorical entity representing basically the whole thing that alchemy is working towards - the Great Work, the union of opposites and the reconciliation of matter and spirit, ascending towards divinity by shedding imperfection and impurity. It's essentially the perfect being, represented by an androgynous body with a male and female head.

It's the same theme that Marika and Radagon touch on in Elden Ring, the concept of a masculine and feminine part of a perfect godly whole.

I don't think this is necessarily why it was decided for Ysme to be trans/have a flat-chested body, but it's just something deeply compelling to me personally in combination with the themes of the game so far.

[emblemxeno]

Playing Aria of Sorrow Part 1

-I was on such a streak playing this game that I kinda forgot where I left off cuz I crashed immediately afterwards. I think I'm in a save room in the Underground Reservoir. Anyway.

-GOD, this game is so fucking good

-Soma Cruz... my baby... my confused little schmoopy... he doesn't know nothing...

-It's extremely funny how the international versions wrote the intro text scroll as Soma being a high school exchange student, yet immediately afterwards still have him say Mina is his childhood friend abfasbfasfabsfgas that's NOT how it works, unless he's been an exchange student since childhood lmaooo. They even changed his last name, cuz it was Kurusu in Japanese, like what were they cooking when translating this game.

-Arikado and Yoko set the dial to maximum when it comes to serving so much cunt

-I can't believe Soma called Hammer 'grandpa' he's so funny afbabfasbfaafs

-Also the fact that Soma talked to Graham one time before the latter flipped out later in the game, and Soma was like "but he was so nice!!!" when he told Yoko about it, like baby boy agnasfbasags you spoke with him for like 2 minutes, what DO YOU MEAN???

-This music FUCKS, it MAKES LOVE TO THE EARS. Literally every track in this game so far is so sexy, but special mention to "Prologue-Mina's Theme", "Chapel", "Dance Hall" "Phantom Palace" "Clock Tower", even the Title jingle and the shop theme.

But of course, all of that's topped by "Castle Corridor." Just ughhhh, what a fucking sublime start to an extraordinary soundtrack.

-You can see that the devs really hit their stride here, not having to sacrifice sprite quality or sound this time. Everything is just so good.

-Geography is good, by the time I feel like things get a bit repetitive, things get switched up. Never a dull moment I find. It helps that there's well placed warp points, including one near where Mina and Hammer are, so I can get fully healed and restock my inventory conveniently.

-Challenge is perfect. I said that about Harmony of Dissonance, but I kind of rescind that now. Where Circle was too overtuned and treacherous, and Dissonance was perhaps too easy and prone to breaking, Aria pushes me to my limit in the best way possible. I never feel as if my biggest enemy is my patience like with Circle, nor do I feel effortlessly invincible like with Dissonance. Soma has the necessary tools to clear rooms, mooks, and bosses, but it's down to my skill, reaction time, and resource management to make it count.

Favorite boss so far is probably Headhunter.

-Normally I'd be pressed about RNG based drops for abilities again like in Circle, but I did some research and found that the rates are MUCH better here for souls than they were for the DSS cards, which confirms my assumptions when I was playing. I imagine it'd still be a pain to grind for all the souls, but the game still gives you non-random ones, enough of each type to ensure you can play the game comfortably.

-The souls I do have so far, are all at least fun to experiment with. I gravitate most to the Axe Knight and Lightning Doll right now, but others like the water pistol, flea man, and fire ball have been great too.

-Same goes for the weapons Soma can use. Mostly sword varieties so far, but he also gets hammers and spears, and a chain sword. All very fun to use, though I do like the swords the best.

-I notice there aren't any HP or MP upgrades in the game so far, which I guess makes sense, since the shop is so dynamic and money is very available, so increasing those through items isn't really as imperative to this game's design.

-Julius Belmont PLEASE GIVE ME A CHANCE, I KNOW YOU STILL DON'T REMEMBER YOUR NAME, BUT YOU MUST STILL WANT TO SHARE A BED WITH SOMEONE, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE-