#so he went full goblin mode

[illiana-mystery]

He's so menacing...and so, so hot.

[pythonscrypt]

OLI CLUTCH HOLY HELL

[paarthursass]

Decided I'm done being nice about this btw

I like the rewrites and I like the version of Wyll we got in full release. But the Wyll we had in early access was not a lesser version of the character. He was not poorly written. And I think Larian was being far too generous to the fans when they went "Something about him isn't clicking with players so we need to rewrite his entire character."

That "something" was racism, plain and simple. That's why players weren't connecting with him like they did Astarion or Shadowheart or Gale. I'm sure Larian got complaints about Lae'zel as well - since she's probably the only character I can think of who's just as divisive as Wyll - but they stuck to their guns and trusted that the story they had written for her was a good one. And I wish they'd done so with Wyll, too.

Are there parts about Wyll I prefer in full release to EA? Yes! I'm glad he's less overt about wanting to kill all the goblins, but toning down something like that wouldn't require a full rewrite. Gale was a lot more pompous in EA, and he didn't tell the PC about Mystra and the Netherese Orb until after sleeping with them - both things Larian changed for full release. Making Wyll a little less trigger happy with goblins would not require a full re-haul of his character. I also quite like how he's chasing a fairytale romance now, and how he wants to properly court the PC. But his original romance scene at the tiefling party wasn't in opposition to that in any way, and no one's to say the Wyll we had in EA wouldn't also have had wonderful romance scenes like the dance in Act 2 or the proposal in Act 3.

I do like the Wyll we got in full release, but the fact that he was rewritten last minute shows.

So, yes, I am going to be constantly bitter about people complaining about how Wyll is "boring" to them. People didn't trust that he was going to be a fleshed-out character in early access because he wasn't their white fave, they complained about him so loudly that Larian decided he needed to be rewritten, and now he feels under-developed compared to the other companions because he IS. And yes a good part of the blame falls on Larian for not giving the game the time it needed, for forcing the writers into crunch mode.

But a not insignificant part of the blame also falls on the fandom, because the rewrites were specifically made in response to the fans deciding their least favorite character was the black man.

[cruelfeline]

So, for all of y'all who aren't familiar with Dwarf Fortress, I'm going to explain why it's such a phenomenal game.

Dwarf Fortress is a colony simulator that's been developed by two brothers since 2003. A few weeks ago, it finally released on Steam with a UI that even i can understand. It is the grandfather of things like Rimworld and Minecraft.

So what makes it different from all of the other games in the genre? What makes it different is that it simulates a world beyond your colony. A world with gods, monsters, civilizations... a whole history outside of your colony. A real, living world for you to play in.

I can better explain this by showing y'all what happened to my latest fortress. The one that experienced Wereanteater Armageddon.

My dwarves were having a nice time. I'd just figured out how to build instruments and was outfitting the new tavern properly when-

Surprise! Wereanteater.

Said wereanteater eventually turned back into a goblin and ran off-map, but not before infecting some of my dwarves. Which led to... well...

Absolute massacres every month. With more wereanteaters each time. Which eventually led to...

One lone dwarf, haunted by the ghost of one of the many slain, sitting next to the werecorpse of his last companion. They'd fought to the death the moment they'd last transformed, and he was the survivor. But, of course, he couldn't move.

So! That was that. Fortress destroyed, time to move on. I abandoned the fortress and decided to start anew.

But! Where did our wereanteater come from? What was his story?

In Dwarf Fortress, everything has a story.

So before starting a new fortress, I went ahead and checked the Legends mode: the mode that has the whole history of everyone and everything written out for the player to read.

First, I found my fortress' record, and I scanned down to where the deaths began.

There we go... the attack started with a goblin named Azstrog Terrorhymed. Who is that? Why does he turn into a monstrous anteater?

Here he is, in his entry, biting my dwarf. And... actually beating her to death with Sensedterror Explained, which another entry says is a book he wrote. About some sort of horror-pit he had a nightmare about. Huh.

And looking further back, we can see that, about twenty five years before he came to my fortress, he profaned the Abbey of Shafts in a settlement called Gearedopened. Possibly due to having some bad experiences with gambling and false friendships. This resulted in someone called Ngalak cursing him to become a wereanteater every full moon. And who is Ngalak?

Ngalak is apparently a dwarven god associated with caverns and mountains. And also:

Azstrog wasn't the only creature he's cursed with wereform for profanity! There are at least two others potentially running around. So that's... comforting.

And as for Azstrog? His entry says that he settled in the Fair Mines after dooming my fortress. Checking that entry, we find it to be a lair. A lair that now contains a wereanteater. A wereanteater who was once a goblin who seemed down on his luck and, in a moment of forgetting himself, ended up the object of divine wrath. Which in turn led to the violent deaths of about fifty dwarves in the fortress of Knowring twenty five years later!

This is why Dwarf Fortress is so amazing! There are plenty of games that will introduce an obstacle for your characters to face, but how many will ensure that that obstacle had a whole life of his own prior to ever meeting you?

On second thought, I think I'll reclaim Knowring, rather than starting a new fortress. And I'll bury its many dead, take over its workshops, and see if I can find the Fair Mines.

See if I can find Azstrog Terrorhymed again. See if he's still alive, or if he's met his end one way or another.

But first: time to build dozens of tombs!

[draco-after-dark]

Captured and contained

Little info dump on the whole diamond prison thing with regards to my Feral JD AU

So basically what happened when Velvet and Veneer first captured JD in my au is Veneer is always looking for more animals for his little side zoo project. They happened to be doing a photo shoot outside in the woods for a new album cover. Veneer went on a walk to have some alone time and stumbled across a little goblin boy. Aka JD.

"Oooo aren't you a cute little fella, You would be perfect as desk decoration!"

*JD gets snatched*

Later when Veneer tells Velvet he got a new pet and reveals JD. Her initial reaction is "Okay, but where did you even get that thing it's disgusting." JD proceeds to bite Veneer (multiple times) and wriggle himself free from his hands. He then runs rampant through their dressing room until they manage to contain him in a crystal bottle. The only thing they thought was strong enough to hold him. Later down the line when Velvet captures Floyd (basically the same sequence of events as the movie from here) and starts using him for his talent. That's when they realize that JD is actually a troll as well. JD being JD though is as Velvet described "uncooperative" and "savage" so she refuses to use him for his talent and instead tells Veneer "That one can be yours. You're that one that found that thing anyway." So Veneer does end up using JD for his talent just not nearly as often as Velvet does Floyd. JD does still get hit pretty hard by the whole draining thing considering he is grey and unlike the average troll has in a sense "forgotten/lost" his talent. That doesn't stop him from unleashing hell on the twin every chance he gets. Goblin man will do goblin things

Then things follow the movie pretty much the same except Bruce and Clay end up getting captured when they all break into the dressing room to rescue Floyd. Poppy and Branch end up escaping into the rafters. Velvet ends up sticking Clay and Floyd in her shoulder pads and Veneer gets Bruce. Veneer leaves JD behind in his dressing room because he feels guilty and doesn't want to hurt him any more than he has to.

Fast forward to the family harmony scene where although they are technically down a brother and Floyd is still trapped in Velvet's clutches the 3 brothers and pop sisters sing on anyway. The family harmony DOES end up working to free Floyd and also JD. I'm playing this off on the idea that despite JD not being present physically he could feel the connection to his brothers and their desperation to help Floyd. JD wants the same thing, to free Floyd and that is what connects them all together. It's like Branch said "We don't have to be perfect to be in harmony, We just have to be as we are." (just go with it ok IDK) Once the diamonds are shattered JD is pretty worst for wear, unlike Floyd he doesn't have anyone to support him right off the bat. He is used to being on his own at this point tho and only cares about getting Floyd out. He tucks himself away into a corner of the room behind some furniture to hide and rest up till he can get the both of them out of this hell hole.

Mind you only Floyd knows that he's also being held captive somewhere backstage when all this is happening. So once Floyd regains consciousness and has a chance to take a moment with his brothers. he then immediately goes into full anxiety mode well explaining that they have to get to JD. The others confused about what he's talking about don't believe him at first, but do end up helping Floyd backstage since he keeps insisting that JD needs them. They do end up finding JD and that's where the real story begins.

:D

Hopefully this makes sense? I ain't no writer sorry people

Little bonus scene

"Hey Vel does this look infected to you???"

"I can't believe we're related... CRIMP SCHEDULE A HOSPITAL VISIT BECAUSE MY IDIOT OF A BROTHER GOT BITTEN BY A FUCKING RAT!"

[insertyourselfhere]

Anomaly

Description: You’re doing your usual thing running around saving people, being the friendly neighbourhood Spider that people expect you to be. When you stumble across a goblin that is definitely not from your world. Characters: Gwen Stacy, Y/N , Your Aunt (A/N)

It was another day for you as you swung around, everybody down below yelling out waving at you as you slipped pass them. You stopped suddenly at a water tower and crouched down ready to eat the lunch you had pre packed yourself and stuck to the water tower once you returned from chasing down some bad guys who decided to rob a bank in broad daylight. You had to give it to them for attempting to do that knowing full well you would show up and take them down as you always did.

You sat down on the edge of the water tower legs daggling, with your mask half up as you took a big bite of your sandwich. You watched the kids in the street below playing soccer in the middle of the road baron and empty, the train went by your head as you took in the familiar sounds smiling to yourself. What wasn’t familiar to you though was a loud beeping going off next to you. Springing into action you leapt from the water tower with your back pack and sandwich still in hand taking another bite. A green man wearing a suit on a hovering machine was in front of you cackling as he prepared to throw another bomb.

Taking one more bite of your sandwich you pulled your mask down, threw your bag to the closest wall again sticking it as you dodged another one of those bombs. Your Spidey sense ringing as it missed you but started to fall below to the children who had now stopped playing their game and were looking up towards you and this masked man in front of you.

Your web flew down catching the bomb, using your momentum you threw it back towards the goblin who hit it up towards the sky another eruption going off.

“Look I don’t know who you are and I’ve got to say I wasn’t expecting to see this today, but I have to get back to my studies and I really don’t have time for this today” You said as stood tall on the water tower, or what was left of it.

“Where am I?!” He screamed at you, you were taken back by what he said.

“What do you mean? This is New York?” You said shooting him confused looks under your own mask.

“This looks nothing like New York, is this a joke?” He said, with a step on his glider he took off towards you, spikes coming out of his glider at the front, you leaped up once again avoiding his glider, you shot a web between his legs sticking as he dragged you behind.

“That was a much better idea in my head” You said, he flew over a flock of pigeons and you already knew what was coming.

“Oh no” Sure enough the pigeons all stuck themselves to you, one landing promptly on top of your head leaving a nasty surprise for you later which you watched drip down your spider eyes.

“Ugh gross” You said throwing the rest of it off. You shot another web and pulled yourself closer to the man hitting his back and knocking him off his glider. Before he managed to hit the ground you shot another web saving him in the process and then landing next to him.

“Stop please don’t hurt me” He said cowering in the corner, his demeanour changed, no longer did he have that evil aura about him. You crouched down next to him gently placing your hand on his shoulder.

“Woah hey sorry about that, look you were trying to kill me so my Spidey fight or flight mode switched. Let me help you what’s your name?”

“Norman Osborne” He said looking at you with fair stricken in his eyes.

“Norman Osborne, the billionaire scientist?” You said, he nodded his head agreeing. You let go of the mans shoulder and stood up facing out of the alley you guys had landed in.

“Norman’s been dead now for 5 years, there’s no way this mans…” before you could finish your sentence you felt a sharp pain between your ribs and strong arm wrapped around your neck.

“You’re just as weak as the other Spider-Man I’ve fought” Other Spider-Man? This man had experience, so he must be from another dimension your eyes go wide. You grabbed his hand wrapped around your neck and threw him over your shoulder down the alley, he went to grab his glider a few feet away, you tried stopping him and shot your web but your vision became hazy. You looked back down at your side and saw a knife sitting out of it.

“that’s not supposed to be there” You said, you knelt down to the ground feeling weaker every second, before you passed out though you saw a figure land in front of you, and all you could think of was teal ballet shoes.

You began to gain consciousness once again. You were no longer in the alley but in a strange room you had never seen before, you sat up slowly taking in your surroundings. You were bare from the neck down noticing your mask was still on but the rest of your clothes had been taken off. As you started recollecting your memories you remembered the guy in the alley and went to stand up only to take a fall.

“woah there soldier stand down” Came a soft sweet voice, you looked up and saw the same ballet shows you saw before you passed out completely.

“It was you” You said gesturing to her shoes, she lift her legs gently staring at her shoes with a small smile on her face.

“I don’t know what that means but yes here I am” You sat up on the ground wincing and holding your side, you looked up at your saviour only to see a spider-woman? Her white suit looked amazing you had 50 million questions coming through. Before you could ask any of them your stomach grumbled and you remembered you only had a quarter of a sandwich before that guy came over at attacked you.

She giggled a little and you knew you wanted to hear that sound again. She handed you your bag which had the other sandwiches and you began to scarf them down.

“Nsh to bef rufe buf whf are yof” She looked at you and you could imagine a confused look under the mask, you swallowed down your food, took a massive chug of water and looked back at her.

“Sorry, what I mean to say was do I get a name for the person who saved me?” You asked standing up gently, winching again at the throb that was coming from your side.

“Ahhhhh my name is Ghost Spider, but I guess you can call me Gwen” She took off her hood and you were not expecting her to look anything like that under her hood.

“Gwen, hey, I’m y/n” You took off your mask and watched her face look shocked, she tried to compose herself quickly but it was too late you had noticed.

“Okay well since your much better now, I have to go and catch this guy” She put her mask back on and flew out the window thwhipping away. You ran towards the window about to run after her but looking back down at your ribs you noticed your super healing hadn’t kicked in just yet.

You made your way back home on foot, as it hurt to use any of your limbs. You slid up to your apartment and were greeted with your Aunt.

“Where have you been!?” She yelled as you walked in the door. You gave her a sorry look and walked over to her.

“Sorry A/N I got held up doing some Spider stuff” You said throwing your back pack on the couch and sitting down, another twang of pain going through your body, you lift up your shirt and she gasped.

“Quick to my lab” You ran towards her lab she had stashed in your apartment, one thing you loved about your Aunt apart from the fact that she knew and was so supportive of the Spider-Man stuff was that she was an expert in the health department, which she tried teaching you so you could pick up her mantle. As soon as you entered the lab she pushed you onto the bed and go to work.

“This isn’t good Y/N” She said as she looked at the wound, your body not healing was the biggest red flag for her.

“Okay I’m going to get some of the Spidey serum we have at the moment, hopefully that will multiply your Spidey cells and kick them into over drive to work and start healing you” You nodded as she ran over to her makeshift fridge and pulled out a serum that was a mixture of blue and red. She walked over to you, with the serum in a needle ready to inject.

“This is highly experimental I don’t exactly know what’s going to happen” You nodded at her.

“I have full faith in you A/N” You said grabbing her hand, you laid flat on the bed, she grabbed the needle and plunged it into your arm. As soon as she injected it you began screaming.

“I am so sorry Y/N it should be over soon” As soon as the vial was done she pulled out the needle and took a couple of steps back. The wound on your side healed almost instantly but you were still crying out in pain. Your senses were overloaded, your body convulsing. Until all of a sudden it came to a complete stop and you just laid there motionless.

Your Aunt ran up to your bedside and saw that you were conscious and attentive but was just laying on the bed breathing heavily.

“Gwen’s in trouble” You said as you quickly got off the bed, grabbed another signature Spidey suit and headed out the closest window you could find. As you shot your web out you thanked your Aunt.

“I am so sorry for leaving so quickly but a friend of mine is in trouble…” She kissed your forehead and you swung away.

As you felt the cold air brush against your skin you noticed all your senses were kicked into hyperdrive, you knew exactly where Gwen was and what was happening, long story short she was losing to the Goblin. As you began swing you felt your arms were a bit bigger, you leaped from a tall building and felt your strength much stronger than what it was before. Carrying you a couple more blocks than usual.

“Whatever that stuff was that A/N gave me I feel much stronger, I don’t know what the side effects are but I don’t care I need to save Gwen”

You came up to the docks and heard bombs going off left right and centre, you swung down to the roof trying to keep the element of surprise and saw Gwen shoved against a wall, her mask was half burned off, her body was sliced, battered and bruised. She looked so tired and out of breath. Without even thinking you swung down and kicked goblin off his glider which caused him to drop Gwen. As she dropped you shot out your web catching her hang and springing her back up to you catching her in your arms.

“Sorry I’m late” You said getting her to safety.

“What are you doing here? How did you find me?” She said looking at you.

“I am here to help since you helped me and I could hear where all the fighting was coming from” You said placing her down on the ground, you heard Goblin’s glider start up again and decided to take care of him.

She grabbed your hand before you could take off and pulled you back towards her.

“Be careful please, I can’t lose you again” She said sadness evident in her voice, you looked confused under your mask but gave her a thumbs up as you swung back down.

“Hey Goblin, lets finish off what we started” You yelled out trying to get his attention. His evil maniacal laugh came from the shadows.

“Poor little Spider caught in a web I set” His glider came out from the corner of your eye towards you with no Goblin, you jumped dodging it and shooting a web into one of the shadows. The laugh game again.

“You are all so weak, too busy caring about people and your feelings” You hear him spit out those words with venom etched in his voice.

“Everyone has a weakness Goblin, yours is that ego you have thinking your stronger than everyone because you care about no one” You said shooting your web towards another shadow, once again coming up empty handed.

He laughed once again and you closed your eyes, taking in your surroundings using only our Spidey-Sense to guide you through this fight, the glider started up again and you heard him jump on top of it. Before he could prepare his next attack you had shot your web at him on his glider, pulled yourself towards him and hit him hard. He fell off his glider and slid backwards a few feet. You webbed him up enough that he wouldn’t be able to break out of it, grabbed his glider and split it in half.

“You won’t be hurting anyone else any time soon” You said to him, you saw an orange bracelet out of the corner of your eye, you shot your web towards it and pulled it closer to yourself.

“Gwen are you okay!? Can you hear me?” You ignored the voice but made your way to Gwen who was still in the same position you left her. You sat down next to her an she let out the biggest sigh of relief when she saw you.

“This is yours by the way, I’m not too sure what it is or who it is but they really want to talk to you” You said handing her the bracelet, as you did a face appeared and they looked relief.

“Jess sorry about that he was a bit more than I could handle and he took my watch”

“That’s okay I’m just happy to see that you’re okay”

They spoke for a bit longer but you tuned them out finally taking in the day you had. You could guess from the watch who she was talking to, there’s more of you out there you thought. You smiled and stood up, Gwen watched you intently and you picked her up again.

She pushed shoved your chin causing you to drop her, you looked at her like she grew a second head. Her face was red as she stood up herself.

“I don’t need you to carry me” She said placing her hood over her face, you rolled your eyes.

“I just saved you?” She poked her tongue out at you and started to thwip away.

You followed suite catching up to her.

“Come over to my apartment” You said swinging next to her. She shot you with a web. Causing you to lose your balance and fall. You managed to get a hold of what you were doing and caught back up to her.

“Not like that! My Aunt is big on health stuff she might be able to help with your wounds and that!” You said giving her a look.

“Fine but only because his glider had some weird stuff in it and I’m not healing as quickly as I would normally”

You nodded and took the lead towards your apartment, once you arrived your Aunt was in the kitchen preparing dinner. You slid through the window into the lounge room, Gwen looked at you like you grew a second head yourself and you walked right up to your Aunt and gave her a hug.

“I’m back from saving my friend” You said grabbing some bread from the counter, your Aunt slapped your hand and you skulked away. Gwen made her way into the apartment giving you a confused look.

“She knows about me, its cool, she’s helped me out so many times” You said grabbing the same bread but with your web.

“Hey Honey! You look a bit beat up lets see what we can do for you” Your aunt said grabbing Gwen’s hand and heading towards the Lab.

“Although your wound isn’t as severe as Y/N’s this should help out slightly with the toxins in your body” She gave Gwen a drink, it looked a lot less intense from the one you had. Gwen drank the contents of the vial and immediately her wounds began to heal.

“Thanks’ A/N” She said with the biggest smile on her face, her face was immediately replaced by sorrow. Your Aunt looked at her.

“I’m assuming you already knew me before our little encounter today” Gwen nodded her head.

“In my world where I’m from we were very close” Gwen said looking at your Aunt. At this point you had headed towards the Lab to see what was taking them so long and didn’t expect these turn of events.

“I lost both of you to a freak accident, it was Prom, we were going, you were our chaperone, me and Y/N were going together” She blushed as she mentioned this, you were still hanging back wanting to leave so you didn’t over step your boundaries but you needed to hear this story. You folded your arms leaning against the wall with your eyes closed.

“One of my other friends Peter had been bullied his whole life, create a serum that turned him into a lizard to get back at the bullies. He went to attack them, and I had to go into full Spider mode. I didn’t know it was him but I stopped him, as soon as the commotion was over the roof had collapsed and it trapped us all in it. Peter didn’t make it, I went searching for you both in the rubble and saw that you both were under the rubble, no movement no nothing. My Father is the captain of the police force and tried to arrest me, ever since then I’ve just been hurting and now you’re both here” But you’re not, you’re completely different people from the people she knows. You pushed yourself off the wall and headed into the lab watching your Aunt and Gwen stand there both.

Your Aunt pulled her into a hug seeing the hurt she had been carrying all this time, you stayed back not wanting to interfere again because once again this girl you had just met this morning and she had a whole history with you.

While they were hugging a portal opened up next to her, out come Jessica Drew, the lovely lady you heard on the other end of the watch.

“Mission successful, I just snagged the Goblin from the port thanks to Hobie’s help.” Gwen looked surprised to see Jessica.

“What are you doing here!?” She asked confused, Jessica smiled and threw something towards you.

“We can always use more Talent” She said, with a smirk. “Miguel was impressed with your work and wants you to join, I wouldn’t say no by the way it’s a little hard to convince him to get people to join” As she said that a face appeared in her watch.

“No it isn’t , I took no convincing to let Y/N join, the clearly had the skills…” As Miguel kept going on about his decision Jessica disappeared into her portal and it closed.

You looked confused but Gwen held her arm up towards you and smiled. You looked towards your Aunt who rolled her eyes and pushed you towards Gwen, Gwen opened a portal and held her hand towards you.

“Y/N, You got a minute” You grabbed onto it and she pulled you through the portal.

[tuituipupu]

i cannot even begin to record how insane today has been like my mind has fully been blown i just ;;;;

- everyone has been saying they’re supporting my country and wishing me luck (wearing finnish flag, ppl come up to me speaking finnish)

- taxi driver fully shouted: “MITÄ KUULU?!” @ me as I was walking back to the hotel and i just gesticulated wildly and couldn’t stop laughing

- bumped into luke black on the street near the cavern club and got a picture

- got a picture with marco mengoni just as he left his hotel to perform at the eurovision village

- near the front of the eurovision village for marco mengoni full set (screamed: SE È QUESTA L’ULTIMAAAAAAAAA)

- met up with finns i met the other day, & they told us more euroclub tickets were available on the door (400 tickets)

- turns out there were only 100 and we stuck out the brisk Liverpool evening air queueing on foot for 2 hours

- got yelled “Shalom” at in the queue because an israeli thought my finland flag was Israel folded up.

- the same man also brought our front of queue area Coca Cola and brownies - I took a cola bottle it was so kind 💛

- made mutuals with a helsinki finn who was behind us in the queue trying to get tickets

- i’m in Liverpool with my dad because my sister had to complete her studies and couldn’t come and everyone said my dad was so kind for coming to see käärijä at euroclub with me and that they want to be ADOPTED BY HIM?!?!

LMAOAOAMWOWKSOAKSKSK ?!-!&/@/‘!!

- so yeah. käärijä was up first in the euroclub lineup and i went feral goblin mode and now i am back at my room again.

…. trying to process this all rn besties 🫡🤠

[deadmomjokes]

Betwixt Christmas gift cash and Steam Family Sharing workaround shenanigans, the husband and I have finally started Baldur's Gate 3.

Went in basically blind except for knowing the names of the companions and the fact that Astarion is a vampire (couldn't miss that cultural osmosis).

We also came in on two different meta-levels as players.

He is very familiar with D&D, D&D-based games, computer games in general, and these sorts of games specifically. He's also that kind of person that plays things on Extreme Difficulty Mode for fun. He quits when something isn't challenging enough. His idea of relaxing, rewarding gameplay is ultra-hard-mode Elden Ring and Dark Souls.

I, on the other hand, am bad at games. Full stop. I have lost Wii Mario Kart to a 6 year old, repeatedly. I get hopelessly lost even when there's detailed maps, trackers, compasses, and flagged waypoints. I also panic in combat situations and have no strategic ability aside from "stand there, hit it, and hope it doesn't move." I'm more of a low-stakes visual novel sort of gamer. Stardew Valley is as intense as I get.

He is playing a Seldarine Drow warlock in a pact with an archfey. She's a noble with a ridiculously high Charisma score, a perfectly balanced spell loadout, and an even more balanced overall stat build. She's DPS without being totally squishy and helpless, and has advantage to almost everything. She also has an impeccable fashion sense and always looks put together, even when on death's door to a brain worm. Or, to put it in a way my husband would loathe, she got that drip.

I am playing a ginger himbo of a high elf fighter with -1 to Charisma and a -1000 to common sense. He's an impulsive maniac with, somehow, a +3 to intimidation despite being a truly gentle soul that believes every sob story he comes across. He's a sweaty, dusty, grubby little feral child (outlander background) with the world's messiest ponytail and greasepaint-turned-eyeliner that a 90s ex emo kid would be proud of. And that's him trying to look presentable. Despite having an impressive dexterity score, my natural disadvantage to dexterity (and Wisdom and Intelligence) as the player makes it so that this man bumbles his way into everything and only gets out by making horrifying threats he has absolutely no intention of following up on, or by being forced to stand his ground and take it on the jaw.

So this was going to be An Experience no matter what. And boy, it sure has been.

Thus far, we have:

Accidentally pacifism'd our way into every Goblin/Absolute aligned settlement we've encountered on the pure luck of husband's choice to play a Drow because he thought it would add an interesting dynamic. That interesting dynamic, he thought, would be difficulty. He thought being a Drow would make it harder because of the general hatred toward them. He's technically good-aligned, but, y'know, planet-of-hats racism means he was expecting it to work against him, which he likes because he likes when things are hard. Only now it's basically a free pass into all the areas we'd normally have to fight or sneak into. Great for our shared pacifist tendencies, but LOL

Lost a full hour of progress because my computer screen is tiny and bad at graphics and I hadn't learned all the controls yet, so while trying to investigate a hole in the floor of an abandoned church I tripped in face-first and got us into an unescapable, imminent-TPK situation, whereupon the game immediately autosaved for the first time since waking up on the beach. We have since learned to spam the quicksave button liberally.

Accepted a ton of mutually exclusive quests, half of which we have no intention of doing, just to try and get out of situations without combat, so now the mini map now looks like a cubist rendition of a simple sun drawing and I'm SO worried it's going to come crashing down and get us shanked in our sleep.

MET BEST BOY DOGGO I WILL DIE FOR SCRATCH 😭

Discovered husband's character is, build wise, a carbon-copy of Wyll. This was 100% unintentional and he's BIG mad about it LOL RIP

Impulsively pushed a button in a crypt without saving and woke up a bunch of skellies we weren't prepared for, but were somehow also saved by that same impulsivity because I had previously run around the entire area and looted every single skeleton no matter how useless it was to my character, so they all woke up without their weapons so HAH take that I TOLD YOU being a klepto would pay off

Immediately after this fortuitous stroke of fate, having learned exactly nothing, my impulsive maniac opened the shiny sarcophagus before consulting anyone or healing. Luckily it wasn't cursed or trapped or full of enemies (it was Withers, and I'm love), but I'm now not allowed to open or interact with anything bigger than a crate without announcing it first so husband has the chance to go NO WAIT LET ME SAVE FIRST

Sneaked into a secret underground passage, whereupon my husband sent his invisible'd familiar around to carefully scout the area, discovering the button that would turn off the overpowered guardian statue. My character then readied a crossbow shot to hit said button, but in trying to move out of the way of the other party members, stepped right into the statue's attack circle. I panicked, tried to move, but couldn't figure out how to unselect the attack I could no longer use, and tried to fix it by pausing. But all of that just resulted in me standing there, doing nothing, until I finally dropped dead. Luckily I passed my saving throws, and more luckily still, my husband managed to stop laughing long enough to eldritch blast the statue to pieces and come get me.

So anyway, we're having the best time. I know we're late to the party, but it really is so good. I may have even teared up a little during the dream sequence with the psychedelic neon light guardian warriors. This is going to consume my brain for the next few months, and I'm happy to have paid for the privilege. 10/10, absolutely deserves that GOTY and the $60 price tag both.

No spoilers please, we're only level 3 and just encountering the Goblin Camp. (We've met everyone but Karlach, I believe.) But rest assured, as we learn and discover more I will come yelling and seeking those who will screech with me. Probably mostly about my new sons that I've acquired, namely the lying purple sadsack trash wizard with some horrifying kind of chronic illness and/or addiction, and the prettiest most specialist murder machine who definitely won't admit it but is definitely gonna need a hug when I finish breaking down those obviously performative emotional walls.

Also, Lae'zel scares me. Please stop yelling at me, you cranky fish woman, I'm trying my best here 😭

[sweet-s0rr0w]

My first Five Faves of the year. It's been A While, I know. I have drafts for others in the pipeline, and then @oknowkiss went and posted two bangers within a couple of weeks and it all went out the window because I just had to go all oknowrec, ya know? Look, whenever I read anything that I ADORE, the first people to hear about it are always my buddies @tackytigerfic and @sitp-recs - and you know I mean it when it's full on caps lock raving DMs - see also @wolfpants' The Hollow and @moonflower-rose's Pissing For England (reclists for both authors hopefully coming soon!) I swear I must have spent a full week going on about the first Elaine fic I read, any day now. I mean, truly, I went through all the emotions with that one: elation at finding such an amazing author, grief at my own inadequacy, anger that it was over - it was a rollercoaster, believe me.

Elaine's turn of phrase is always spot on, her inventiveness in world-building is second to none, and her fics somehow seem to retain this fabulous lightness of tone that keeps things just on the right side of heartbreakingly raw. She's undeniably hugely talented, and now has a fabulous AO3 back-catalogue for you to sink your teeth into, so please waste no more time in checking out her fics!

Read oknowkiss' work here on AO3!

💋 Historians (E, 30k, fake relationship, Gryffindors (and some hangers on), bad skiing, bunk beds, hot tubs, getting together)

Summary: It’s the Dumbledore’s Army Reunion Holiday, and Harry’s found himself in hot water with his friends once again, after telling them he has a boyfriend he definitely does not have. In an attempt to fix things, he’s made it his colleague on Level Nine, Draco Malfoy’s problem too. Featuring a ski chalet in Switzerland, a pair of bunk beds, and an agreement that should’ve been simple, were it not for all the bloody feelings getting in the way.

💋 in between two tall mountains (there's a place they call lonesome) (E, 8.3k, Relic Chaser Harry, researcher Draco, campervans, treasure hunting in Oregon, inappropriately timed wanks)

Summary: In the shadow of a mountain on the Oregon coast, there may or may not lie a shipwreck, on which there may or may not be a magical relic, lost hundreds of years ago. Harry's been tasked with finding it, and Draco is there to take notes, and they're stuck in a campervan pretending to be married, and it's all going to be just fine. That's what Draco's gotten rather good at telling himself, anyway.

💋 any day now (E, 17k, prisoner Draco, Auror trainee Harry, secret codes, a feelings puppet, morally grey everything and everyone)

Summary: Draco supposes he should be grateful. 

The rehabilitation centres were the Minister’s idea, or that’s what the Prophet said anyway. Their stated objective is simple: to provide a safe space for low-tier Death Eaters and high-tier sympathisers to reconsider the entirety of their life choices. All guests–because no one is a prisoner here, the literature brags–are to be provided with shelter, food, clothing, and the guided support of a Mind Healer via a programme they call “ideological restructuring,” which is, of course, mandatory. 

OR: Draco Malfoy considers the circle.

💋 draco malfoy's substitute murder service (E, 11k, curse breaker Harry, various incredible mythological monsters, Christmas)

Summary: When Harry joins the Curse Breakers shortly after his twenty-fifth birthday, he’s surprised to find himself assigned to the Department of Creatures, Cryptids, and Associated Calamities.

OR: the one where Draco goes goblin mode, and Harry has a thing for monsters.

💋The July Tree (E, 52k, Eighth Year, Greenhouse Four, Draco Malfoy does Muggle Scotland, The Who, First Times)

Summary: Neither rain, nor snow, nor sleet, nor hail… nor well-meaning friends, nor questionable communication skills, nor seven years of hating each other’s guts can keep Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy from falling in love.

OR: It’s Eighth Year, and Harry Potter has detention. What else is new? Well, since you asked: Greenhouse Four and the Tree of Life, for a start, and then there’s the new shared Eighth Year common room, and Harry’s sexuality, and these pesky dreams he keeps having about a blond man pushing him into things…

Previous Five Favourite Fic Posts: thestarryknight | vukovich | fwooshy | lq_traintracks (and 10 more) | tackytiger (and microfics) | m0stlyvoid | peachpety | magpie_fngrl | shiftylinguini | onbeinganangel | veelawings | shealwaysreads | loveglowsinthedark | birdsofshore | maesterchill | frayach | graymatters | bixgirl1 (part one/part two | skeptique)

[silvertherogue715]

Hey. It's been a hot minute since i've posted any art. I really just post for myself, but i felt especially proud of the progress ive made over the course of (many) months designing the Sunstar of my BrainrotAU. Feel free to disregard! I'm just gonna ramble. Art will be included in the 'keep reading' section though.

I didn't want to deal with uploading the actual art files, and just used snippet to capture pieces of my art instead. The pictures could be irregularly large or small as a result--I don't have a good way to control then when using snippet. Sorry! Some old art of Sunstar.exe (not in order):

So, as you can see above, a lot of blue. It's kind of overpowering, honestly, and it took me a while to figure out I needed to start making changes to his color palette.

This was his first half body reference sheet. A ton of blue. Also my only REF of him with his back showing. I haven't updated his back design yet, but the final product will be much different.

Eventually, I decided to make his shoulder-braiser things orange instead of blue, as well as the sun-like gem on his helmet. I also started working out any built-in flaws I wanted to force his character to work around--like his hands being constantly on fire, or extremely hot. This just means he has to be extremely careful touching anything or anyone. It's not something he can just "turn off". Also, I think this was my first attempt at a proper full body design for him. It's fine for a second first attempt, and I was happy with it for a few months, but eventually I started thinking it shared the bulky OG robot master traits, rather than the 'netnavi' look I was wanting.

I started tinkering with his colors again, but only made minor changes. It was hard to pinpoint exactly what was 'off' to me without a proper full body to experiment on, but I very rarely have the willpower to make one. Some of these expression snippets were more helpful for me to use to at least get a read on exactly how expressive he can be in the AU, if he wanted to. Another big thing this helped me realize was how limited his expressions felt with the current colors (like his eyelashes), especially with how dark his face was. It made his nose/mouth harder to see. I end up making it a lighter shade in future doodles. Oh, and I wanted to start integrating pieces of Duo.exe's design into him as well--like the flat nose.

Woe, Sunterra doodle be upon ye. I need to finish this some day, but a big thing this helped me identify were: 1.) I desperately need to work on poses. 2.) I needed to figure out how to give Sunstar a "soft" look. In the expressions practice above, this was one of his faces i really struggled to get down. Still working on that. 3.) Another reminder he was too clunky to match a normal Navi design. Terra looks much more 'navi'-like. I needed to do a whole ass reboot for Sunstar from top-down. Anyway! The most recent stuff will be below. A few (bad) attempts:

And then I basically went "screw it" and went goblin mode at a full body attempt. Here's what I finally ended up with :")

For now I've decided to stick with a (mostly) cool/silver base with some warm orange and yellows mixed in in (hopefully) unobtrusive ways. Maybe this will change in the future, but for now I'm happy with his design :)

The orange on the bottom of his cape is meant to be a fire-y design, but I'm too tired to refine it (or anything else) further. Hopefully I'll have more art to update. eventually.

If you made it this far, thanks for sticking around, lol.

[seeminglyseph]

Dragged my party through the mud of the swamp to out Kahga as a dark Druid and convince her she was being a dumb bitch while I was fucking around and trying out a Durge playthrough to see what that was like. Now the grove is chill significantly earlier than like everything else. I feel like I should redo it a bunch though because I missed out having Astarion be present for me lying and manipulating my way through a bunch of shit and he potentially could be very inspired. Also he could potentially be there for some murder and I think he might be really pleased to be present for that.

Also because I’m going all different angles at things I ended up finding Karlach by myself way earlier than I usually do, because there’s the ladder in Zevlar’s room and with feather fall you can jump down and go talk to her, but then the rest of my party didn’t follow. The fuckers. So I had a chat with her alone and then went and got the waypoint so I could fast travel to the paladins. Then it’s honestly not hard to take out that crew when you come back with a full party. Double especially if you like. Just play dirty and sneak in the top way and ambush them. Already agreed to murder them anyway and all. That might be combining two playthroughs but now I’m wondering what madness Dark Urge Pyrite would bring. That man is already chaotic neutral at best.

Given the little hints of stuff in Durge I’ve seen now I’m just fully desperate to shift my Durge playthrough to Dark Timeline Pyrite and also make him full Drow for the stat boost to potentially get through the goblin levels faster. I’m feeling so sick and overwhelmed right now, part of me is really vibing with the idea of popping in easy mode full Wizard Hubris Durge Pyrite playthrough. I won’t say I’m committed to like. An *evil* playthrough. Just a *manipulative* playthrough. And the concept that sometimes selfishness can involve being convinced to care about something and being like “this thing is mine and when that thing becomes mine I won’t let any harm come to it because I don’t like harm coming to my things. I will protect my things jealously and make sure that they are the happiest and healthiest they can be. Do not become an enemy of my things, it is to become an enemy of me and I will come at you with all of my wrath.” That sort of idea of a “Hero Villain” type of character…

[cupparosielee]

OK, so I reckon Smeagol is honestly just an undiagnosed neurodivergent who lived alone for too long and forgot how to people.

He lived in his little cave singing away to himself, talking to the other him in his head, happily ignoring the world as he found his own little routine.

Then the hobbits come along and ruin it.

Bilbo tricks him, and he has a meltdown about it (completely fair imo). He fucks with his system and interrupts his life and steals his shit.

Smeagol has vocal stims, physical stims, he has safe foods and an aversion to new foods and new textures. He has his own little language quirks that people find weird but make sense to him. He doesn't like change. He doesn't like when people break the rules and try to trick him. He has meltdowns.

Smeagol is just a neurodivergent who went full goblin mode, and having lived alone and undiagnosed, I honestly get it.

[avatorofthelonely]

Have we ever had any explicit clarification of the source of income for characters other than Martin and Georgie? As far as I can tell Jon has the most economic power out of the main recurring cast but Tim was once mentioned if I remember right playing certain types of sports that require a certain amount of money so he's most likely fine too. Melanie had a roommate until she went full goblin mode and Basira mentioned in some of her statements that her house wasn't "fancy" and that's all I can remember so far.

So as far as Tim is concerned, Jon remarks at some point during one of his supplementals in season two (don’t remember which off the top of my head) that after getting his anthropology degree, he spent a bit of time successfully climbing the latter at a publisher before he did his 180 (because Danny died) and becoming a researcher at The Magnus Institute. I imagine if he was successful and being a single guy who doesn’t have to provide for anyone else — Tim probably has a decent amount of money left over from that and is actually probably the most wealthy of the original archives gang.

That said — I don’t think any of them are extraordinarily wealthy and all come from working class backgrounds.

Jon does probably have the highest salary out of the starting four for sure simply because he’s the head archivist but he’s still probably not making bank. Once again, considering he’s a single man, he’s probably comfortable.

I assume because the way TMI seems to work, being an archival assistant probably comes with a bigger pay check than being a researcher at the institute. That’s said, again, they’re not making a ton and are probably making comfortable wages. Academia, especially in the humanities doesn’t pay a lot typically but TMI does has a lot of donors and generational wealth behind it so I imagine the assistants are doing okay.

As for Melanie, it all depends on how much Ghost Hunt UK was making and how much production cost. She could also just not be a super lavish person and her having a roommate doesn’t meant much as far as her wealth because it’s entirely possible that she didn’t want to live alone or something. That said, she is probably objectively the most wealthy of the archival gang overall. She owns a house (unless she rents it but I have no way of knowing whether or not that’s the case), which even if it’s not lavish, being able to afford that whereas the others just have flats indicates to me that she at least has a decent amount of savings.

Before the institute, Daisy and Basira are making cop salaries which is simply not a lot.

[hellfiremunsonn]

Smashing Pumpkins. Eddie Munson x Reader

Smashing Pumpkins.

I DO NOT ALLOW MY WRITING TO BE REPUBLISHED ANYWHERE OTHER THAN MY OWN BLOG WITHOUT MY CONSENT

SUMMARY: basically ur a little shit and wont let him help you even though you’re definitely struggling and he keeps asking you to give him the knife but ur just in full goblin mode and wont let him and then you cut yourself a little, and hes like SEEE!!!

18 + IF YOU ARE NOT 18 OR OLDER DO NOT READ OR INTERACT WITH MY WRITING. IT IS NOT INTENDED FOR MINORS. I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR THE MEDIA YOU CONSUME.

Warnings: fem!reader, little bit of ditsy!reader, Eddie being the sweetest boyfriend, hospital, stitches, blood (reader slices her thumb pretty badly) a doctor (cause ya know, ur in the hospital) IF I MISSED ANYTHING ELSE LET ME KNOW 

 Word count: 1876

You’re sat in the middle of Eddies living room. Newspaper and a big black garbage bag surround you from where you say, legs splayed out into a V with a very large pumpkin in between them. You wanted to do something really cool and surprise Eddie with it when he came home from work, but the fucker came home early, ruining any chance of surprise. You were elbow deep into the pumpkin, pulling out the cold squishy insides and letting them splat onto newspaper next to you when he walked through the door.

He choked on the song he was humming, slightly startled at your presence, and even more so to see the giant pumpkin between your legs.

“Eddieeee!” You whined, tipping your head back. “You weren’t supposed to be home yet!”

He laughed, setting his things down on the counter before turning to you. “I mean I can leave if that’s what you want?” He said teasingly, thumb pointed to the door behind him.

“No, you can stay” You said mumbling, trying to hide your smile “But you ruined the surprise” You said with a pout, continuing with the squishy insides.

“Was the surprise the giant pumpkin in your lap?” He said shuffling towards the sink in the kitchen, washing his hands thoroughly of any left over grease and dirt from work.

“It might have been” you mumbled. “Well technically it was gunna be the jackolantern I’m turning it into, so you can’t look till it’s done okay?” You said picking up the large kitchen knife next to you and pointing it at him.

He laughed, putting his hands up in surrender, coming over to you, feet balanced on either side of the carpet not covered by pumpkin mess, as he leaned down to kiss you on the forehead.

You giggled. “You look like you’re playing a weird game of twister”

Eddie laughed, tipping his head back and almost losing his balance. “I’m gunna change, please don’t hurt yourself while I’m not in the room” He said with a pointed look.

“I’ve made it this far Munson, I think I can manage” you said smiling.

He rolled his eyes and left, a very dramatic “mhmm” leaving his lips as we went.

You continued gutting your pumpkin until you were satisfied with it’s mostly clean insides, and started on carving it. You really didn’t know what to put on it, and you didn’t really have the artistic abilities, to do something more creative, so you decided on making the pumpkin look as silly as possible. An all too happy pumpkin to sit outside of the Munsons home. You laughed to yourself as you started on its eyes, classic triangles.

When Eddie came back out, you had the pumpkin as close to you as you could get it, practically under your chin as you concentrated on guiding the knife back and forth through its thick skin.

Eddie audibly cringed when he saw the way you were handling the knife. “Baby can I do that for you?” He asked sweetly.

“M'fine Eds I got it” You said huffing, blowing a few strands of hair away from your face.

He tapped his fingers on his thighs. “What about using a smaller knife? It might be easier” he said taking a step towards you, slowly like you were a small animal that was going to get spooked at any sudden movement.

“They don’t cut as well as this one” You said with a grunt, the knife finally going through to the other side.

“You’re going to hurt yourself” arms crossed, like a parent scolding a child.

You looked up at him through your lashes. “You look like Steve” You said with a smirk, and he immediately dropped his hands to his sides, shoving them into his pockets. 

“Can I please do it for you?” He almost begged.

“If you take one more step I will stab you I swear” You said laughing, holding the knife up to point it at him again, a harmless threat because in actuality you would never hurt that soft boy intentionally. “I know how to use a Knife Edward, I’m not gunna hurt myself, I’ve carved a pumpkin with much worse”

Cringing at his full name he huffed. “Cause that’s exactly what I need to hear to reassure me of your safety” He said rolling his eyes and turning towards the kitchen.

You mocked him in a high pitch voice before stabbing the knife into the pumpkin once more “You worry too much, I’m very mu- Shit” You cut yourself; sliced the side of your thumb from where your hand was holding the pumpkin steady, the knife slipping out a little too much with your last pull, slicing the meaty side of your thumb. Dropping the knife haphazardly you wrapped your hand around your thumb with a whimper, afraid to look at the damage.

“You cut yourself didn’t you?” Eddie said coming to your side quickly.

“N-no” You stuttered, eyes big and watery, bitting down on your bottom lip.

“Can I see?” he asked softly, tentative hands on top of yours. Looking down you saw blood dripping down the palm of your hand and your heart beat quickened slightly. Letting go of your thumb slowly, your hand sticky with the warm substance, you realized you cut yourself a lot deeper than you thought. You shoved your hand back around your thumb tightly, doing a breathing exercise to try to keep yourself calm. Eyes back on Eddies, his softened at your expression, one hand coming to cup your cheek, brushing away the tears that began rolling down your flushed cheeks. “Hey you’re okay baby, were gunna wrap it up nice and tight, and just take a little trip to the emergency room okay?”

You whimpered and shook your head ‘no’ in response, words stuck in your throat, unable to get anything coherent out.

“It’ll be okay, promise” he said standing up and walking into the kitchen, returning to the floor next to you with a baby blue tea-towel in hand. “Here, c'mon, we gotta wrap your hand up babe” when you hesitated to give him your hand, afraid of losing more blood.

“I’ll be quick yeah?” He said reaching one of his hands out. You took a deep breath, leaning towards him and freeing your thumb from your hand, looking away while he swiftly wrapped the towel around it. He grabbed your other hand, bringing it back to your now wrapped hand, and squeezed your fingers, encouraging you to hold the towel tightly in place. You winced a little, a few more tears escaping when you finally opened your eyes.

“Alright up you get” Eddie said holding onto your elbows while you leaned them into his palms, steadying yourself as you stood up. Helping you into your shoes, Eddie knelt in front of you, quick fingers looping the old laces of your converse, wrapping one of his sweaters over your shoulders and leaning you to his van. Hopping up onto the ledge with you he made sure you were safe in your seat, leaning over you to buckle in your seatbelt before heading to the drivers side.

The wait wasn’t as long as you thought it might have been, and by the time a doctor finally saw you, your thumb had mostly stopped bleeding. Still from it being so deep, the doctor decided to give you two stitches, knowing it would heal faster this way.

“Alright if you would just turn your head, maybe look at your boyfriend there, I’m going to numb your thumb so I can stitch you up”

“Oh god” You mumbled, turning to Eddie, your free hand holding tightly onto the fabric of his shirt, in the centre of his chest. He brought both of his hands to yours, warm and large as they wrapped around it.

“You got this babe, it’ll be quick don’t worry” He leaned forward to kiss you on the forehead, his subtle attempt to loosen the tightness of your furrowed brows, creasing in the middle.

You felt the doctor take your hand, almost as gently as Eddie had touched it earlier, but you could tell it was more strategic verses being comforting.

“If you could just take in a nice deep breath for me” The doctor said calmly, and you did as you were told. Inhaling deeply, almost hurting your lungs with how much air you pulled in you groaned at the sharp pinch in your thumb, clenching your teeth together and leaning forward until your head rested on Eddies chest, just above your still clenched fist.

“Jesus, fuck, christ, shit, bitch, tit that hurts” You spat out the words, mostly muffled by Eddies chest. He tried not to laugh at your choice of expletives and how your feet were stomping quickly on the white tiled floor.

Within less than a minute, you were stitched back together, and wrapped up with a now comically large white gauzed thumb. You felt stupid, a little embarrassed, and a bit hungry. Unusually quiet on the drive home until Eddie turned to you briefly, before looking back at the road. “What’s up buttercup?”

Tears welled up in your eyes, and you felt silly for being emotional about it; maybe it was the adrenaline wearing off but still. “M'sorry” You said quietly.

Eddie turned to you again, a few times in a row to take in your expression while still driving safely. “You’ve got nothing to be sorry for my love” he reached over with one hand, petting the hair away from your face, hand resting gently on the back of your head. You turned to face him, cheek pressing agaisnt the skin of his wrist.

“You don’t think I’m stupid?”

He snorted. “Hardly, you’ve hurt yourself in weirder ways”

“Never needed stitches though” You said with a pout, very much feeling sorry for yourself. “Oh god did I leave blood in your house? What if Wayne sees it and thinks you really did kill someone this time, oh no”

Eddie laughed hard at that one, it was loud and throaty, his hand returning to the steering wheel as he turned back down the road of the trailer park. “You know he wont be home until way later, and besides, you really didn’t bleed all that much, just a little much”

“Just a little much?” You repeated with a smile, cheeks sticky from leftover tears.

Eddie held up two fingers, his index and his thumb giving you a visual of how much blood actually came out. You rolled your eyes at him and laughed, unclipping your seatbelt and sliding out of his van, being extra cautious of your thumb, holding it against your chest for maximum protection.

Coming around to your side of the van, Eddie wrapped his arm around your shoulder, leading you back to the trailer. “Can I help you carve the damn thing now?” he asked, opening the door and letting you in first.

“Nah, I think we should smash it, I’m mad at it now” You said staring at the pumpkin through slitted eyes, hoping it could sense your hatred through your look.

“Smashing pumpkins huh? Sounds metal, I’m in” He said with a grin.

[meadowmines]

OC-Tober/Tojoctober Day 16: Bond

[In which Chiba decides this "Amano" guy is pretty okay or; Yakuza game dudes bonding while they punch, same as it ever was]

Chiba wasn't real sure about this guy at first but now, he thinks as they're fighting some of the dumbest punks in Sotenbori... yeah. They're gonna be real good buddies.

Now, it's not like Chiba ever actively disliked Aoya--Amano. And he's pretty sure that goes both ways. Sure, sure, Amano freaked out and kinda went full feral goblin on him and maybe kinda tried to strangle him when they first met but to be fair, the little dude had just had about the shittiest week a dude can have and still be on the green side of the grass. Chiba sure doesn't hold that against him. He definitely doesn't hold it against him when he hears just how shitty that week really was.

His own boss, for fuck's sake. For, as far as Amano knows, no reason at all. Can you imagine? Chiba's seen his boss go beast mode in a serious fight or two and he can't even imagine Nishitani pulling that kinda backstabbing bullshit. Hell, he can't even imagine the old man doing it to one of his own. At the very least, the old man and the younger both would have the stones to look you right in the eye while they shank you...

Those first couple days after Amano woke up were... not exactly warm and friendly, were they? Amano was pissed off at the whole world and wasn't shy about showing it and again, Chiba sure doesn't hold it against the guy. He's sure it didn't help that the boss wouldn't let him out of the office. Something something making sure nobody tracked him here, whatever. For the record, Chiba gets that, but he didn't have to like it. Ain't right keeping a man locked up when he didn't do shit to deserve it, y'know?

But that's all water under the bridge and Chiba is really starting to like this guy.

Chiba doesn't know what, exactly, the conversation was about. All he knows is that yesterday--now look, this is all secondhand bits and pieces so take it with a nice big old grain of salt--yesterday the boss made some snarky little comment to the effect that if Amano was feeling better and he was really that bored, he could clean the office. And again, Chiba didn't hear this in person but the guy who saw this go down quoted Amano as saying something along the lines of joke's on you, I'm into that shit, at which point Amano just started scrubbing the absolute bajeezus out of the whole office (is that what color the tile in the can's supposed to be!?) while the boss looked on like he didn't know what the fuck kinda can of worms he just popped open. And then Amano made some snarky little comment at the boss that nobody else quite picked up, but whatever it was...

Long story short, the boss disappeared into his office looking like someone walked over his own grave. Amano went up there a few minutes later looking like he meant to clean there next. And then the door closed and Amano and the boss spent an uncomfortably long time in there with the door shut and when they came out, it was crystal fuckin' clear they had come to some kind of Mutual Understanding and they were talking about shogi and shit and also Sugihara was in the common room hooking one of his doohickeys up to the TV.

So, that was last night. Earlier this morning, the boss decided it oughta be safe to maybe let Amano outside for a little bit. With at least four Kijin men, or three Kijin men and Sugihara, whatever, and the boss is real clear that he's to stay on this side of the river for now, but hey.

Which brings us to where we are right now: the certifiable dumbest punks in Sotenbori actually for real trying to shake down three actual for real yakuza (Chiba and a couple of grunts he brought along) and two ex-actual-for-real yakuza (Amano and Sugihara) right here in the middle of the street in the broadest possible daylight and, even worse, standing between them and Amano's very first bona fide Osaka grub experience.

"So, uh... Chiba-han," Amano starts as he eyes the bunch of punks closing in on them, and Chiba makes another mental note to ask this guy later how the hell he's been in Sotenbori for all of a week and he's already picking up Kansai-ben. "What's the protocol here? We supposed to avoid throwin' hands, or what? 'Cause I'm havin' a bad week and I'm pissed off about it and these chuckleheads are right here."

The boss, Chiba thinks smugly, said not one goddamn word about not throwin' hands. In fact, Chiba thinks smugly, the boss said... kind of the opposite. Not to go out looking for trouble, you understand, but if trouble just happened to find them... Follow his lead for now, the boss said. I suspect he'll handle himself just fine.

"Eh," Chiba says, cracking his knuckles and his neck. "Okonomiyaki ain't exactly a light meal. I could stand to burn a calorie or two before we dig in."

"You could stand to burn more than that," Sugihara needles. Chiba snorts out a laugh because this is just how they are. "Your call, Amano."

"My call, huh." Amano cracks his own knuckles and squares up. A wide, sturdy stance, like a grappler. "'Sorry, guys. This is gonna hurt y'all worse than it hurts me."

"Think ya got that backwards, Amano-kun," Chiba snickers as he squares up himself, and Amano grins the most unhinged goblin-ass grin he's ever seen.

"I absolutely do not have that backwards," Amano says, and it's on.

Look. Chiba was already starting to like the new and improved friendlier, more sociable Amano but the quickest ways for him to get a read on a new acquaintance are to either throw down against him or fight alongside him and Chiba is digging the hell out of this. Amano isn't especially strong (well, maybe he's strong for his size and, uh, for not having much if any testosterone floating around in there but relatively speaking and also lest we forget, he got shot in the back like last week) and he's not super quick or agile but he fights smart in a way that's fun as hell to watch and even better, he's having a grand old time doing it, whooping and laughing and talking some hilarious shit about these guys and their moms and whatnot. It's infectious. Chiba can't remember the last time he had this much fun fighting some random-ass street punks. The big old shit-eating grin on Sugihara's face when he pops a guy with his possibly illegal stun gun and Amano loses his shit like that's the best thing he's ever seen hint that Chiba's not the only one enjoying the hell out of this.

They make a pretty good team, don't they? Too bad Amano can't swear up with the Kijin Clan. But, he thinks, there's that other outfit...

It doesn't take long. The punks that can still walk grab the ones that can't and they run like hell, wailing apologies all the way, and Amano just cracks the fuck up. Chiba whips an arm around his shoulders and grins.

"Oh," he says, "we're gonna have a real good time with you around, Amano. C'mon, boys! That okonomiyaki ain't eatin' itself!"

[kristsune]

Not only had Ben laughed more during this stream than almost any other, he went full goblin mode for it as well, which is what I attempted to capture here. There is a bit of overlap with the filth post just because the brothers improved on the national anthems enough to deserve them being in more than one place. Screenshot from when Ben lost his mind so thoroughly he started cry laughing.

art by erebusodora, screenshots by me