#this feels unfinished but its just meant to be a snapshot

[daintysapphic]

i wish i could go back and savor it one more time. 

the first time you showed up at my doorstep, with egg rolls in hand.  you texted me as soon as you got home that my voice gave you goosebumps.   your compliments came almost as quickly as our friendship did.  things were weird sometimes, there were a lot of strings attached to criss crossing episodes or star crossed lovers or smth.  but you were a friend to me when i needed it the most. 

i was covered in bruises bc 600 calories tasted like control at a time when i felt like i was losing it all.  the world was shutting down and it was making the last quarter of my junior year it’s own, new, kind of hell.  my relationship had a clear expiration date and i caught myself looking forward to it. 

you were so kind to me.  even when i couldn’t read you or your intentions, you were always kind.  you gave me your old favorite flannel and played as many imessage games with me as i wanted.  when i told you i liked to listen to you play guitar, you told me you were playing just for me.  you were there to give me dad advice and in return i gave you girl advice.  you cooked for me, i baked for you.  i slipped out of the house to watch the season four finale of dexter with you.  you did henna on me while my hands shook and my palms sweated the entire time you touched me.  we stayed up late just to talk.  you made me want to create again.  you brought me back to life. 

she told me i cared too much.  made me cry thru my seventeenth birthday.  cheated on me. faulted me in arguments i didn’t want to have.  told me my eating disorder wasn’t a problem she wanted to deal with.  made me feel crazy and stupid and insecure.  my feelings were an inconvenience.  so i decided she was right.  it was exhausting trying to care enough for the both of us.  i knew it wasn’t me, regardless of what she had tried to drill into my head for the past two years.  so i decided that was it.  we wouldn’t end on her terms.  

i didn’t let myself grieve.  i had been grieving for a long time before.

as a kid, i read a lot of books.  and while i wouldn’t say romance was my genre of choice, it’s unavoidable in the YA FICT section of the library.  i grew up reading about love that transcended time and love that would do anything for each other and romance that couldn’t possibly be something that actually happened in real life.  love had never been anything like that for me.  

until suddenly the cute boy next door was asking me to spend the evening with him because he had planned something but he can’t tell what, i have to wait and see.  and when i do, you take me to the park and we have a picnic.  sprawled on a quilt your grandma sewed, we watched the sunset.  we ate peaches and hummus and i got grass stains on my white shoes.  you told me i was beautiful and that you had to take a photo, so i let you.  even as the conversation began to lull, neither of us wanted to go home.  the sun disappeared and we turned to the clouds.  i can’t remember how we got there, but i remember laying next to you and feeling electric.  i sat up for a moment to catch my breath and when i returned you had an arm outstretched.  

i let myself melt into you.  

that was the first time you held me.  you were wearing the oversized purple button up and you smelled good.  we fit like puzzle pieces.  my head on your chest, your cheek against my forehead.  your arms wrapped around me, one leg thrown over yours.  i instantly felt safe in your arms.  you kissed my forehead.  three times. three is my lucky number, but you didn’t know that then.  

eventually we found our way home and you gave me a drawing, a poem, and a promise to play for me later.  i went home giddy and red faced.  you made good on your promise and i laid under the stars as i listened and replayed the night over and over in my head.  i couldn’t believe it was real.  i couldn’t believe you were real.  no one had ever done anything like that for me before.

the first time i told you i loved you, i couldn’t say the words.  i needed you to know but the words were stuck in my throat.  you still made me so nervous but i knew and i knew you loved me too but i had to say it first.  you told me i didn’t have to say it.  you could see it in my eyes.  you knew before i had the chance to tell you.

i’ve been told i have an expressive face but you always know how to read it best. 

[jjungkookislife]

Quarterly Fic Recs 2021 #2

Hello! I’m back with another rec list! Here are fics I’ve read, loved and thoroughly enjoyed in the second quarter of 2021! They are all very wonderful fics! Each story has its own genre, warnings (and are mostly 18+), so please take that into consideration before reading. If any authors would like me to untag them, please let me know. Enjoy!

Yoongi

before i leave you @hollyhomburg

summary: Yoongi Disappears- leaving behind a shattered pack. 8 months later, Jimin finds Yoongi in an H-mart of all places.

Hoseok

heart-on @junghelioseok

summary: my boss is always telling me how perfect her son would be for me and she promises he’s coming to the next holiday party and don’t worry he’s heard all about me too and ALSO there’s this dude i slept with once a couple of months ago and sometimes he still sends me dick pics when i ask him to at 3 in the morning cause seriously dude’s got a good dick

Jungkook

charmolypi @njssi

summary: Work and pleasure should never be combined — or so the saying goes. But you were never really one to follow the rules in their entirety and neither were the ones around you. Love, lust, interest. Five people. In the workplace. What could go wrong? Everyone just wants to get something, after all.

when you least expect it @johobi

summary: You’re in love with your childhood friend, Taehyung. The problem is, you treasure your friendship with him far too much to ever risk losing it. Oh, and he’s quite the Casanova. At your wits’ end with feelings you can no longer hide as diligently as you once did, you ask him to set you up with someone, anyone, in a last ditch attempt to avoid a heartbreaking conversation.

wherever there is you @jeonstudios

summary: you’ve been drinking, haven’t you?

instant gratification @dovechim

fuckboi@jungkook x cheerleader!reader

haze @yyooni

summary: So you’ve fucked the biggest fuck boy on campus. It’s a one and done. One night stand. A wham bam thank you ma’am. So why does it happen again?

OT7/Multiple Members

because i’m yours @minniepetals

summary: you should have known they’d never let you go after gathering the courage to ask for a kiss

blazed @ironicarmy

summary: Your friends try to cheer you up during Christmastime, but things go south once Hoseok appears with a mysterious brown bag.

Seokjin

one step @cutechim

summary:  attending an ex’s wedding is never easy, but you might just have the perfect remedy—if you can pluck up the courage to take it.

platonic @joheunsaram

summary: Finding a new method for stress relief, you rope in your bestfriend/fwb to try it out with you.

show me yours and i’ll show you mine @ktheist

summary: you’re a horny bunny yet kim seokjin always seems to manage to slide out of your grasps like a fox every time.

Yoongi

before i leave you pt. 7 @/hollyhomburg

summary: Pack omega kim Seokjin knows how to handle things when they go south (or alternatively you get triggered, Yoongi has a panic attack, and it’s a good thing the pack is there to help)

Hoseok

risky business @yoonjinkooked

summary: The person who invented smart glass office walls knew what they were doing. Your secretary fucks you stupid in the office.

snapshot @xjoonchildx

summary: after a day at the beach, hoseok has some surprises in store for his longtime love

keep me warm @ppersonna

summary: camping is always a great time when you’re with your friends, but even better with your boyfriend, hoseok.

it’s you @jinpanman

summary: An accidental confession throws your years-long friendship with Hoseok into disarray.

Namjoon

love bytes @stutterfly

summary: It’s been a year since you first met Kim Namjoon, the passionate, talented English professor at the local campus. He’s always been clumsy and aloof, but he’s on a whole new level in terms of “technologically incapable.” One call to IT was all it took to pull you into his life, and with it a whole string of friendships full of flirtatious banter and undying support.

Your dating situation has been drier than the Sahara for years now, and you’ve wasted too many lonely nights drinking alone, so you try your hand at Tinder. But you’re not getting any bites. When the group finds out, they are more than willing to help–even Namjoon, though he finds it increasingly difficult to deny that he’s hopelessly smitten. You consider their opinions on potential Tinder dates while fighting off feelings you never knew were brewing for the caring soul who becomes the home you never had.

out of my league @/ppersona

summary: Kim Namjoon was never supposed to find out about your years-long hopeless crush on him. And he most definitely was not supposed to find out about it in front of all your coworkers in a company-wide meeting.

so this is love @jinpanman

summary: “So this is the miracle that I’ve been dreaming of. So this is love.”

problem solved @sugasbabiie

summary: Namjoon helps you with more than math problems tonight.

love is @hxseok-honee

summary: they say that love is supposed to transcend time and space and that it knows no limits. but putting an ocean and thousands of miles between two people won’t make things any easier, will it? 

Jimin

potent pink @dntaewithluv

summary: The first time you see Park Jimin you’re instantly entranced by him. And it turns out he lives in the apartment next to the one you’re moving into, so even better he’s your hot neighbor. When the previous tenant confesses to you that he was the best hook up she ever had, you’re that much more intrigued. The first time you meet him, however, you’re deciding immediately that you hate him and want to stay as far away from him as possible. Jimin is determined to be a constant in your life though, and he definitely is that. Both a constant flirt and a constant pain in your ass. Is a ruined second impression enough to prevent you from ever giving him a second chance?

Taehyung

hush, yeah? @kithtaehyung

summary: the innocent accident that started it all

unfinished business @/dntaewithluv

summary: Besides wanting to catch up with some old friends, there’s only one reason you found yourself agreeing to attend your 10 year high school reunion. The boy you were in love with back then is going to be there, and you’re determined to finally make your move. Except, unfortunately, it turns out that Kim Seokjin is very much happily married. Kim Taehyung, however, is very much single and feels like he has something to prove to you after you turned him down all those years ago. One night is all it takes to make you realize you made the biggest mistake of your life.

under the covers @jessikahathaway

spy!au

darling @bloomsuga

summary: “go to sleep, darling.”

as endless as the stars ^

summary: he waited 160 years to meet you again, and now that he has, he’s not letting go. or: “i love you as deep as the ocean and as endless as the stars”

dirty dishes @jaysdimples

summary: when your boyfriend can’t seem to keep his hands to himself so he stirs up a little trouble in the kitchen while everyone else is a few feet away in the next room

devotion @/sweetbunnykook

summary: You and Taehyung were inseparable once. When you come back to your hometown after three years, fate pulls you back to him. And this time, Taehyung won’t ever keep his eyes off of you.

Jungkook

commercial break; twelve @1kook

summary: Anyway, if it was up to Jungkook, Kim Doyeon would not be a member of the Engagement Ring Committee.

tease @adonis-koo

summary:You came with the intentions of your best friend landing a job as a stripper. You never meant to catch the eyes of the king stripper of the establishment- Jeon Jungkook, yourself. With what was supposed to be a harmless way of paying off college debt faster you find yourself falling into a very odd and passionate relationship with your new mentor. Between infidelity, passion and jealousy there’s never a dull moment at Cherry Bomb.

jock!jk @angelguk

summary: going raw with jock jk

evolution of a lover’s heart @jeonstudios

summary: the rules are simple: first one to take the virginity wins.

euphoria @btssavedmylifeblr

summary: At the end of your life, you are given one day to live again with the man you loved. A lifetime’s love story told in a single day.

idealizations concerning real life relations @venusiangguk

summary: jungkook loves to be loved, but he doesn’t love in return.

relax @itsbuffsanta

summary: jk is antsy after the concert, so you help him relax.

employee of the month @/dntaewithluv

summary: Sometimes it truly amazes you how much of an idiot your boyfriend can be. But you also find it impossible to say no to him. Even when it involves letting him fuck you at his work on the same day that he gets awarded employee of the month…

ego 08 @suga-kookiemonster

summary: what’s a girl to do when her sweet, innocent baby lab partner isn’t quite so sweet and innocent? well, he’s a grown-ass man, and you’re about to learn that the hard way.

only you 10 @sweetbunnykook 

summary: Jeon Jungkook, your wedding photographer, helps you escape on your big day upon learning about a secret your groom-to-be kept hidden. You soon fall for this young, passionate photographer. However, you underestimated just how much he was willing to reciprocate that love. Maybe, you think, he’s loving you just a little too much.  

lunchbox lovers @jiminrings

stem major!koo x cold senior!y/n

crunchyroll & rail @/1kook

summary: Never mind the fact you really like Sailor Moon, or that you really want to pay attention to every little detail; the moment becomes Jungkook and his big smile and his red cheeks and the tiny box he produces from within his pocket.

only for you @jikookiekosmos

summary: It’s the night before your wedding and you should be happy…but a fight with your fiancé leaves you second guessing everything. A visit from the blue-haired boy of your dreams is just what you need to make it right.

lillies @dewykth

summary: “… white lines, pretty baby, tattoos, don’t know what they mean, they’re special just for you…”

bluekooberry @kimtaehyunq

summary: Your adoring boyfriend, Jungkook, surprises you with a brand new hairstyle before your trip to visit him for the weekend. He’s excited to see you, feed you, and give you exactly what you want.

bad reputation @noteguk

summary: in which you have to deal with some strange emotions for the first time.

not yet @bratkook

summary: jungkook feels the pang of guilt in his gut when you spot your recent ex out with his new girl, and what better way to make the jerk hurt than to have him believe you were now dating him, the neighbor he had been insecure about your whole relationship

incoming: elite chatboy @kookingtae

summary: welcome to Elite Chatroom, a sex chat company with a wide variety of services such as text messaging, phone call, and video chat. you signed up online for the most basic text service plan not knowing what to expect, but you certainly didn’t think you’d end up actually liking the man behind the screen.

ineffable @euphoria-vmin7

summary: your best friend Jeon Jeongguk has always been amazing and deserved the best, so you’ve hid your love for him. But unbeknowsnt to you, there may be feelings that could change everything between you two…

touch @gardentulips

summary: when you tease and please one another

Multiple Members

friendly fire @kpopfanfictrash

summary: The dynamic: Hoseok; your friend and previous fuck buddy. Jungkook; Hoseok’s roommate and subject of your massive crush. The scene: determined not to drunk-gush about your crush any more (to his face), you decide to seclude yourself from all campus parties. Until, of course, Hoseok guilts you into a favor. Things spiral from there.

the boys are back in town @/dntaewithluv

summary: Getting stood up by your date definitely hadn’t been on your agenda for the evening. Also definitely not on your agenda: bumping into Park Jimin and Jeon Jungkook. Together. On the same exact night. It’s been a while since you’ve seen your two best friends, as well as lovers on multiple occasions, from your high school and college days. A chance meeting, some drinks, and a trip down memory lane is all it takes to reignite the attraction between the three of you. Old habits die hard, but these two? They just might be the death of you.

ruin you @taegularities

summary: “His eyes hold unfathomable darkness that lures you in, captures your very soul, steals any air you are trying to draw. And you know without a doubt that you’re on the path to utter and irrevocable ruination.”

ruin you (once more) ^

summary: Taehyung and Jungkook can’t keep their hands off you. Not even in the elevator.

Seokjin

kairos @luffles424

summary: When your financial aid falls through for your last year of school, you fear you’ll have to drop out and postpone your degree. Until Taehyung gives you a suggestion to make a lot of money, quick. His idea can’t possibly end well, can it?

appetence @luffles424

summary: appetence (n.) - an eager desire, an instinctive inclination; an attraction or a natural bondIt’s time for Seokjin’s rut. Are either of you prepared for this step?

tiny lights, tiny lies @ggukcangetit

summary: you aren’t sure when exactly your best friend’s brother went from being an oddly annoying set of broad shoulders to the shoulders you frequently fell asleep against.

Yoongi

the little things @kimtaehyunq

summary: When the present isn’t exactly enough for you right now, Yoongi is here for you through it all. He makes sure you know you aren’t alone and that it’s ok to feel alone.

cyberslut @kimnjss

summary:  he has no idea who you are… up front, you’re sweet and innocent - but in reality you’re the exact opposite. running your own nsfw account, where your favorite topic is his hands.

yoongi drabble @joonsgalore

life guard au

Hoseok

benefits @cutechim

summary: you and hoseok have taken the ‘friends’ out of friends with benefits, but exclusivity has its own perks.

Namjoon

namjoon drabble @lovetrivia

summary: You’re a hot girl on Twitch and Namjoon is an absolute simp.

Jimin

baby fever @writtenwhalien

summary: Jimin wants another baby, and much to your delight, he’s determined to give you one.

jimin drabble @/1kook

best friend au

small hands jimin drabble @lavishedinjimin

established relationship au

silk and lace @sunshyngal

summary: Min Nara is the newly dumped fiance to the Crown prince of Korea, Park Jimin. She’s not overtly upset , because at least now she can live her life without the pressure of the monarchy hanging over her head. Besides , Nara has a very dirty little secret. While she spends the day as the perfect high society girl with an impeccable pedigree , her nights are filled with lacy lingerie and webcams.  Ignored by the man she’s meant to marry, she revels in the greedy lust of strangers on the internet. It’s her way of saying ‘fuck you’ to a system that sees her as nothing but a toy, molded for the future King. Park Jimin doesn’t know the first thing about his supposed fiancee. And he has no intention of learning either. He knows just what debutante girls are like and he has no patience for the kind. Besides, his girlfriend of three years, the elegant and independent Irene is everything he would ever want in a wife . Or is she?Because in the secrecy of his office , after the day’s work is done , Park Jimin has a very scintillating vice that he likes to indulge in : the beautiful camgirl who calls herself the Temptress. Jimin can’t get enough of the girl’s lush thighs wrapped in silk, the pretty pink of her nipples in see through bralettes and the glittering temptation of the jeweled plugs she likes to stuff herself full with.Jimin thinks she embodies  everything he can never allow himself to have as a Prince : filth, sin and decadence , all wrapped up in Silk and Lace.

Taehyung

nip it in the bud @opaljm

summary: You’re not sure how you ended up here, but maybe a shitty ex and a horrible breakup had a hand in what placed you in front of the tattoo parlor. It was already a nerve-wracking experience, but what you never expected was seeing that the owner and artist giving you nipple piercings was your older brother’s best friend you hadn’t seen in ages. to make things even worse, he got fucking hotter.

taehyung drabble @joonsgalore

sugar daddy au

peanut @jungxk

summary: the making of peanut.

Jungkook

pretty kitty @venusiangguk

summary: you’re jk’s baby, his toy, and now his pretty little pet.

heavy metal @hisunshiine

summary: You come home from a trip to find your fuckbuddy has a… hole-y surprise.

devour @bloomsuga

summary: my sweet angel… i am going to devour you

grain of sand @jungkookiebus

summary: Blind since the age of 18 from a genetic disorder, Jungkook walked through life as if he never lost it, but on one fateful day seven years ago he literally almost runs into you. He fell in love nearly immediately. Fast forward to the present and it’s just another day in your quiet life with him by your side.

under the oak tree @mingoyeob

summary: as the eldest daughter of a duke, it’s your duty to marry at your father’s will. yet you didn’t expect to be marrying jeon jungkook, a knight of low status, especially when he departs for an expedition without another word after your first night. when he comes back three years later, this time as a renowned hero, how will you be able to face him and how will things change between you and your new husband?

jungkook drabble @1kook

dilf!jk

commercial break: thirteen ^

summary: Because for as much shit as you let him get away with, Jungkook is certain you’ll draw the line today.

sh. @wwilloww

summary: How could you say no to a month away in the mountains with your friends after six months of grueling quarantine?

jungkook drabble @lavishedinjimin

daddy!jk

OT7/Multiple Members

the end @jimlingss

summary: It’s been a habit of yours to vent in the form of love letters. There’s six in total. They’re kept secret, hidden in your closet. But on your 30th birthday, what you least expect is for each letter to become reality. All done by the whacky ghost of Christmas future trying to grant your birthday wish.

[tysonrunningfox]

Ripped: Part 16

Ao3

“People who do this don’t look at pictures of it like that.”

The plain-faced supposition of Hiccup’s innocence in Eretson’s office after Dave’s murder flashed back into Hiccup’s mind the second that Grisly saw Tuffnut.  Hiccup had looked at those crime scene photos with a shivering, pale-faced feeling of dread, something more instinctive and paralyzing than fear.  With a slow spreading numbness in the center of his brain, somewhere between clinical detachment and an abstract refusal to accept the reality of the gore.  

But when Grisly saw Tuffnut and smiled like he was imagining a duplication of the horrible scene in the alley, Hiccup wondered instantly if that’s what Eretson meant.  What if people who murder and mutilate their victims look at the pictures like Grisly stared down Tuffnut?  More than predatory.  Not a hungry lion but a bored housecat holding a trapped mouse by the end of its tail.  

Astrid’s right, it’s a basket of leaps, but leaps based on a gut feeling that gets deeper the longer that Hiccup tries to shake it off.  

He knows that theories are supposed to be based on facts, and he tries, really, but usually his theories are based on flippant comments that connect two things with a random click. A joke that amounts to pulling two random puzzle pieces out of a thousand-piece box and finding a mysterious miracle fit. The first click is enough to make him curious and that’s when he shifts to more systemic tactics, looking for corners and edges and working inward with obvious patterns until a picture starts to form.  

Johann’s ads got huge, so he must have been making money, and in comparing the dates of his biggest ads to the dates of the murders, a blurry but cohesive picture emerged. It’s eternally unfinished though, a puzzle in an elementary school library, some pieces pocketed and some chewed up and hidden away or just plain lost.  

All the pieces of this puzzle are still here though, it’s only three quarters unwrapped, and Hiccup happened to slip two miracle pieces out of the side of the box.  Grisly looks at people like he knows what’s under their skin, but wants to visually confirm.  And as Eretson glared over Hiccup’s shoulder out that bulletproof window, the corners started to take shape.  

Grisly wedges himself where he doesn’t belong.  Grisly works for the condos that do the same, muddling the character of Downtown Berk into something new and clean that just doesn’t fit.  Grisly hired Heather, who enhances unfinished puzzles from cryptid pictures of a real solution to high definition snapshots, like a thesaurus fueled scientist on CSI.  

He doesn’t want it to take shape, necessarily, but at the same time he can’t stop dwelling on it, finding grains of fact in the space of it.  Pieces craving one or two matches attach to the bigger, truth shaped possibility. And with Snotlout stuck on traffic duty, Hiccup can’t go research at the station without looking more suspicious. But then again, a few sepia toned pixels from a half-ruined older version of similar events might provide insight to the shape emerging from cool alleyway fog.  

That’s half the reason he goes to the archives two days after finding Gruffnut’s body.  He never spent that much time on the Elizabeth Smith murder, probably because no one questions a beginning.  Well, no one but Astrid, with her theory that her apartment isn’t involved at all, rewriting the root of the narration in an attempt to distance herself from it.  

He wishes that tactic was working better for her.  

The other half of his reason for visiting ticks up to an easy seventy five percent when he’s halfway down the stairs and hears Astrid’s voice, hovering just past the cusp of irritated above the sound of rustling papers.  

“…being ridiculous, Fish,” she snaps, setting something heavy down on what Hiccup assumes is her desk.

“I’m no Grimborn-ologist—”

“Not what it sounds like.”

“It’s simple pattern recognition,” Fishlegs’s arms are crossed when Hiccup comes around the corner, and Astrid is elbow deep in a dusty box of paper scraps, a brown smear across her scowling eyebrow.  “All I’m saying is that there’s reason to believe there will be a murder at your apartment in the next week and a half, and I have a guest room—”

“You’re looking for somewhere to stay?”  Hiccup blurts and they both turn to look at him.  Astrid tries to wipe the streak of dirt off of her forehead and leaves a larger smudge behind and Fishlegs sighs heavily through flaring nostrils, moustache barely budging in the breeze.  

“She’s not looking, she has one.”  

“I’m not looking because I don’t need one,” Astrid corrects him, going back to sorting through her box, “what are you doing here?”  The question starts out harsh and ends flat, but she shoots him a genuinely curious look and he shrugs.  

“I was hoping to do some research,” he says cautiously, edging a step closer to her desk to try and see what she’s looking at.  “And maybe see you, if that’s ok?”  

“I don’t know, have you done your taxes?”  Fishlegs rolls his eyes.  

“I didn’t realize I needed to pay taxes to talk to Astrid,” Hiccup tries to drag a laugh out of the room, but it doesn’t work, the air as stale and tense as the centuries old contentions in the papers around them.  “If so, is there a special form?  Or a student loan balance exemption—”

“What are you looking for?” Astrid abruptly pulls her hands out of the box, wiping dusty handprints on her jeans and gesturing back at the stacks.

“I was going to umm,” he thinks briefly about lying, given the conversation he walked in on, but thinks better of it with her paralyzing blue eyes staring straight through him. “I was going to brush up on that first Elizabeth Smith article, actually.”  

“Sure,” she waves him along after her and he follows down an unfamiliar, narrow catalog of books to the left and through a door into a dingy back room full of boxes.  

“It smells like my dead great aunt’s attic in here,” he comments, running his finger over a dusty letter box that threatens to crumble under the gentle touch.  

“Maybe she donated something,” Astrid stacks two dirty boxes on top of each other and wipes down a table with a dust cloth.  “This is the new arrivals room, but Fishlegs said if I shuffled things around, I could make it the Grimborn room.  I already moved some of the Grimborn things in here after I caught people trying to sneak out with them in their coats.”  She picks up a carefully folded but newly wrinkled newspaper and sets it down on the clean section of table, “Elizabeth Smith paper, have at it.”  

Then, with a casually familiar but all too brief pat on his shoulder, she walks back towards the door.

“Wait,” he turns around and she stops, looking at him expectantly, “I was kidding about using you as a tax loophole, I actually did come to see you.”  

“I know, but I’m working,” her lips twitch into a small but sincere smile as she shrugs and leaves the room and he can’t help but remember her kissing him goodbye after their date. He wanted to walk her home, but it felt like bad luck, just more time to peek into alleys and have another moment ruined.  He got the feeling she silently agreed and they both ended up calling rides, much to Snotlout’s instant disappointment.  

And Hiccup’s slightly delayed disappointment.  

It was the first time their dare-he-say romantic interaction didn’t get smothered by a new murder discovery or accusation in the next twenty-four hours. No, this time there have been no tours full of prying questions or alleys full of gore or faces full of suspicion, just empty hours to think about Astrid.

One time he stopped responding to a girl after three unremarkable but overall decent dates after she mentioned being the fifth wheel on a ski trip with two of her coupled up friends.  It was June. Just the thought of tying himself to a potential weekend months in the future with a girl he barely knew made him back off, even though she’d tagged along on a tour and handled meeting Snotlout with a surprising amount of grace.  

On a first date with Astrid, he offered to be her date to a family wedding at some point far in the future.

He tried to pawn it off on the fact that Eretson spent their entire interview looking at him like a perfectly healthy dog abandoned at a high kill shelter for being ugly, but being a more-than-potential murder suspect isn’t affecting his decision making as much as it probably should.  The fact of the matter is when Astrid started yelling theories down at him from her window, she did what he’d always banked on being impossible.  She made learning about the past make him think about the future. She gave him something to look forward to, to depend on.  And then she had to take over his tour with an impossible picture and kiss him surrounded by history and anchor him again and again when things kept turning for the worst.  

For the first time in five years, he’s desperate for forward motion.  And more than that forward motion towards something.  Someone.  Even scarier, with someone.  

“Finding anything?” Astrid’s voice breaks his concentration and he blinks twice at the paper he hasn’t even started to read.

“What?”  He shakes his head, watching her set down another heavy looking box and start digging through it.

“I asked if you were finding anything,” she smiles at him, a fond minimal smile he definitely hasn’t done anything to deserve, “sorry to break your deep concentration.”  

“No, you’re good, I wasn’t concentrating on the right thing anyway.”  He laughs and it feels more like a lie when she nods bemused and turns to leave, “or I mean I was, actually, concentrating on something more important than reading this old thing again.”  He smacks his knuckles on the edge of the table when he gestures at the paper and she raises an eyebrow.  “Can I help? It looks like you’re sorting through things, I could help with that.”  

“I thought you were here to research.”  

“I’ve got nothing but time,” he shrugs, “unless you don’t trust me not to pocket any of this delightfully dusty paper.”  

“I trust you,” she says it like it’s a phrase in a foreign language she’s just learning, “I just found all these boxes under that table where we were displaying some of the Enquirer correspondence, I have no idea what’s in them.”  

“Have you informed Area Fifty-One that you’re on the cusp of a big discovery?”  He asks seriously as she opens the box and she elbows him a little harder than necessary on the way to set the old lid down.  “Ok, I get it, don’t diss the Enquirer, you don’t have to break a rib.”  

“You know how I feel about the Enquirer,” she teases, voice dipping, and Hiccup’s heart jumps in his throat remembering his too big hat on her head and how fiercely beautiful she is when she’s trying to convince him that she’s right.  

“Right, it’s the clandestine shrine to the preservation of the everyman’s most rationally thought out theories about their place in the universe,” he talks too fast, like always, but Astrid keeps up, narrowing her eyes and shoving a heavy manila folder at his chest.  He promptly nearly drops it, barely saving a scrap of paper from drifting out the bottom. “This could be a priceless piece of history—”

“I’m working,” she turns back to the box and squints to decipher a handwritten date at the top of a page of notes.  “Stop.”

“Stop what?”  

“Flirting.”  The red on her cheeks is more obvious when she holds another clipping up to the light and pointedly avoids his eyeline.  

“What?  I’m not flirting,” he relishes in even the tiniest second that he has her unbalanced.  And it’s true, he didn’t think he was flirting, he was talking about the Berk Enquirer, that’s not flirting.  

Maybe Astrid thinks that’s flirting.  

“I’m working,” she repeats and Hiccup turns around to lean back against the table, studying her like she’s studying an old dusty letter.  

“I can see that.”  He cocks his head at her and she spares him a glare, the heat rising further in her cheeks when he doesn’t flinch.  

She has a face made for smiling but she holds it like she resents even the implication of that decision being made for her.  Maybe it’s because she knows he’s watching her, but the line of her jaw is tense, working quietly as she knits her brows together and sounds out an unfamiliar word to herself.  She’s all contrast, upright spine in a comfortable sweatshirt, hair in front of her ears escaping a neat ponytail, fundamentally kind eyes bristling at his persistent attention.  

“I thought you were going to help,” she breaks, setting the letter down gently with frustrated hands.

“Am I qualified to sort through the Enquirer?”  He touches a folded paper in the box, using false reverence as an excuse to step closer. “Or can you point me to some sort of bullshit subtext interpretation certification?”  He takes a notebook out of the box and starts skimming through it, carefully avoiding disturbing a century old folded corner on a page. “Some kind of supply manifesto? Doesn’t look like a big ship, maybe a private merchant?”  

“On second thought, I don’t need your help,” she takes the notebook from him, dusty fingers grazing over his hand.  Her eyes flick to his lips, almost a glare, and it would be funnier if it didn’t make the dingy room feel so much warmer.  

“Sorry,” he says even though he isn’t, backing up a step and giving her what he hopes is an at least half-convincing apologetic smile, “I didn’t believe that you actually considered making fun of the Enquirer to be flirting.  I had to check.”  

“That’s not—what is your thing with visiting me at work anyway?”  She huffs, sorting things into nonsense piles without reading them.  

“You visit me at my work every night.”  

“That’s because you bring your work to my apartment,” she says slowly like she’s disappointed she has to explain something so obvious to him.  

“Here I was feeling flattered,” he shakes his head, letting her get back to reading before continuing, “I do have a reason to visit you though.  I’m worried that too much time with Fishlegs might bring you to his side of the historic copier blood feud we have going on.”  

She snorts, “so you came to annoy so much it shoves me in that direction, ok.”  

“I was just thinking that it absolutely doesn’t bode well for me if you’re staying with him while,” he pauses, trying to think of a half-decent way to say this, “you know, your apartment is…while you’re waiting to see if—”

“If there’s a fourth murder,” she stands up straight and dares him to argue with her, “I’m not scared, or even if I am, I’m not going to run just because Fishlegs thinks I can’t take care of myself.”  

“Who said anything about running?”  Hiccup gestures at himself, “all I’m saying is that I know what it’s like to be constantly inconvenienced by where these murders keep happening.  It makes sense to umm, lean on someone who gets that unique complication, I think.  So if you need some place to stay because Eretson’s creeping you out by glowering at the chalk outline on your living room floor all day, I get that.”  He waits for her to respond but she’s just staring at him, apparently confused, all of that righteous anger fading into something tired that makes him want to hug her.  “I don’t have a fancy guest room with all the…I don’t know, little soaps and stuff that Fishlegs probably has but—” He yelps when she punches his arm, “what—”

“I said stop flirting with me while I’m working,” she tucks her hair behind her ear, “and inviting me to stay with you when you don’t have an extra bed is definitely flirting, you don’t need to double check that one.”  

“Oh, I didn’t—I can see how you—not that I don’t want, I mean, I’ve finally had a little time away from murder to clear my head and you’re so—”

“Then what did you mean?” She asks the right question, bouncing him back to the root of the issue even as he’s still trying to swallow his foot.

“I don’t like the idea of you being involved in whatever’s going on more than you already are.”  He reaches for her hand and she lets him, her stubborn expression falling slightly, “I hate feeling like I’ve involved you in this, I hate that you have to be my alibi, I—if anything else is going to happen, I want both of us, but you especially, to be far away from it.”

“I don’t think you have much say in how involved you are,” she says quietly and he hates that his heart stutters when he realizes that she’s worried about him.  It shouldn’t make him happy, especially when he’s saying how much he hates that she’s involved, but it does anyway.  

“That’s fair, given how this has gone so far, but digging a foxhole and hunkering down in your particular apartment right now doesn’t seem like a way to disentangle either of us.” He squeezes her hand and while she doesn’t back down, she seems to remember that it’s a thing she could be capable of, with much conscious effort and determination.  “Plus, I was going to offer you Snotlout’s bed, I thought you’d really appreciate all of the Patriots posters and the signed football in a glass case—”

“No,” she laughs, shaking her head, “absolutely not.”  

“Framed tickets from some big game—”

“Over my dead body.”  

00000

“Gruff’s is open?” Snotlout sits bolt upright on the couch, jerking Hiccup out of his book.  Viggo Grimborn Solved: The Admiral Haddock Connection is even better after Astrid returned it with comments, mostly half coherent swearing about how stupid it is on little blue sticky notes, because she wouldn’t write in any book, even one she thinks is this stupid.  

“I can think of one really big reason that’s not possible,” Hiccup hunkers down further in his father’s chair, carefully holding a sticky note aside to read the words underneath it.

“Just got a text from Johnson, they just broke up a fight there, it’s totally open.”  

“I don’t see how Gruff’s could be open, dude.”  He’s halfway through a sentence when Snotlout snatches the book and grabs his wrist, yanking him unwilling and stumbling to his feet.  “Give that back—”

“Astrid’s…not even dirty notes,” he wrinkles his nose in disgust, “will be here when we get back.”

“My back’s killing me, I don’t want to walk all the way down to Gruff’s just to find it predictably closed, as usually happens when bar owners are murdered.”  

“Then get an Uber,” Snotlout is undeterred, tossing Hiccup’s shoes at him, “unless you spent all the money you made with those big-ass tours on some lame book or something.”  

“I don’t know when I’ll be able to start tours again, this money might have to last a while.” Hiccup is glad that the original floor plan of 324 Harbor Road he ordered yesterday hasn’t arrived yet, even though it only looks expensive because it’s old paper.  In reality, finding something that specific and having it shipped overnight would usually cost way more than the couple hundred dollars he spent on it.  

“You could get a normal job—”

“Fine, I’ll come look at the locked front door of Gruff’s with you,” he starts putting on his shoes, “just leave the concept of a job out of it.”  

So Hiccup hasn’t been having the easiest time of it lately and he spent some time trying to find the shift between his original holding pattern and the quick descending chaos of the last couple months.  His mind immediately jumps to Astrid and her toothbrush and the midnight tour that entangled them in something bigger and more horrible than he could have imagined, but if he thinks a little deeper, his trouble started way before her.  

Hiccup’s life took a turn for the dismal when Snotlout started having frequent opportunities to say ‘I told you so’.  

Gruff’s is definitely open. If anything, it has more than its usual crowd and Hiccup spots a few people in Ripped Tavern shirts around a booth when they first step inside.  Of course, Gruffnut’s murder would have caused a real increase in a certain kind of business, but as seedy as he was, Hiccup can’t see how he would have managed to take advantage of it.

When they finally make it through the crowd, there’s a split second where Hiccup thinks that Gruffnut has miraculously done exactly that, but then the doppelganger behind the bar tries to twirl a bottle like Tom Cruise and when it shatters on the floor, he breaks into an unmistakably authentic grin.  In years of coming here, Hiccup never saw Gruffnut smile.  

“If this is your bar, that’s your gin you just threw on the floor, idiot,” Ruffnut is leaning on the bar and pleading with who Hiccup obviously must accept is her brother, even though it’s still really creepy.  

“I’ll get the hang of it,” Tuffnut assures, picking up another bottle and starting to throw it.

“If you’re just going to smash that, can I have it?”  Snotlout tries, sliding onto a stool beside Ruffnut and holding out his hand.  

“No,” Ruffnut chastises him, “at least pay for it.”  

“Here you go,” Tuffnut sets it on the counter with a couple of shot glasses, “it’s on the house. I’ve always wanted to say that.  I don’t know who calls a bar a house though, that’s never made sense to me, you can’t live in a bar.”  

“That means that the business is eating the cost of the drink,” Ruff groans, but she doesn’t think twice about accepting a shot from Snotlout.  

“Good, down with the business.”  Tuffnut pours himself a shot out of the bottle and clinks it with Snotlout’s, “and the man and the establishment and—”

“Tuff, you are the business. That’s your money now.”  Ruffnut points to an official looking piece of paper that was recently on the bad end of an attempted bartending trick involving blue curacao.  “You have to sell this place.”  

“Sell?”  Hiccup sits down, leaning on the bar to relieve the aggravated ache in his lower back.  Just leaning doesn’t do much and he accepts a shot from Snotlout, who seems to be doing more actual bartending than the person behind the bar.  “When did you buy it?”  

“Like five years ago, apparently,” Tuffnut shrugs, wiping the filthy bar with a rag and refilling a glass someone brings him.  “Do I look cool or what?”  

“Gruffnut put it in Tuff’s name,” Ruffnut tosses a shot glass at him and it misses, shattering on the floor, “look over here, Tuff, I mean it.  Look at what that asshole did to your credit score.”  

“Uh, you already showed me that, my credit score is perfect.  Beautiful bastard had one more gift to give me.”  He pauses to wipe a fake tear, absently glugging vodka into someone’s highball glass as they come up to the bar to order again.  

“Um, can I get a well whisky, neat?”  The would-be paying customer asks and Tuffnut rolls his eyes.  

“Well, whisky is pretty neat, but this vodka is fancy.”  

“How much?”  They look dubiously at the mostly full glass of alcohol and Tuffnut shrugs.  

“On the house.”  

Hiccup reaches in front of Snotlout and grabs the piece of paper, a bank statement of some kind, and raises his eyebrow, “your credit score is 420?”  

“Nice,” Snotlout holds his hand out for a high five and Tuffnut narrows his eyes.  

“Aren’t you a cop?”  

“Yeah.”  

“Oh,” Tuffnut claps his hand to Snotlout’s over the bar and pours another sloppy round that Hiccup decides to sip rather than knock back all at once, “I didn’t know you guys were in on the code.  Hip to the lingo, as it were.”  

“Did you come with Astrid?” Ruffnut asks, looking genuinely concerned when Tuffnut makes sloppy change for a tray of beers and struggles to slam the register door shut.  

“No,” Hiccup instantly wishes he’d changed his shirt or looked in a mirror before leaving.  In his defense, he thought he was going to a bar that was closed due to murder, but that doesn’t matter now.  “Is she coming?”  

“She said she was on her way.”  

Hiccup isn’t really used to panic.  His first reaction to a problem is usually more along the lines of breaking it down or figuring it out.  And he knows he doesn’t have proof, he doesn’t have anything but a gut feeling and the memory of feeling chilled to the bone when Grisly looked at Astrid at the archives, but thinking of her walking alone still makes the hair on the back of his neck stand on end.      

“How long ago?”  He tries to sound buoyantly curious but Ruffnut sees through it.  

“A little early to be keeping tabs, isn’t it?  You two have been on like one date.”  

“He was reading her dorky little notes in his book all afternoon,” Snotlout snorts, “he’s probably wondering if he has time to go get it so they can discuss.”  The last word is in Snotlout’s favorite, completely inaccurate nasal tone and Hiccup rolls his eyes.  

“They’re over here!” Tuffnut shouts in the vague direction of the door from the other end of the bar, all while pouring beer and spilling most of it on the floor when he uses a full glass to point towards Hiccup.

“So it’s true,” Astrid fights her way through the crowd a second later, catching herself on Hiccup’s shoulder when someone jostles her, “this is exactly what I would have guessed Tuffnut playing bartender would look like.”  

“I’m winning bartender, thanks,” he gestures at the shelves behind him, “or I will be when I figure out how to reach the bottles on the top shelf.”  

“Keep giving those out for free,” Snotlout nods and Tuffnut points at him.  

“Good call, why should I use storage I can’t even reach?”  He turns around and starts staring at the liquor shelves, “does not spark joy…”  

“Does he know that’s all his now?”  Astrid leans in close enough to ask Hiccup in particular, her breath cool against his ear in the over-crowded bar.  

“There have been attempts to explain it to him, I don’t think any have sunk in.”  He laughs and she leans a little harder on his shoulder, “so Gruff had the bar in Tuffnut’s name?”  

“Apparently,” she shifts, lips nearly against his ear when she speaks again, “a letter showed up at the twins apartment earlier with no return address and a copy of the deed inside.”

“No return address?” Hiccup frowns and turns to face her, momentarily preoccupied by the mystery enough to fend off being overwhelmed by her proximity and the tickle of her hair against his cheek, “did you recognize the handwriting?”  

“It wasn’t Comic Sans,” her smile is tight and not quite comforting, teasing and oddly protective at the same time.  “If that’s what you’re asking.”  

“Not in so many words.” He scrambles when Astrid half falls into his lap, half catching her and flinching when she pushes herself back upright with a hand on his head.  

“Snotlout, oh my god,” she snaps and Hiccup can hear Snotlout rolling his eyes.  

“I’m just trying to hand you a shot, get the rest of the way onto Hiccup’s lap if you’re so clumsy.”  

“I’m not clumsy,” she fixes her shirt but keeps her elbow on Hiccup’s shoulder, “and it’s Wednesday, you know that, right?”  

“We’re celebrating the fact that this bar doesn’t suck anymore without Gruffnut being a dick to cops,” he shoves a shot into her hand and half of it sloshes onto Hiccup’s leg, thankfully cooling the idea of Astrid on his lap.  He’s doubly thankful for the sudden chill when she shifts behind him to let someone through, her fingernails almost habitually raking across the nape of his neck.  

She pauses and he wonders if she caught his shiver, but then an unmistakably familiar voice attached to partially familiar biceps next to them announces itself.  

“What do you mean Gruffnut Thorston didn’t get along with the police?”  Eretson leans on the bar, almost unrecognizable in a black tee-shirt with the sleeves ripped off.  Almost, except for the absolutely familiar, business-like scowl he’s directing at Snotlout.

“Oh come on,” Snotlout throws his head back but still manages to slap Tuffnut’s hand when he sets a free high ball glass of something from the top shelf in front of Eretson, “don’t serve him—“

“This is Gruffnut Thorston’s bar, isn’t it?”  Eretson shakes his head and does a double-take when he catches sight of Astrid out of the corner of his eye.  “And you’re here.”  He looks at Hiccup and then pans past Tuffnut to Ruffnut on Snotlout’s other side, “you’re all here.”  

“I am,” Ruffnut nods, “but your sleeves aren’t, and I have to ask, are those guns standard issue?”  

“Come on,” Snotlout groans, spinning on his seat to face Eretson and nearly jabbing him in the chest with an intentional but thankfully hesitant finger.  “What are you doing here?”  

“Some friends invited me,” Eretson sounds almost bashful, like he’s not supposed to tell suspects that he has friends, and maybe he’s not.  That sounds like the kind of protocol Snotlout wouldn’t mention breaking.

“Now you’re bragging about having friends—“  Snotlout starts but Eretson stops him with a clap on the shoulder firm enough to at least attempt to anchor him back to his sensibility, that is if he had any.  

“Wait, how do you all know each other?”  

The pause is long enough that the initial awkward silence fades back into the indistinguishable din of the crowded bar and Hiccup clears his throat.  

“So, again, I gave a Viggo Grimborn tour to Astrid’s apartment and Snotlout is my cousin and at some point he went by Astrid’s place and met Ruffnut and—“

“Shut up,” Snotlout hisses, kicking Hiccup a little too hard in the shin.  His left shin.  The metallic ringing echoes in Hiccup’s ears and he waits for Eretson to hear it.  For the air in the room to shatter.  

“My office. Eight o’clock tomorrow.  Be on time or I’ll send officers to collect you.”  Eretson slaps the bar and turns around, disappearing back into the crowd.

[girl-next-door-writes]

The fragility of the soul

Characters: Gabriel x reader and a bit of Castiel

Summary: Being practically immortal has its great points but when loss echoes through all eternity it can become incredibly lonely.

Word Count: 955 words

Prompt: Hello, congratulations 🎉 May I request something with Gabriel and how he perceives human souls? Or a little brotherly bonding with Cas, whatever inspires you the most. Thank you ❤❤❤

A/N: So, I kinda went off point here but I hope you like it @lyselkatz

Sitting contemplating the enormity of his father’s creation, Gabriel allowed himself to feel the weight of time, the ache of his perfect moment now forever lost in memory.  He had once found someone he would have spent a thousand eternities with, but the fragility of the human soul would never allow that.  He had kicked himself for falling for a mortal, then for wasting time battling his feelings when you’d had so little time.  

His moment with you would last forever in his heart.  The happiness captured just a pale imitation of the emotion he had felt at the time, now damaged by the ache of loss, and yet he tried so hard to replicate everything you had made him feel.  How his heart raced when he had first glimpsed your ineffable soul, the way butterflies cascaded around his stomach when you had laughed, the softness in your eyes when they had met his making him feel like he was worth so much more than he had every thought.

In his heart was where he could always find you, the only place you were now.  It was the place where time stood still, the minutes, hours, days, years you had spent together.  Your youth disappearing in what felt like a blink of an eye.  Whenever he was by your side, he could feel the sands of time slipping through his fingers, never enough.  There had been so much he had wanted to say, so much he wanted to do.  But time was so fleeting.  Your time together cut short by your ‘old age’ leaving nothing but the memory, like a familiar melody of a song which was intended to be sung as a duet now missing its harmonies.  

“Hello, brother.” A gruff voice pulled him from his thoughts, and he looked up to see Castiel approach and sit beside him. They sat in companionable silence for a while, looking out at the universe.  “You are thinking about…”

“Yes.” He cut him off, not wanting to hear your name fall from someone else’s lips, that name was his and his alone to utter. There were moments he had said your name in passion, in love, in anger, in frustration.  Not every memory he had was perfect and sweet.  True, there were the snapshots, the way the sunlight hit your face as you laughed, the way the starlight reflected in your eyes as you looked up in wonder, but there were also the tear stained cheeks as you turned away from him, the edge to your tone when he pushed you too far.  That was how he knew what you’d had was real.  There were bad times, the whole year he had spent pretending to be dead and the reunion he had been anticipating not turning out as he’d planned for one, but that is life, the light and shade that textures a real life, that completes the experience.

“Have you ever just watched them?  The souls?  The colours dancing and the shades of light and darkness?” Castiel hummed absentmindedly, entranced by the different souls that undulated through the darkness like the northern lights, each one unique and truly beautiful in their own right.  

“Yeah.” Gabe sighed, not really paying attention. He had long since stopped soul gazing when he had seen yours dim and eventually disappear into the unknown, somewhere he could never follow.  The shadows overtook him, the deep despair taking root in his own soul, extinguishing something within him.  He had wanted his moment with you to last forever even though he knew it never would.

Glancing at his brother he could see the familiar expression of awe that he’d once had when taking in the purity of the souls preparing to enter the world. Following his gaze, his heart stopped, fell out of step for a fraction of a second.  His eyes widened as he got to his feet, hurried movements, dipping and jumping higher, trying to catch a glimpse of what he’d thought he’d seen. And there it was.  A soul as familiar as his own, floating alongside the others, awaiting another shot which meant there was unfinished business.  

Tears sprang to his eyes as a smile pulled at his lips.  The bright colours mingled, so beautiful, so pure, totally unaware of the desolation his own had been through as he had waited for you.  The love he felt washed over him like an ocean of emotions he had been holding back.  He felt whole again.  Of course, he would have to wait, wait until you were ready for him again, but he could do that.  This time he would get it right, this time he would protect you and not waste a single moment because he never knew if he would get a third chance.  

Minutes turned to hours, days to years and then one day, when he was sure the time was right, he orchestrated a meeting, bumping into you in a coffee shop. As he looked into your eyes, he saw your soul swelling and it was as if the song in his heart was whole again, the beautiful melody matched with the harmonies and he wanted that moment to last forever.  “Hi.” He smiled softly, the urge to pull you into his arms so strong, yet he knew this was your first meeting, so he had to play it cool.  

“Hello, Gabriel.” You said, tears of happiness pricking your eyes.  The man you had been dreaming about your whole life was finally there in front of you and you weren’t about to waste a single second. Pulling him into your arms, he didn’t hesitate.  His soul caressed yours, having longed for each other over the centuries, joined forever.

Tag: @deanxfuckingadorablexwinchester @sheacrowley @salt-n-burn-em-all @kjs-s @feelmyroarrrr @thisismysecrethappyplace @vintagevalentinexx @encounterthepast @blondecoffeecake @thewhiterabbit42 @palaiasaurus64 @luckynumber1213 @fridolf-arach @princess-of-erebor1992 @probablynahi @brokencasbutt67-writer @cutelittlepurplesouls

[peccolias]

New Monster in Town

Unfinished Undertale reader-insert fic i’ll probably never finish. please don’t take it seriously, just read for laughs. or not. up to you!

Genre: Humor, Gen

Warnings: Language, mentioned alcohol use/abuse (just a bit). OOC probably.

Words: ~3,500

Summary: Halloween dares kind of suck. But you’re kind of weak to them and kind of tipsy so you decide to go through with one anyway. That being, to hike up the big scary Mount Ebott, take a selfie at the peak, and come home victorious—or, well, with bragging rights to lord over your friends’ heads because none of them have ever shown the guts to make the trip.

You didn’t think you’d end up falling down a hole in the mountain.

You also didn’t think your Halloween costume would end up saving your life.

--

“Stupid—thing—off!”

This is the fifth time you’ve tried. But it just won’t budge.

The all-consuming eyeball mask is stuck fast around your head—this is the last situation you ever thought you’d find yourself in. It’s beyond dumb. Embarrassing, even. Like something out of an R.L. Stine novel.

Your fingers slide against gritty rubber as you try once more to pry your head out of the neck hole that was so easy to put your head through but…like a knock-off so-called Chinese finger trap, so difficult to get out of if you’re an idiot—and you did something pretty dumb to end up here, so you suppose you are.

On the bright side, it kept you from banging up your face or getting a black eye on the vicious tumble down.

Ha ha. Yeah. The only black eye you have is the one stuck to your face.

God.

You heave a sigh and collapse next to the bed of flowers that broke your fall. Some are a little trampled thanks to your blindly stomping around on them, but more or less intact. Good. Just because it’s a shit day for you doesn’t mean you have to ruin it for them, too.

It’s hard to see through the opaque, mesh pupil in your mask, and the lack of light isn’t helping any, but it doesn’t look like there’s a way out from here unless you want to climb a good few feet. Like, maybe hundreds.  And needless to say, you’re a lot better at falling.

Your hands are grimy, smeared with dirt and sweat and a little blood, scraped up from the fall, because the tan garden gloves didn’t do much to protect them on the way down. Not in any condition to try climbing up anything. You swat a few strings of heavy yellow yarn away from your arms as you pull the thick gloves back on, if only to keep the scratches from getting more clogged up with dirt.

Really, this whole situation is your fault. For being dumb enough to dress up as one half of the Flying Spaghetti Monster for this dumb candy holiday, and for coming up to Mount Ebott by yourself. At night. Not to mention trespassing.

It probably wasn’t a serious dare. You and your friends like to dick around and do stuff like that all the time when there’s too much alcohol at boring campus parties and…well, usually, no one even bothers to go through with them. In your defense, you don’t usually drink so much.

You’re not sure what lit a fire under your ass to make you come all the way out here without even letting anyone but your Uber driver know. Who, frankly, probably wished you would disappear when you puked all over his back seat. Oops.

Well, wish fucking granted. Good for him.

Not good for you. You’re stuck here with no food, no water, and no way out.

And this stupid mask stuck on your head.

But…wait a second.

Your butt is wet—not because you pissed yourself or anything, because wouldn’t that just be a kick in the teeth after everything, but because you sat right in a puddle.

You rip off a glove and grab at the flowers beside you. Wet. They’re damp—and there hasn’t been any rain for weeks, so it didn’t fall from above.

Which means…someone watered them! And unless that someone is a highly skilled mountain climber who makes it their business to scale a deep mountain hole just to take care of a patch of pretty flowers, it means there is a way out of this place.

What a way to get motivated. You leap to your feet and jam your glove back onto your hand before marching forward—and promptly smacking into a stalagmite.

Again, you’re a little thankful for this rubber helmet of a mask. Otherwise your nose might be broken right about now.

This time, carefully, and using your hands to reach out and seek obstacles, you explore the cavern for an exit.

Lo and behold, you find a tunnel.

--

You kind of wish you stayed in that cavern with the hole in the ceiling.

Because it made sense. It sucked, but it made sense.

Having a yellow flower spewing words, actual words at you, just didn’t, because that kind of trip belongs in Alice in Wonderland. And you’re not even drunk anymore. So it doesn’t compute.

The talking doesn’t last long. As soon as the flower gets a good look at you, its flowery face freezes in disgust.

“What….what the heck are you supposed to be?”

“Flying Spaghetti Monster.” It’s probably not what the posey is asking, but that’s your answer.

“A…monster?”

“Flying Spaghetti Monster,” you repeat, gently correcting it.

Its face scrunches in disdain as it eyes your…giant eye.

You really didn’t say much. But what little you did say is enough to satisfy this creature, because it falls silent, at a loss, like it’s trying hard to solve a math problem it doesn’t have the proper resources to navigate. So you creep by while it’s occupied and go on your merry way. Wherever that is.

“WAIT A SECOND!”

You halt when the flower screeches at you and you try to glance over your shoulder before realizing you can’t see shit and end up doing a full one-eighty just to see what the problem is.

“You liar, you’re a human! I can see your SOUL.” Just as it says that, something pops out from your chest and hovers in front of you, glowing. Really, all you can see is the glow. You’re not really sure what it is or why it came out of you.

It’s kind of gross.

“Ew, what is this?” You poke at it, and it wiggles a little before going still. Like jello.

“I said it’s your SOUL, dingbat. Not that you really need to know. You won’t be alive much longer. Just for trying to be so clever, I’ll end you quick.” There’s a positively cruel lilt to the creature’s tone that you don’t like one bit.

You hold up your hands and slowly back away. “Hey, what’s with the attitude? You want some fertilizer or something? Look, I don’t know what’s going on here. I just want to go back home and sleep before the hangover kicks in.”

“Oh, you’ll sleep. Forever!”

Something blasts into you from the side and knocks you into the rocky wall. “Ow, fuck, what was that?” Not that you’ve ever been shot, but you imagine this might be what it feels like. Throbbing pain, draining energy, despair—

Blurry shapes circle before you and begin to zero in, ready to catch you in their crosshairs, and you think maybe you won’t be able to get home after all and maybe you shouldn’t have worn such a stupid costume because, really, there’s no way in hell you want people to find your corpse dressed like this.

But before you have the time to start saying your prayers, a fireball whizzes past you and knocks into the flower, carrying it away with a yell.

“Oh, you poor…thing.”

Great. Someone else who doesn’t recognize your costume.

Not that you blame her. Her…a giant, walking, talking goat woman.

Is it even worth getting worked up over at this point?

She’s trying her best to be nice, but you can feel the awkward radiating off of her in waves. There’s a burning question hanging in the air and you’re pretty sure you know exactly what it is.

“What manner of…monster…are you, exactly?” she asks.

“Flying Spaghetti Monster.”

“I do not believe I have ever seen your kind in these Ruins. How did you find yourself in this place?”

“Uh…wrong turn?”

“…Very well. Follow me and I will show you the way out.”

--

One excruciatingly long walk later, you find yourself on the other side of a large door and abandoned to the cold, snowy landscape stretching out before you.

Not any better off than before.

Your tan, fleece-lined UDD boots drag through the snow as you walk (again with the walking—if you knew you’d have to exert your physical side this much you would have worn better shoes) and melted snow seeps through the soles the farther you go.

Until you stop.

Wait.

The hell is snow doing under a mountain? You know some places underground have their own independent weather systems, but—snow?  Inside?

Above you, far above, there’s a rocky cave ceiling. It’s hidden beneath a thin covering of fog—clouds?—but there nonetheless. Darn. You thought maybe you’d gotten lucky and finally found the way out.

Turns out that goat woman monster meant the ‘way out’ was just another area under the mountain.

So many weird things have already happened you’re not really sure how to react anymore.

Really. Once you get home, you’re never partying out late at night again. And never taking a dare again. Probably not ever touching another beer, either.

Still…you’re taking one for the team, here, so might as well make the best of a bad situation.

You fish your phone out of your pocket beneath the costume and attempt to take a quick selfie. It’s hard to see the screen through your mask, and really, the only thing you manage to snapshot is a big screenful of your eyeball mask.

You try again.

Just a giant pupil dominating the screen. With a tiny glint of your face’s outline behind it, shadowed and obscured.

Maybe just one more, peace sign and all—

Something cracks behind you as the flash goes off, and your phone slips from your hand. Dammit. It’s hard enough holding it with the gloves. Picking it out of the snow is going to be a pain.

You crouch down and try to grip the slim device, ready to run if you need to because who knows just what the heck is out wandering around this place, but like hell you’ll leave your expensive phone behind.

But—it—just—won’t—stay in your hand—

Fine. Ugh.

You straighten up and turn around, trying to run your hands through your hair before your gloves and mask stop you from doing that.

Then—

“hey.”

Oh holy shit.

An ungodly, strangled shriek escapes you when someone speaks and you turn back around to set your eyes on a walking, talking skeleton. Who is holding out your phone. With a bony hand.

And a broad smile.

“easy there, did i scare ya? i’m surprised you didn’t see me coming.”

You squint—not that he can see. All that this skeleton guy’s presented with is an unblinking, giant eyeball. Again, he holds out your phone, nodding a little, pushing you to take it. Still smiling.

“this is yours, right? pretty updated model. nice find in the garbage dump?”

“Uh.” You reach out and grab the phone, a little more delicately than you would under normal circumstances, but what if you, like, accidentally rip his hand off? The joints look worryingly disconnected. And is he calling your latest and greatest piece of technology a piece of junk?

“don’t think i’ve seen you around before.” He looks past you, over your shoulder—or around your arm, really, because you’re not that much taller than him but the giant eye counts for something and takes up most of your shoulder space. “the name’s sans. sans the skeleton.”

He holds out a hand again, the friendly, universal symbol of “shake my hand, my dude,” but you’re not…quite comfortable with that. Fragile-looking joints and all that. You really don’t want to pull his hand off, so you quote something familiar instead.

“Ah, yes. ‘Last scene of all/ That ends this strange eventful history/ Is second childishness and mere oblivion/ Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.’”

But he just stands there grinning. On second thought, it might just be that his face is stuck that way.

Fuck. This is so weird.

“Because—you’re…. You’re just the skeleton. Uh, it’s the only Shakespeare quote I know.” You try to elaborate, but he doesn’t say anything. “I guess you do have the teeth, though…”

Fuck. You’re so weird.

After a minute of defeated silence passes, and after you shove your phone back inside your spaghetti body, you hesitantly reach out and encase his skeletal fingers in your glove. Lightly. Very lightly. Then immediately let go.

Or try to, at least. The faux noodle loops of your costume tangle around his thumb and jerk his arm forward as you pull back and oh god oh god it’s going to pop off, isn’t it—

Of course you squeezed your eyes shut awaiting the inevitable, despite your outer eye remaining wide open.

After a beat, the skeleton clears his throat.  

“didn’t realize we got so tied up in conversation.”

“Oh—uh. Yeah. Right. Sorry about that.” You look down at the tangled threads and reach out to try and shimmy them loose—but your gloves aren’t helping at all and possibly making things worse. Sheesh. You just want to leave. How awkward. Probably more awkward for him, though, what with a giant eye staring at him the entire time.

Sans reaches forward and attempts loosening the yarn tangled in his magically-connected metacarpals but to no avail. How in the hell did they get so tangled up in such a short time? “so do you have a name? where did you come from?”

“I’m….how do I say this. Lost?”

“nice to meet you, lost.”

“No—ugh. Are you kidding me? I mean I’m literally lost. My name’s Y/N. Uh.” Shit. You didn’t really want to let your name slip like that but the dumb joke caught you off-guard. Not only that, but…he’s the first monster that’s openly interrogated you like this. The flower was set on murderizing you, it seemed, and the goat didn’t really want anything to do with you aside from kicking you out like an irritated landlady.

But…this guy can’t be in his right mind for willingly speaking to a walking Spaghetti Monster. Maybe it’s like weird meets weird and cancels itself out. There’s gotta be some law about that, somewhere. If you could use your phone without dropping it, you’d give the ol’ Gooble search a visit and find out.

“Or if you’re feeling pretty bold, you could always call me the great and mighty pasta overlord.”

He ignores you.

“and where exactly did you come from?”

He’s oddly persistent. But you don’t suppose that’s strange because you’re the stranger here.

“I don’t know.” You wave a glove in a vague direction. “Around?”

The strings attached to the arm of your costume go taught as he pulls his hand around them. Ugh. After all the effort it took to make this ugly costume, you’d be pretty pissed if it tore. You let him drag your arm along to prevent that. And to prevent potential popping of joints.

“really? never heard of it. looks like you might’ve come from the ruins. but those doors back there don’t open often. at all, really. hasn’t happened once since i’ve been posted here.”

“So…I came out of the ruins to see what’s outside?” You don’t know why you’re phrasing it all as a question like guesswork at a fill-in-the-blank, but you’re stuck. Literally and figuratively.

“…you lived in the ruins?”

“Yeah?” Automatic answers usually get you into automatic trouble, but you think probably this is a good thing this time. “Got a little too small for me. Wanted to get out and see the, uh, wide and wild world?”

He stares you down for a moment. You can’t get a good grasp on whether that’s a good or bad thing before he just shrugs and shakes his head a little.

“guess you’re mostly new to the underground, then. not really the first time this has happened, but you’re the first to come out from the ruins.” He gives you a quick, suspicious once-over again before letting up on the yarn. “come on. i’ll take you to snowdin. if we run into my brother along the way, he can untangle this stuff for sure. he’s great at that.”

“Right. Right! Lead the way and I will follow. Both by choice and because I can’t really help it.”

“good thing I know a shortcut…”

--

Snowdin is…you guessed it. More snow.

So much of it that you’ve gotten used to being ankle-deep in the stuff. It’s the fact that this one-man—er, skeleton—welcoming committee is dragging you along by the arm that’s really concerning at this point—and you’re not the only one who thinks so, because it draws quite a few stares from residents. Assuming it’s not just your weird costume doing it.

“this is the inn. probably where you’re gonna want to stay while you get the hang of this place.” He tilts his head towards one of the two cabin-like buildings on the outskirts of the small village and he’s trying to be helpful, you know, but it’s not really helping because you’re broke.

“I kinda don’t have any money.”

“no problem. my pal grillbz can always use an extra set of hands at his bar.”

Your nose wrinkles behind your mask. “There’s a bar here?” Alcohol is what got you into this mess—you don’t want to be anywhere near it anytime soon.

“the best around. it really sets itself as far as dining goes.”

“Was that a— Anyway, I don’t have a resume.” And you’re fresh out of any intent to stay in this place. As soon as this tangled mess gets sorted out, you’re gone. Back to a world you know. Back to a job you already have and really need to get to.

“well, what’re you good at?”

“Have you met me?” You lift up the yarn-covered arm his hand is still tangled up in and shrug, holding your free arm akimbo.

His smile looks a lot like a grimace.

“SANS!”

Before he can say anything, you’re both approached by a…nother skeleton. A tall one, this time, at least more human in proportion. Except for the buff, spherical biceps. Yeah. Maybe not so human after all. But you totally dig his hot pants and plan to buy a pair on your way out of this place.

“I’VE BEEN LOOKING ALL OVER FOR YOU, AND I FIND YOU SLACKING OFF WITH…WITH…”

Boy, is this getting old. You shift your boots in the snow and try to hold out your right hand to introduce yourself—before stopping short, remembering you’re a little caught up. You drop it again, eyeing Sans at your side. Still grinning. “The Flying Spaghetti Monster.” There’s no enthusiasm in your mask-muffled voice whatsoever. Not even a little. You offer your free hand instead. “Nice to meet ya. I hope.” It isn’t, but you’re trying to be polite.

“…WITH THE FLYING SPAGHETTI MONSTER!” he continues, ignoring the gesture and stomping a foot in the snow, sending a few ungrounded flurries your way. “NOW, I’M NOT SURPRISED AT YOUR COLOSSAL LAZINESS, BUT I AM DISAPPOINTED YOU DRAGGED ANOTHER—WAIT. DID YOU SAY ‘SPAGHETTI?’”

His response makes up for your lack of enthusiasm entirely—never in your life have you seen someone’s eyes light up and sparkle at the mere mention of pasta, of all things. His brightened mood is so dazzling you take an involuntary step back, dragging Sans with you.

“SANS! DID YOU HEAR THAT? DID YOU KNOW? THERE’S—THERE’S A SPAGHETTI MONSTER IN THE UNDERGROUND! I HAVEN’T BEEN THIS EXCITED SINCE SANTA GIFTED ME A SPAGHETTI STRAINER! OH, HOW AMAZING! WOULD YOU—WOULD YOU APPRAISE MY CULINARY TALENTS, SPAGHETTI MONSTER?”

You look at Sans again as the tall skeleton opposite you smacks his gloved hands to his cheekbones in wonder. “Is this your brother?”

“yep, that’s papyrus. isn’t he cool?” Sans’ eye sockets crinkle at the edges. At this point, you’re too exhausted to even question it. Too cold, too. “it’d mean a lot to him if you said yes. he’d be more inclined to help us out here, then we could put this all in the pasta.”

Well, suffering a pasta fanatic can’t be any worse than having to deal with terrible puns. Plus, it sounds like you may be getting a free meal alongside getting freed. It’s a win-win.

“Alright. The almighty pasta overlord will grant your request—but for a price. I’m in a predicament here, see? I heard you’re not just great at making spaghetti, but also at fixing problems like this.” You lift up your (and Sans’s) tangled hand, high enough that it’s in his line of sight. “Help untangle us and I’ll appraise anything you want.”

“WHY—YES! I AM. I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, WILL WOW YOU WITH MY PROBLEM-SOLVING SKILLS AND MY SPAGHETTI!” He sets his hands on his hips—pelvic bones, whatever—and puffs out his chest before darting away, scarf-cape fluttering at his shoulders like a hero that’s supposed to steal your swooning heart, but doesn’t.

You look down at the trail of footsteps he left in his wake behind before sighing. “I’m way too sober for this.”

[origami-goblin]

Starfinder Theme Focus - Spacefarers and Xenoseekers

--

First of all, let me apologize. It's been MONTHS since I teased the final article on Starfinder themes and leaving this series in a perilously unfinished limbo. I wish that I had a decent excuse to explain it, but unfortunately I don't have that either. So please, accept my apology, and let's get to the conclusion of this series!

We've covered a lot of bases - Ace Pilots, Bounty Hunters, Icons, Mercenaries, Outlaws, Priests, and Scholars, which means that today we will be talking about Spacefarers, Xenoseekers, and briefly touching on the Themeless concept. That's still a ton of ground to cover, and I'm a bit intimidated even thinking about it. Concluding this intense detail into Starfinder's themes will be bittersweet - not only because it'll be over, but also because there's no way to fully encapsulate the entire, endless spectrum of characters you can create within Paizo's Starfinder universe. That's what's really great about the Themeless option; if none of the other themes do your character justice in describing their schtick, then you can always go Themeless and solve that particular problem.

Whenever I create a character, I will usually start by trying to find an interesting or obscure feat, characteristic, theme, etc and build the character around that. Some people are really creative and come up with amazing backstories first and build the character to fit their artistic vision. Although that'll happen on occasion, I'll generally determine a character's backstory after I've fleshed out their vitals and statblock. The important thing for me is that my characters stand out. Not from a min-max perspective (if that's what you enjoy then keep doing it!), but from a standpoint of going outside the norm and playing a character with abilities that people may have never experienced before.

Stone Warder Sorcerer? Breadth of Experience feat? Archivist Bard? All of these types of choices go leaps and bounds to hint and what the character is all about. A Stone Warder Sorcerer would be something like an Earth Bender from Avatar, gaining their powers from the rocky world around them. Characters with a Breadth of Experience are ancient, meaning that they've seen and heard nearly all there is to know. Bards with the Archivist archetype aren't going to be dishing out much damage, but they are constantly scribbling down their experiences and every bit of lore they can get their hands on. And just like that, a single piece of your character's statblock can literally define them.

That's partly been the point of these posts about the Themes in Starfinder. Sure, you can come up with an absolutely AWESOME character concept and attach a theme that fits that character. No problem. But if you're having trouble coming up with a character, the options listed in these posts are meant to assist you in launching off into the incredible Imagisphere to create a truly unique character.

Alright, I've babbled so much that I've turned into a brook. (Sorry if I've used that particular moniker already...it's been a long time since my last Starfinder post). Time to finish off the series!

Spacefarer Character Concepts

"Your longing to journey among the stars can't be sated. You yearn for the adventure of stepping onto a distant world and exploring its secrets. You tend to greet every new opportunity with bravery and fortitude, confident that your multitude of skills will pull you through. Perhaps you simply find joy in the act of traveling with your companions, or perhaps you are just out to line your pockets with all sorts of alien loot!"

Clueless Tourist - Let's face it. You saw a map of the Pact Worlds and immediately searched the best places to visit on each planet. Theme parks, monuments, parks - you want to visit them all and document your travels on a blog that you're still coming up with a creative name for. Experiences are the best currency to be paid in, and your goal is to become filthy rich on them. Now, you might not understand all of the different cultures or customs in the places that you're visiting, but in your eyes everybody else should be happy that you're bolstering the economy in all of your destinations. Excuse me - could you please take my photo?

Deductive Meteorologist - Perhaps in the same vein as the Environmental Engineer concept from the Scholar post, this character would be all about the weather and is drawn to the varied climates and conditions present in the Pact World planets. Have you ever seen the sunrise through noxious fuchsia clouds or felt thick, oily rain land on your head? All of these phenomenon can be explained through science. Maybe you'll publish a scholarly journal on your findings, or maybe your more of a storm-chaser bent on surviving the most wild and dangerous conditions. No matter how you spin it, you're fascinated by the weather, whether your companions like it or not.  

Hospitable Flight Attendant - Time to make everybody else's travel experiences as enjoyable as possible. You're an expert at socializing and keeping everybody's minds off the baggage fees and severe lack of legroom. In your eyes, there's no part of a space commute that can't be made better by a tall glass of sherry or a delicious sack of Zeni's Zesty Znacks. While traveling, you are sure to keep all the amenities nearby to heighten the enjoyment of those around you. You might have gotten into the gig because you wanted to see the universe, and maybe that itch is just beginning to surface once more.

Curious Explorer - Hardly anything fancy about this one. You love exploring. The mystery, intrigue, and discovery thrill you to pieces. Every time you come across a corner, you just HAVE to see what's on the other side of it. This is known to get you into heaps of trouble and situations where you end up on the wrong end of a 'No Trespassing' sign. But, through your foolhardy actions, you've been able to experience things that very few other people have, and your stories are the things of legend. There are countless star sectors to visit and only so much time...what are you waiting for?!

Budding Photographer - Your goal? The perfect shot. You might be a movie producer scouting locations for your next sector-buster. Or maybe you're an artistic photographer determined to capture the essence of the human (and alien) experience. You never miss a moment and you are incredibly easy to track based on the trail of snapshots that you leave behind. Whether your honing your craft or a complete amateur when it comes to lighting, focus, and apertures, space grants you the freedom to create magnificent works of art. Every horizon has another potential shot, and you'll hitchhike your way around the galaxy if you have to if it means catching your elusive unicorn.

Xenoseeker Character Concepts

"The thought of meeting alien life-forms excites you. The more different their appearances and customs are from yours, the better! You either believe they have much to teach you or you want to prove you are better than them. Of course, the only way to accomplish your goal is to leave the Pact Worlds and travel to the Vast, where a virtually endless number of aliens await."

Captivated Anthropologist - This concept makes perfect sense. As an anthropologist, you live and love to study the differences between humanoid species. You can even take it a step further to be fascinated with specific aspects of each of the races. What are the secrets behind the Lashunta's psychic abilities? How tough are the scales of the Vesk? So many questions and not enough time to find all the answers. You might become acutely interested in your crewmates, asking them all sorts of intrusive questions in order to develop an understanding for their specific gifts and talents. Beings with surgical enhancements might be particularly interesting to you as humanoids continue their never-ending quest for power.

Inquisitive Marketing Guru - If you want to sell something, you HAVE to know your market. Double blind surveys, focus groups, experimental expos...you will stop at nothing to understand the people buying the products you're pitching. Whether you're a part of an elaborate Ponzi scheme or a well-known enterprise, you are hungry to understand the psychology of buying patterns and habitual spending. If you can unlock those secrets, you will be the most valuable asset to whichever company decides to employ you. And, by developing an understanding for the beings around you, you'll undoubtedly be an asset in any situation involving sweet-talking with honeyed words. Heck - maybe if you can find some delicious edible aliens, you will be the next great snack mogul in the Pact Worlds! Second only to Zeni himzelf.

Experimental Doctor - You embrace the uniqueness of yourself and encourage others to do the same. Stand out from the crowd, you say. Set yourself apart! Implant yourself with one of the many augmentations that you can provide! Your interest in the countless creeping aliens and obscure creatures skittering around the Vast stimulate your imagination and provide you with the necessary...tools to allow you to develop exciting new attachments for your adoring fans. Or maybe you're more secretive and don't think your work should see the light of day. Will you be a mad scientist or a renowned surgeon? The choice is yours!

Calming Zoologist - People will pay loads of money to see an exhibit they've never experienced before. There are countless numbers of mindless creatures out in the far reaches of space that would be welcomed additions to a zoological attraction. Your history in taming wild beasts and soothing the animalistic nature in the creatures you've encountered makes you the perfect person for the job. There is a fantastic space zoo that'll pay top dollar for new specimens, and you're itching to get paid. This isn't to say that you are inconsiderate of the creatures' feelings, however. The zoo that you're working for is more akin to a resort, and they take great care of the residents that live there.

Talkative Space Taxi Driver - While taking fares, you've come across just about every type of intelligent being known in the sector. Long nights that turned into early mornings were a staple of yours, and you've delivered passengers to slums, clubs, and luxury estates, learning about them all the while. You love a good conversation; it helps pass the time and gives you an amazing repertoire of stories to share with your crewmates. Everybody comes from a different background, and you have learned to appreciate the intricacies and uniqueness that everybody brings to the figurative table. You might have a bit of a lead foot as well...but who doesn't?

Themeless Characters

If you don't fit the bill with any of the other themes, then you are probably Themeless. By choosing to forgo a theme designation, your statistical bonuses will suffer compared to a character who has a theme, so if you're more concerned with numbers and maximizing your character, then this might not be for you. Choosing this option, however, will allow you to portray your character as a vast canvas, awaiting your masterful strokes.

Hopefully I've portrayed the wide variety of concepts that the Starfinder themes can cover. With a dash of creativity, you can morph at least one of the themes to fit the base core of your character. Try to think about each of the themes in new ways; don't get caught up in the specific 'title' of the theme. Read the blurbs about each one and search for synonyms that line up with the character that you're envisioning in your mind.

---

At the end of the day, play a character that you WANT to play. You should be excited every time that you portray your character, and play the game in whatever way is going to be the most fun for you.

I hope you've enjoyed this series on the Themes of Starfinder! See you in the stars!

[stringnarratives]

Stop, Look and Listen: “Return of the Obra Dinn”

[This post brought to you with major spoilers for Lucas Pope’s 2018 game “Return of the Obra Dinn”.]

"Literature makes us better noticers of life; we get to practice on life itself; which in turn makes us better readers of detail in literature; which in turn makes us better readers of life.” 

- James Wood, How Fiction Works  

And so it begins - it’s finally games industry season, folks, and we are in the thick of it, with conferences, game jams, awards ceremonies and publisher announcements happening even faster than even fans can keep up with. (In the first draft of this post, I listed out just the events that *I* keep up with, and this paragraph was three times as long as it is currently. You’re welcome for the edit.)

It’s a whirlwind, and, with great titles being announced and honored left and right, something will always fall through the cracks. But one thing that I’ve been sure not to miss with all the hubbub is that my personal Game of the Year 2018 is getting plenty of attention, and for good reason.

“Return of the Obra Dinn” -- the latest release by “Papers, Please” creator Lucas Pope -- released in October 2018 to favorable reviews (or Overwhelmingly Positive, if the gamers of Steam have anything to say about it) and has been receiving recognition since. It took home the Independent Games Festival’s Seumas McNally Grand Prize AND the award for Best Narrative at the Game Developers Choice Awards on Wednesday. It’s been nominated in six categories at the 15th British Academy Games Awards (happening April 4). And so far, it seems to be defending its title as the top-ranked indie game on Polygon’s Game of the Year chart (behind “God of War”, of course.

The game is part two-tone logic puzzle, part nautical horror and part historical science/magic fiction. The player is cast in the role of an insurance adjustor sent by the East India Trading Company in 1807 to determine the series of circumstances that turned the Obra Dinn into a veritable ghost ship, damaged and devoid of crew after being lost to the open sea for five years. 

Using the Memento Mortem, a magical little device that allows the player to travel back and explore vignettes anchored to the deaths of crew members, one must collect data to determine the identity, title, cause of death (if they are indeed dead) and nefarious actions of each person who’d been aboard the ship when it set sail in 1802. The visual scenes are centered around the exact moment of death, giving the player a look into the fate of each person aboard the ship, as well as the immediate circumstances of their demise. Ultimately, it’s discovered that the Obra Dinn was ravaged by not only the common misfortunes of the sea - mutiny, illness, in-fighting among the crew - but also far more monstrous forces of nature: Giant crabs, a kraken, vengeful mermaids... The kinds of things one might expect a cursed crew to go up against.

It’s a game played in “past present” tense, where the player simultaneously feels like a part of the action and knows that they are only observing it from a point in the future, and it isn’t necessarily easy. One must rely on visual references in death scenes, an unattached list of names, two drawings of the crew and seconds-long audio clips at the investigation of each new corpse to make judgements on each person’s fate. Sometimes the clue that makes an identity clear is an accent. Sometimes it’s an identifier posted obscurely somewhere in the environment. Sometimes it’s just the process of elimination. But almost always, it’s driven by the detail of the scenes the player is examining.

Because it relies so heavily on specifically captured snapshots, “Return of the Obra Dinn” doesn’t have the privilege of skimping on detail. Whereas in many games, Easter Eggs and environmental detail are considered a bonus for players who carefully examine the game’s setting instead of blazing through, Return of the Obra Dinn relies on more methodical playthrough. Its environments are meant to be combed through, to be examined from all angles, even going so far as to hide a vital corpse inside one of the ship’s walls in one portion of the game. 

A lack of narration (apart from the short snippets of conversational audio accompanying each scene) lends the ship both a sense of haunted quiet, and the opportunity for the story to unfold solely based on the findings of the player. This contrasts it to other “post-mortem”-style investigation games like Fullbright’s “Tacoma,” where we see the story unfold with the help of the crew’s movement and dialogue records in addition to detailed props. Instead, what we have is an information driven plot, organized in by the tools the player is given at the beginning of the game.

On a sensory level, blood splatters, raindrops, expressions and distinctive character traits (outfits, appearance, accents, responsibilities aboard the ship) must also be rendered in enough detail that we, as an adjustor stepping into the situation for the first time, can successfully determine most, if not all, that happened. It doesn’t just matter who killed whom, but also how, and when, and where, and why. And with 60 passengers aboard the ship (and 58 solvable fates in the main portion of the game) the differences between them can be the difference between completing the game and leaving it unfinished. It’s here that Return of the Obra Dinn intentionally approaches a “thisness” - a concept originating back to the 13th Century that denotes a sense of specificity in a thing rather than its universal qualities - that many games don’t. Rather than focusing on a specific few crew members to investigate and creating stock folks to quietly inhabit the scenes, each person aboard the Obra Dinn has a specific identity and fate, unique to them, that affects how the story of the ship as a whole plays out.

What results is a feeling of completion and quality in the game, but also a strange sense of realism. In the assumed role of insurance investigator - a title that is purposely made to feel very official at the game’s beginning - there is a completed circuit of logic in every person having a face, a name, a role, and ultimately a fact to report back about. The role feels thorough rather than ironic, and with that comes a sense of pride at discovering even the smallest fate. 

In “How Fiction Works”, writer and professor James Wood reminds us that great literature, full of just the right detail to set a scene and enhance a story, makes us better observers. Where the characters notice details in their world, we too notice details in ours. In gaming, we take that role further, stepping into the shoes of the character in a way that lets us not only observe but move through a scene with ease. In “Return of the Obra Dinn,” it’s the details that allow us to do that. It’s the details that convince us that we are the only thing standing between the Obra Dinn and obscurity, the only thing tethering it to shore and letting it succumb to its ghosts entirely.