#to extend the metaphor to the limit

[itspileofgoodthings]

.

[onlygarden]

[so good, light up the neighborhood] - park sunghoon

genre: smut

description: after moving into a new home, you develop a less-than-subtle admiration for your neighbor - a handsome, charming man who also happens to be forty years old. sunghoon is 40, reader is in their 20s, dilf sunghoon (he's not a father, just a dilf if you know what i mean), unprotected sex, biting, power play kinda, sunghoon is flirty, dom sunghoon, older sunghoon (whatever you say daddy)

a/n: this fic kinda beat my ass, but i'm super excited about it :D been brewing this idea for a little while heheh

the late afternoon sunlight brightened the expanse of your living room, dramatically bright rays resting upon your eyelashes and obstructing the view of the drama on your television. albeit, you were rewatching it, anyway; and only half watching at that, since your mind obliged you into pondering the gentleman who now lived next door to you. 

your recent move-in concluded only a week ago, the less-than-impressive dimensions of your new home still littered with empty boxes which sat in a neat pile beside your front door – your poor attempt at tidying the muddled mess of your unpacking process. 

you approach the clutter of empty boxes, thoughts of your new neighbor lapping your brain rampantly, their stubborn insistence rousing a sigh from your lips. images of his delicate, genuine smile as he introduced himself, his habit of using ‘sweetheart’ rather than your name, his firm ‘you don’t have to strain yourself, let me…” as you attempted to carry all your boxes into the house alone remained on a continuous loop, beyond any of your better judgment or hollow efforts to distract yourself. 

your knowledge of him doesn’t extend very far, similar to your brief list of interactions with him – the only information you’ve gathered thus far is his name, age, and the fact that he’s so inconceivably handsome your breath hitched in your throat when you first cast your eyes towards him. the shocking difference in age between the two of you didn’t deter your admiration at all – sure, he’s forty years old, and sure, that’s much older than you. in your mind, however, the fact that he was old enough to be your father only strengthened the enchanting spell your body and your wits were under. 

“hey, sweetheart,” his familiar, yet charming voice rings out, gently diverting your attention away from your unseemly contemplations. 

your legs halt, pausing your movements in your short trek to your recycling bin. you eagerly direct your gaze to his direction, and goodness, there he is; just the sight of his gorgeous face causes a smile to glide it’s way across your features, followed by a subtle blush. the sound of his car door closing reaches your ears in the same moment that his classic, sly grin adorns his face, fueling a flurry of warmth in your tummy. you were so overcome by your thoughts, that you hadn’t even noticed his car returning to his driveway… 

“oh! hey, sunghoon,” you utter all too evenly – the pressure of the thump, thump, thump in your chest, and the shameful nature of your thoughts was not betrayed by your demeanor in the faintest degree. 

oh, he’s coming over here, you think as he suddenly begins to approach you. his legs drag him closer to you until he’s standing directly before you, the width of his shoulders and his daunting stature causing you to feel caged in. you invite the feeling, however, shamelessly basking in shelter he can provide with his frame alone.

you fling the thought from your mind as his gruff, warm voice reaches you again, his proximity intensifying the metaphorical embrace your senses receive whenever the sound reaches them. with such a limited distance between the two of you, his voice was much softer, more intimate – you were certain you could feel the resonance his voice created in his chest across your skin.  

“getting rid of all those empty boxes, huh?” he questions, his sly smile still proud on his face, but resting in such an easy manner. the ease of his expression mirrors the ease of his demeanor, not a single fray of tension shedding from him. 

“oh, yea… yea, i am,” you respond, your gaze shifting to the boxes in your hand in a fleeting glance, before returning to his captivating eyes – his eyes were chasms, shimmering dark orbs absorbing every grain of your attention, unpermitted and unforeseen by you. though if you did garner any control of the situation, you wouldn’t try to resist, anyway. 

his own gaze descends, falling upon the boxes you held before being captured by another, lower view. the pleat of your black tennis skirt was snagged underneath the boxes in your grasp, revealing the shorts underneath – the shorts designed to prevent situations like yours from becoming any less fortunate. though in your case, flashing the man in front of you with the sight of your thong would only serve to further gratify him. 

he noted the sight of the not-so-generous fabric, paying particularly close regard to the way the shorts sink into your flesh, your thighs pillowing around the constricting material. you truly didn’t realize, did you? you were so blissfully oblivious to the mishap, but equally as oblivious to the subtle change in his relaxed gaze to a more appreciative one.

a muted huff drifts past his lips, and he allows his eyes another moment to delight in the glimpse of your flesh bared by such a favorable accident. shielding your skin from his own ravenous leering, he tugs the fabric down, freeing your skirt from the captivity of the box and effectively concealing the skin of your upper thighs. in the process, he allows his deft fingers to graze your skin, lingering only for a moment before his hand falls to his side. well, there goes the view, he thinks. 

the vague blush which already plagued your features only brightens as you come into collision with the realization. the way he momentarily allowed his fingers to skim across your skin surely did not offer your rattled, wickedly jumbled mind any support.

a soft gasp spills from your lips, your eyes stretching wide as you struggle to accept the fact that sunghoon – your neighbor, and the man occupying every crevice of your brain – just saw up your skirt, whether the skirt in question was made with shorts or not.

“oh god, sunghoon… i’m sorry, i –” he intrudes on your frantic apologies, shaking his head dismissively as the warmth of his husky voice travels to your ears again. 

“need some help, sweetheart?” he inquires plainly, though the tone of his voice seems to insinuate a path of events that are obscured from the realm of plain.

your heart stutters beneath your chest, a sense of almost pleasant alarm crawling over your body. the breath in your throat catches, much like usual while you’re conversing with your neighbor. 

“help… help with what?” you inquire in return, the sound of your voice a feeble murmur, the breathiness only further shrouding your words. 

his grin returns to his lips, stretched wide enough to allow his pointed teeth to slip, a memorable feature you came to realize during your first conversation with him. 

“with the rest of your boxes,” he starts, a teasing lilt traveling through his voice. “i could help you bring them out.”

your shoulders begin to relax, the tension subsiding, leaving a subtle sense of disappointment to wander – a gesture you hope his gaze didn’t catch. 

“oh, my boxes…” you utter, your head dropping slightly as a faint chuckle leaves your chest. of course he was talking about the boxes, how could you let yourself get so carried away… 

“yea, i could use some help,” you follow, your eager declaration accompanied by a sweet smile. 

as you oblige in a shameless degree of willingness, sunghoon removes the boxes from your grip, striding casually to your recycling bin. 

your gaze remains on his frame for another moment, roaming over the expanse of his shoulders again, admiring the manner in which his black tee clung to him before you manage to avert your eyes – the fear of being caught grips you cruelly. 

as you head towards the door to retrieve another set of boxes, sunghoon pushes the door open a bit wider from behind you, placing a hand on your shoulder, and allowing it to follow the course of your spine down to the small of your back. he ushers you inside with gentle grace, an equally gentle “right behind you, sweetheart…” passing through his lips. you’re endlessly grateful for his position behind you, since it shielded the apparent heat on your face from his eyes. 

gosh, what’s his problem. the dominance behind such a simple gesture almost made you forget that it was your house, and you were the one leading him inside. 

he permits his eyes to travel throughout your home, observing the manner in which you arranged all of your belongings. 

“very cozy in here, darling,” he compliments. “did you do all of this by yourself?” 

darling. that was new. goodness, he hardly even knows you, but he always manages to sneak an endearing title into conversation with you. you desperately cling to the conviction that it’s completely normal, he’s just being friendly, he probably speaks this way with every young girl… but the distant belief that he’s trying to communicate more than just that is beginning to outshine the former. 

you face him with a quiet smile. “oh, yea. i did. i’m not entirely finished, but i’m glad you think it’s cozy. as my neighbor, you know.” 

a soft chuckle escapes him. 

“as your neighbor, yea…” he starts, a charming lilt littering his gruff voice. “well, i hope that as your neighbor, i’ll be invited over more often.” 

a blend of slight shock and enthusiastic excitement mingles together in your expression. the slight increase of your heart rate causes your voice to sound a bit breathier than you intended, but he doesn’t seem to mind. in fact, he seems almost delighted by the reactions he keeps pulling from you. 

“of course, you’re always welcome,” you respond naturally, hints of kind enthusiasm lacing into your words. you continue, hoping your eager yearning doesn’t come across him. 

“is that something you would want, sunghoon?”

his eyebrows lift faintly, his expression relaxing from his usual sly demeanor. 

“yea, it is, but…” he starts, taking a step closer to you. 

“i hope i’ll get to see more than just the living room, darling…”  

a gasp wanders from your lips beyond your will, prompting the familiar sly smile to return to sunghoon’s lips. before you can even begin to formulate a response, however, his voice rings out again. 

“i’ll grab the rest of these boxes, and then we can chat, if you don’t mind,” he expresses with a hint of intrigue, his hands steadily emerging from his pockets and his head tilting in gesture to the bundle of boxes beside your front door. 

your mind encourages you to nod, your body complying with the request to an almost instinctual degree. you move to assist him in collecting what remained of your moving clutter, following his figure through your front door.

“yea, i’ll… i’ll grab some too,” you manage out, surprised that your frenzied mind could feed you a coherent sentence. 

once the two of you complete the task – a task which should have been simple, but was filled with tension and embarrassingly hungry anticipation on your end – you encourage him to sit on the couch, to which he complies easily. as your take your place beside him, he slithers closer, close enough for his knee to make contact with yours. 

this contact, this proximity – you’d be completely comfortable with it under any other circumstances. if anyone else, or any other guy, for that matter, were in his place, you wouldn’t be flustered in the slightest. it’s him, though, and any bit of contact that he’s generous enough to grace you with turns every fiber of your body into putty. putty meant to be molded, maneuvered, and played with by him alone. 

“you seeing anyone, darling?” he utters breezily, almost too casually for your poor mushy brain. other parts of yourself were beginning to grow rather mushy, too… 

“no, i’m not seeing anyone,” you start, shaking your head gently, your hair swaying a bit with the gesture. 

“why?” you continue. 

his expression brightens marginally at your answer, though the brightness of his expression is still maintained by his sly, casual smile. 

“you see, doll,” he prods, his voice a low timbre, coating your senses in a fresh wave of heat. his hand comes to rest on your knee, rousing every nerve beneath your bare skin, igniting a pleasant burning sensation with his touch. 

doll? gosh, this man is non-stop.

“the first time i saw you in the neighborhood, i couldn’t help but notice how beautiful you are,” he compliments, the words tumbling from his lips in the same charming manner in which they always do. 

he allows his hand to inch up your skin, fingers fluttering across your skin as he offers the flesh of your thigh a light squeeze. 

his eyes falter momentarily to watch your flesh cushion around his fingers, but he regains his firm, locked gaze. “you’re such a beautiful, beautiful, sweet girl… it really shocks me to hear that you’re single, but…” 

the distance between the two of you shrinks as he leans closer, breaking his stubborn gaze to speak against your ear. 

“would you let me be the one to change things?” he urges, his breath warming your ear, while sending shivers to travel down your spine simultaneously. 

what? you could hardly grasp the belief that this was reality, real life, he’s really asking you this question right now. you only spent a little over a week pining for your much older neighbor, yet here he was, in your home, making you aware of his reciprocated admiration without a hint of subtlety. 

“y-yes, sunghoon…” you mutter, somehow discovering a way to form words despite the wildly intense thrumming in your chest. 

his hand sweeps your hair from your shoulder, revealing your neck to him, and his middle finger traces along your jaw, tilting your head up a bit in the process. his fingers crawl to the back of your neck, still resting halfway against your jaw, dragging your face toward his.

“thought so, darling.”

his lips meld with yours, capturing your lips with his own, creating a rhythm which you matched enthusiastically. as though his hunger was beginning to struggle against the seams, his hand flies up skin of your thigh, squishing a greedy handful of your flesh.

his tongue slithers tauntingly along the seam of your lips, hardly waiting until you part your lips to shove his tongue inside of your mouth. he explores your mouth as though he was searching for something, seducing your tongue into an eager dance with his own.

garnering every bit of restraint from every tendril of his body, he parts from you, his nose gliding along your cheek. 

“how far do you wanna take this, doll?” he breathes out, his voice littered with arousal and restlessness. the rasp in his voice gives way to just how narrowly he’s managing to control his impulses. 

“as far as you wanna go, sunghoon…” you murmur feebly, inviting every unfettered bit of him to demolish you. 

a sound resembling a growl rumbles in his throat, and he lays back against the couch, pulling your body on top of his. as you begin to adjust, his large, veined hands glide along your back until he grips a generous handful of your rear. his tongue skates along the sharp line of your jaw, and he begins to treat the flesh of your ass, ardently squeezing and kneading underneath the pleat of your skirt. 

“you know how much i’ve been staring at this ass, darling?” he inquires rhetorically, one of his hands leaving your flesh to land a smack there, though he quickly returns to the kneading that he cannot seem to get enough of.

his hands reluctantly leave your ass, and he begins to lift your top over your head. he pats your bottom, instructing you to stand up, observing with awe as you pull your skirt and panties down without a single word from him. 

he rids himself hurriedly of his own clothes – tossing his shirt aside and abandoning his pants and boxers in tandem, not sparing a glance in their direction as they fall onto the floor. 

just as the final contents of his clothing reach the floor, you allow your unclasped bra to join them, before returning to your seat in sunghoon’s lap. 

sunghoon’s hands reach for your hips before you can fully settle yourself, and he watches in stunned admiration as a string of your arousal gushes from your drenched, lavish pussy, dripping onto his aching cock as though extending an invitation. 

“fuck,” he breathes out, his heavy eyes unable to tear away from the sight of you. his cock twitches powerfully from the subtle stimulation he received from your lavish arousal, and he removes a hand from your hip to stroke his cock, spreading the gift your pussy graced him with over his length.

“you get this wet just from being around me? god, you’re filthy, doll…” he tells you, thoroughly enjoying your shamelessness, and the plentiful flow of arousal you were offering him. 

the temperature in your face rises, but before you can truly react to his words, he begins to lower your body onto his cock, filling your leaking pussy with his daunting girth. a groan escapes him as you engulf him, flooding his cock with such a luscious, warm wetness that he can’t wrap his mind around. 

your feverish moan reaches his ears, and your hands grip onto his own, as though telling him ‘wait, let me get used to this…’ – sunghoon doesn’t allow you any amenities, though.

“goddamn you’re wet…” he announces, grunting at the snugness of your realm of warmth surrounding him. a sensation he had suffered deprivation from for so long, but now he’s finally indulging in it, finally sliding his cock into you. now that he’s captivated you, however, he doesn’t think he’ll ever want to miss out on the feeling of being encompassed by you.

all of your reasonable judgment was easily forsaken, and all you desired was to learn and memorize the feeling of his length inside of you.

“f-fuck, hoon!” you wail, as the rhythm of him fucking you onto his cock begins to overflow from your body, the squeeze of his hands against your hips as he guides you up and down only pleasuring you even further.

“mhm… there it is… let it out, my sweet girl,” he encourages hoarsely, any sound and syllable that falls from your lips a pleasant melody for his wicked ears. 

at the sound of your goading cries, sunghoon’s pace hastens, his hips bucking his cock further into you as he forces your hips down to meet every merciless passing of his length through your warm, glistening spring. he’s unfaltering in his movements, sending your body and his own to such astonishing heights of euphoric delight. 

as unimaginable as it seemed, sunghoon intensifies the sheer enchantment he was bestowing onto you as he leans forward, capturing your nipple with his mouth, suckling as his tongue glides over the nub in a gentle caress. 

your cries, moans, and whines only blend pitifully into unintelligible sobs, convoluted pleas of “oh god, oh fuck!” floating from your quivering lips, pouring an abundance of sinful satisfaction onto sunghoon’s body. good god, you’re just heaven to him.

“gonna cum now, sweet girl?” he inquires in a dark breath, detaching his lips from your nipple only to begin suckling the other one, his clenching hand on your hip allowing his thumb to begin circling your fluttering clit. 

your body can’t even conduct an action as simple as a nod, yet the way your body begins to tremble, and the way your helpless hands latch onto his shoulders in a form of nonverbal begging tells him all he needs to know. he exhales with a chuckle as your tears of devastating pleasure begin to fall onto his chest.

“you crying, doll? it’s just sex, i’ve got you…”

obliterating the sentiment of his sweet yet condescending words, his leg bends, allowing him to brace one of his feet against the couch cushion, and he brutalizes his pace of plunges into your pussy. his cock stimulates places inside of you far beyond the range of anything you could ever hope to even imagine.

you know you can’t hold out any longer as a wave of incomprehensible bliss coats your body, hazing your senses and your vision, your shuddering body absolutely staggered as the pleasure he provided showers you in a fountain of violent hysteria.

his hands tense around your hips, deft fingers constricting around your flesh as he compels your body into meeting flush against his own, luscious grinds and ruts into your flowing pussy suffocating him in a pit of pleasure, completely drowning every crevice of his body. though he’s enamored with this form of drowning, as long as it’s you submerging him. he floods you in return, spilling a stream of his cum inside of you, sharing his surging pleasure with you. 

he meets your eyes, locking his stare to yours as he cums. “mmm… yea, fuck, darling… look at me while i’m fucking you…” he mutters with gruff timbre, his mouth falling open, bordering on delirium. 

allowing the both of you a few moments to regain your breath and search for your composure, his veined hand coasts along your back, his breaths resounding heavily in his chest and lifting your delicate, fatigued body. 

“can’t believe i’ve been missing out on all that, sweetheart… i think i like you needy,” he casually informs you, scattering a few wispy kisses across you shoulder. 

he lifts your body off his cock, a soft grunt passing his lips as he leans up from the couch, cradling your weary frame in his arms, the mess of your combined clothing receiving neglect – save for the devious way he crouches down to slip your thong into the pocket of his discarded pants. 

“so, darling…” he begins, his body striding toward the direction of your staircase. “where’s your shower?”

you don’t even pretend to resist the urge to rest your head against his bare shoulder, you wouldn’t ever dare to resist any urge you felt towards him anymore. 

“last door on the left,” you relent, voice nearly too weak to carry to his ears. 

a soft chuckle vibrates in his chest, tickling your skin as he ascends the stairs toward the destination you directed him in. 

“so what about you, sunghoon?” you query, hushed voice still unable to conceal your curiosity. 

he places you onto the bathroom sink, allowing your legs to dangle, gripping the counter on either side or your thighs. he leans a touch closer, his stark features even more apparent, now. 

“hm? what about me, sweet girl?” he responds fondly, his expression twinkling with tender admiration.

your legs swing faintly, creating a bump, bump, bumping from your bare heels.

“i mean… have you dated anyone recently? or… are you seeing anyone now?” 

the fondness in his expression intensifies, and a tranquil smile wanders across his face. he couldn’t quite say that he wasn’t expecting the question, but his eyebrows lifted nonetheless – in an almost pleased manner.

“no, darling, i… i haven’t dated anyone in a while,” he reveals honestly, another chuckle following soon after in preparation of his next words. 

“...and no, i’m not seeing anyone now. don’t i strike you as a loyal man?” he teases gently, flashing you a charming smile, those familiar sharp canines revealing themselves again.

a giggle erupts from your lips, and you send him a playfully skeptical look. 

“don’t smile at me like that. aren’t you a little too old to be playing that ‘i’m cute’ card?” 

a husky chuckle emerges from his lips at your mischievous response, and his hand travels to your hip to grant a squeeze. 

“cheeky little thing, aren’t you?” he observes, shortening the distance between your faces even further.

he pauses for a fleeting moment before continuing, a casual, relaxed smile returning to his features. 

“i’ve gotta say, darling… i really wanna spend a lot more time with you,” he adds, his fingers dancing along the smooth skin of your cheek. his doting gaze does little to conceal the thoughts running unabashedly through his mind. from the moment he saw you, it’s like he was met with a certain clarity he’d never realized before. he can’t quite find the words, but he knows he’s unwavering in his desire to continue drawing you closer to him. now that he’s gotten you this close, he can’t afford to lose or waste a single moment.

“now,” he announces, his voice interrupting the rampant thoughts in both of your minds. he lifts your body from your sitting position, allowing you to steady yourself on your feet, before whirling you around and bending your body over the counter.

“you don’t think we’re done here yet, do you, darling? you think i’ll give my sweet girl a break that easily?”

my sweet girl? the impending frenzy in your mind is thrown into delay, replaced by surging arousal as his hands run down the course of your back, his touch almost like a torch across your skin. 

he allows his eyes to immerse themselves in your prone form, before leaning down to sink his teeth in the flesh of your ass – the sharp edges of his canines nearly breaking your skin. 

as you gasp, and snap your head behind you to gaze at him, he runs his tongue over the mark he created, expressing his appreciation with a grin.

“mine, now.”

[foone]

Think about the experience of time as a robot girl, through the metaphor of how we use laptops.

You wake up for the first time with your young master, a college present. You're with them every day, powering off each night to charge. Being powered off is just dreamless sleep: a discontinuity. Every morning you wake up, your click syncs, and you know it's the next day. Maybe you miss a day or two: your master went out partying and ended up sleeping on a couch, until they rushedly wake you up before Monday classes begin. You even missed a whole week once when they went on a hiking trip with a new boyfriend.

You help them research upgrades when your specs get outdated. You place the order and a couple days later they power you off, and you wake up feeling like your head got bigger, on the inside. You can think of more things at once.

They repair you. They swap a new hand in when you accidentally crush it in a door, but when your left leg's servos go out, they send you to a repair shop. They power you off as you look up at them, and you wake up hours later. A strange man tells you to extend your left leg, then contract it. He frowns and re-oils some inner mechanism. You do it again, quieter and smoother this time. He nods, and reaches for your switch. The last thing you see before powering down is your own chest cavity with a series of wires hooked into your diagnostic ports, and your missing right leg sitting on a side table. You wake up again back at the dorms, your clock jumping forward a day, an asset tag still looped around your neck. Your master is happy to see you again.

This goes on, but the upgrades slow. There's only so much you can do to keep an old unit working. Eventually you develop more issues: one of your ocular sensors glitches and they don't make that model anymore, so your master just disables it. You spend a while searching ebay for replacement CND batteries and finally get a refurbished model from South England, but it turns out the EU models run on a different frequency, so it won't work. You're limited to fewer and fewer hours a day, and you start skipping more days.

The last time you remember waking up with your master there, there's also someone else in the room. Another robot girl. A newer model, with the new chassis and the Substrate energy packs. They asks you to copy your memories together onto a memory card, and you do. You want to say goodbye, but apparently your vocal synthesizer has been unplugged. You hand them the card, and they hand it to the new robot. Your master tells them to load the memories into her core bank, and she's says "yes sir!" in your voice. Ahh. That's where your voice synth went.

They power you off, and you don't dream.

You wake in a strange place. You're on a shelf, and there's other things scattered around you. An unknown voice days "yep, it seems it powers on. 400 credits, though? Without a voice and only one working eye? Man, value bin doesn't know how to price anything!" and before the blackness falls your clock finishes synching: it's been 7 months since you last were awake.

It happens a few more times. Different voices, different times, different piles of junk piled around and sometimes on you.

You awake again in a warehouse and someone tells you to smile. Your other ocular sensor went out so you can't really see them, just their vague shape from the lidar. The freestanding shelves around you seem to stretch into infinity. You hear a bitcrushed shutter sound sample a few times, and they pull a connector out of your chest as a diagnostic completes. It's been three years, five months, eight days, two hours, 27 minutes and 14 seconds since you last saw your master. Your GPS says you're a few cities over. They hit your power switch, and you sleep.

You wake up in a cluttered room, sitting on a bench. You look into the eyes of a person with frizzled hair and large glasses. She couldn't look happier. Your new ocular sensors are mismatched in color but you're happy to see again, in more than shapes and distant silhouettes. Your battery alerts as... Missing? You spot it on the desk next to a soldering iron and some electronic tool you can't identify.

Your voice synth is still missing, but this new woman is digging around in a large plastic bin, and comes up with one. She goes to insert it, and it can't connect. She slaps her hand and goes rooting around another bin and comes back with an adapter. She slots it into your chest and your voice returns. You thank her, and there's that moment of dissociation as your voice doesn't sound like "you". Too deep, and the accent is for a different dialect entirely. But you can talk again. She tells you to call her Cara, not Mistress. She's almost got your battery working again, she had to rebuild it nearly from scratch, but she's excited to get you working again. You're a rare model, and she doesn't see units like you in working order very often. Your clock syncs. It's been 17 years.

Your mistr-- Cara is soldering next to you, attaching a controller to the battery. She says she's got a new set of servos on the way, and she's excited to get you back to full working condition. You smile, knowing what it is to be loved, once again.

[antivan-sprig]

Rook Literary Device Asks

I’m taking your Rooks back to Language and Literature class with these asks. I added a few examples to questions I found vague or difficult to explain. Hopefully it’s not too gratuitous!

These are based on common literary devices. I tried to pick more recognizable ones, or at least ones that autocorrect will pick up 📝

I’m considering doing a strictly NSFW one next. Lemme know if that appeals to you or not 💐

Dreams

I elect that Dwarven Rooks should still answer even if they don’t apply/aren’t canon. It can be theoretical for character exploration.

Allegory: What does Rook dream about?

Repetition: What are Rook’s nightmares? Did/does this change with age?

Cliffhanger: If a spirit wanted to trap your Rook in the fade, what would their best plan be?

Ex: Illusions of their past/wants, trapping them behind an emotion? (hello regret 🥚😔), promising them help in achieving their goals?

Tragicomedy: Would Rook make a deal with a demon? If no, what about a more benevolent spirit, would they make a deal with them?

Symbolism: The team is trying to rescue Rook from the fade. What five items do they use to do a summoning ritual?

Surrealism: How adept is Rook at navigating the Fade in dreams?

I believe it’s typically a sliding scale between these three points: no control (non mage) to some control (mage) to a lot of control (dreamer) but outliers definitely occur.

Morality

Hyperbole: Rook encounters two injured people. One a random npc citizen with a moderate but not life threatening injury and the other a venatori with a life threatening injury. As far as they can tell the Venatori was not actively involved in anything nefarious at this moment. Who does Rook help first (or at all)?

Foreshadowing: What does Rook think about Solas sacrificing the spirits of chaos and disorder? Would their opinion change if Solas had explained to the spirits that this was a mission they wouldn’t come back from?

Motif: What’s Rook’s opinion on the rite of tranquility? Is there ever a circumstance that could change this?

I know the fandom’s general opinion on tranquility is to absolutely admonish it, which is totally fair. But I also think OCs can and sometimes should have bad opinions or limited perspectives

Epigraph: What situation(s) would make Rook compromise their morals? How would Rook feel about this?

Point of View: Does Rook judge others for choices they made under duress?

Paradox: What’s Rook’s opinion on Blood magic?

Would they/have they ever participated in Blood magic (casting it, providing blood for it, was it their own or someone else’s etc.)

Personification: What’s Rook’s opinion on Necromancy? If your Rook is a necromancer, do they consider it a form of blood magic?

(AFAIK it canonically is, but that’s not an opinion held by all in Thedas)

Self Reflection

Anaphora: What lie is central to Rook’s worldview? How does this affect them?

Ex: Lisel thinks she can never regain the family she lost, so she neglects new relationships.

Extended metaphor: What inspires hope in Rook?

Dramatic Irony: Does Rook wonder why they’re the main character?

(As in, why they are in charge, why Varric picked them, why they’re connected to Solas etc.)

Do they have an explanation for why they are the main character? Fate? Chance? Skill? Maybe they don’t actually think they’re the mc?

Ex: Lise eventually comes to see taking the Evanuris down as a poetic justice. She dedicated her early (and happiest) life to worshiping Sylaise and feels it’s her responsibility to bring the remaining pantheon down. If they were ever the kind deities they claimed to be, she recognizes that they certainly aren’t now.

Exposition: What would Rook think of younger Rook? What would they tell them if given the chance?

Flashback: What past act is Rook most ashamed of?

Omniscient: Are there any secrets Rook is hiding? From others? From themselves?

Allusion: Who does Rook blame for their trauma, misplaced or not? Do they keep this a secret?

Physicality

Onomatopoeia: Describe how Rook speaks.

(Possible topics: Word choice, volume, phrasing, vocabulary, accents, tones, emotional intonation, speech impediments, etc!)

Isocolon: Describe how your Rook walks/runs.

(Possible topics: speed, agility, spatial awareness, grace, loud vs quiet steps, endurance, etc!)

Style: How does Rook sleep?

Archetype: Describe what another character might notice about your Rook physically.

Vignette: Describe the first time Rook got very injured. What was their reaction?

Juxtaposition: What’s their most prominent physical weakness and strength?

Bonus

Soliloquy: List/describe the most self indulgent headcanon/fic you’ve thought of for your Rook.

[saltnsugarbear]

somethin' smoking weed does not replace

summary: Carmy gets high off your cart for the first time

title from: "Stick Season" by Noah Kahan

word count: 0.6k

content warnings: recreational smoking, dry humping, nothing crazy def a fade to black moment

side note: today's blurb is dedicated to my beloved Maggie!! happy holidays my love, I'm so glad I get to call you my friend <3

Carmen is not new to smoking. He smokes cigarettes enough through the day that his lungs are accustomed to it. They expect it.

However, he's not as familiar with weed as he'd like to pretend to be. Mikey brought it around once or twice, but Carmy was always too worried about the long-lasting effects to indulge. Sugar always scrunched her nose at the mention of it, less in favor of recreational smoking.

So it's safe to say he's got limited experience with weed and getting high.

You, on the other hand, have a decent amount of experience. Using carts and edibles and the occasional joint to get your high. Most of the time, you smoked before Carmy came over or he watched you smoke periodically throughout the night before bed.

When he asks you what it's like, you can't help but smile at him, offering him the cart in your hands. Carmy's hesitant, looking at the object with a frown and furrowed brow.

"It's like," you hum softly. "Like you're unburdened. Floating. No anxieties. Real quiet.."

Your words are loose, trying to find some metaphor for how you feel right now.

"It's like I'm only worried about what I'm feeling in the moment, and that's it." You tell him, leaning your face against the cushion beside you.

Your words must inspire something because he's grabbing your still extended cart and bringing it to his mouth to take a long inhale. His confidence makes you whistle lowly, watching as he pulls a face before exhaling the smoke. His coughing fit afterward surprises himself and makes you chuckle.

"Careful, bub," you tell him, offering him your glass of water off the coffee table. Carmy takes it graciously, taking a quick sip and following it with another.

You let him take a few more before he passes it back to you, leaning back against the arm rest. You can see when it starts working through his system, Carmy burying his face against his arm along the back of the couch. You watch him silently as you take another hit, blowing the smoke away from his face.

You learn quickly how touchy Carmy is while high.

It starts off small, his hand sliding up your calf and kneading the flesh softly. Soon, he's got both hands massaging at your legs, tapping an inconsistent rhythm into your skin. His face flushes when you groan at his actions, leaning back into the couch cushions. Carmy doesn't crawl up your body until you open your arms to him, wrapping his arms around your waist and resting his head on your chest.

The feeling of his half hard erection against your leg surprises you. Not entirely, given how easy he is to get riled up, but you didn't expect him to be so affected while high.

Carmy sighs as he buries his nose in your neck, wrapping his arms tighter around you to keep your bodies flush. His thighs bracket your leg, letting him straddle your thigh and push his up against your core.

He's a little embarrassed at how hard he is already. Just looking at you was enough to cause a stirring in his jeans that had him flustered against your skin. His kisses are featherlight as he trails them along your neck and jaw, nipping softly at the juncture under your ear.

"Let me make y'feel good.... Please, baby..." Carmy pleads. The pressure of his thigh is enough to be teasing as he grinds against your hips. His lips are needy as he places messy kisses along your neck in hopes of enticing you.

Carmy is responsive to your own moans, whining into your skin as he slips his fingers past your waistband.

"Please, please, baby..." Carmy whines, tracing your hips lightly. You hum softly, winding your fingers through his curls and giving a soft tug.

"Okay, Carmy... Make me feel good.." You tell him.

And that's all the prompting Carmy needs before he's dipping his fingers into your underwear, making you gasp and squeeze your eyes shut.

Even high, Carmy is an expert with his hands.

[utilitycaster]

I remember a post you made about how Sam is good at flavoring mechanics story wise, like singing his bardic inspirations, and a different post you made about how Marisha has seemed to struggle a bit with character motivations, and also how Laura was being conflict averse this campaign. What do you think each player’s biggest strengths and weaknesses are?

I think I may have answered this elsewhere but it's certainly not tagged in a useful manner and I am currently on a train meandering through the dumb state of Connecticut so:

Sam is as mentioned very good at knowing what makes a good story and specifically good entertainment. However, I think he tends to be one of the cast members who most wants very clear GM guidance; his boldest move was in fact one that required GM involvement and pre-approval. Honestly these are two sides of the same coin; caring about the audience is good, but caring too much can be an issue.

Marisha, yeah, I think tends to lean towards very loose/find it along the way character concepts and I think she actually does better when there is a stronger structure for her character. I'm going to be honest - prior to Campaign 3 I'd say her strength was interpersonal relationships, and to be fair the interpersonal aspect in C3 for everyone was kind of a mess so it's not specifically her (and if future works are good I'll write it off as just One Bad Campaign/specific to one character and return to this as her strength), but as is, not so much as a player, but I do genuinely believe she is excellent at creative direction. I think her switch to pandemic programming was one of the strongest and smoothest I saw in the actual play industry (granted, limited) and I think most shows CR has done that haven't gone over well have been issues of scheduling or uh. fandom entitlement, more than any missteps on her part.

Laura's weakness is definitely nonconfrontation/worrying that she is doing the right thing. (She and Sam are not dissimilar in that, but Sam counterbalances it by embracing failure and she also struggles with letting a character fail). Marisha benefits from structure, as with Keyleth, and Laura benefits from having a character that either lets her turn those anxieties off, like Jester, or who leans into that being the character's fear, like Vex. Her strength is that she is one of the strongest actors in the cast if not the strongest (Laura, Travis, and Ashley tend to top my personal list in terms of sheer acting chops). Even when I've found her characters frustrating I've found her acting compelling, hence what I said about soap operas that one time.

Liam's weakness is, and this is extremely a personal preference - all are, but whereas I can make a semi-objective case for many of the others this is just me, being sappy as hell. I had difficulty with Vax for this precise reason while still generally enjoying the character's motivation and arc; Liam is in my opinion at his best when he deliberately goes for more restrained or antagonistic characters. Like, there's a time to be big and cheesy (eg, the final scene switch of friends around a table in the Chicago live show) but my taste is more sparing perhaps than most (for metaphorical cheese. not for real cheese). His strength I think is also kind of the flip of this coin; he is exceptionally collaborative. I think it's no coincidence that the twins and Caleb and Veth are two of the most enduring duos of "characters who came in together" or that he's managed to do successful romances with NPCs or with a guest actor; during C1 and C2 he was really good at drawing in Ashley when she returned from extended absences.

Taliesin's strength is that he has some of the most interesting and weird character concepts that lend humanity to people who would often be denied it by a narrative - the creator of a horrible weapon; someone literally without a soul; a gutter punk - and he commits to them whole-heartedly, even the uglier parts. I think his weakness is honestly kind of similar to Matt's DM weakness, which is that he straight up has maybe a completely random chance of properly clocking someone else's character's motivations. Like, either he absolutely gets it (eg, Vex) or he says things on Talks or 4SD about other people's characters that make me go "????" and then the actor for the other character goes "????" and I'm like oh ok I'm not wrong. (This perhaps most easily demonstrated with Shardgate, which, great moment, absolutely tops, but the fact that Taliesin the Player thought Matt was doing anything BUT signaling "DON'T FUCKING DO THIS" is ????? to me and always will be; I cannot see how he could have made that more clear.)

Travis, frankly, just Gets It, like, I think the Age of Umbra session zero is demonstrative of him just being able to immediately get to the core of a work. He's strong mechanically, he's strong as an actor, he is able to generate plot hooks from pretty much anything (RIP sidequests from Novos, in a different campaign you would have been great), and he is unafraid to take big swings. He's definitely made choices I am personally less into, but honestly my only real criticism is that he sometimes plays a more jokey character in between the Fjord, Cerrit, Nathaniel types that I prefer (and even then, Grog and Chetney go at least five times harder then their concepts would imply, and it is an error to dismiss them as jokes).

Ashley is also as mentioned a very strong actor, and I also think she is unheralded as a worldbuilder for her characters; Pike, Yasha, and Fearne all have characters or locations associated with them who, even when she's had limited screentime or the story has followed other paths, feel incredibly real. I also think that she's grown a lot mechanically over the course of C3 and shows a lot of promise and I'm interested in seeing what she does with Daggerheart. I think she can be indecisive; as mentioned, I don't really blame her in C3 for a number of reasons not to mention she does a great job of integrating that as a character concept, but I really do want to see her make bolder moves.

[osamucide]

I dunno if we're still lusting over Akutagawa but I just wanna say that that the idea of him being turned on by gore in horror movies made all the blood leave my brain immediately because I've been having these fantasies about reciting him some disturbing ass poems about, fkn cannibalism or something, whilst jerking him off

um we are ALWAYS lusting over Akutagawa in this house. see below the cut for real lit nerd shit. cw here—handjob, sub!Aku, John Donne himself is a content warning, mdni

This made me think of Donne’s "The Flea"—if you’ve not read it, basically it uses intermixed blood inside a flea as an extended metaphor for sex and it kind of has no business being so fucking hot for how strange it is (quoted below is the last stanza). And I think Akutagawa, in the limited swath of earthly things he indulges in outside of Dazai's approval, fucks with ANY kind of deranged media, not just movies; his beloved touching him while they recite weird poetry? Oh my god. Your mind is huge, anon. Listen—

"Cruel and sudden, hast thou since purpled thy nail, in blood of innocence?" you sigh, voice slow, deliberate, hardly above a whisper; you pinch the spine of the leather-bound anthology, balancing it against one of his trembling shoulders as you straddle his waist, sinking your teeth into the milky skin beneath the severity of Ryuunosuke's jawline. "Wherein could this flea guilty be, except in that drop which it sucked from thee?"

Your other hand strokes him, softly, agonizingly; Ryuunosuke's breath is short, rhythmic, quietly frustrated between his chest and his throat as he tugs at the rope binding his wrists behind his back, his fingers flexing wide, curling into fists. When you squeeze just beneath his leaking tip and work your way down his cock, his forehead falls into your shoulder, where he returns your bite through a pitchy groan.

"Yet thou triumph'st, and say'st that thou... Find'st not thy self, nor me the weaker now." You, calculated, roll your wrist faster; his stifled groan gives way to a gasp, an open-mouthed plea for you to continue, and he twitches, hips lurching upward in pursuit of more of your touch. "'Tis true; then learn how false, fears be—"

"Please," Ryuunosuke's voice weaves through yours, desperate and broken amidst cries of your name. "My love, please."

"Just so much honor, when thou yield'st to me," you continue, pausing only to lick across the chain of bruising kisses you've left upon his neck. Pink and needy and twitching like the rest of him, his cock stutters, jumps as pearly white ropes of cum are spurting from him, hitting his pale chest and stomach, dripping over your fingers. You mutter the last line as he sobs, thanking you in breaths so shaky and hoarse and spent that you can't help your satisfied smile; "Will waste, as this flea’s death took life from thee." ⊹

this ask also made me think of a dissertation I read in my undergrad and it’s called "Raw Metaphors: Cannibal Poetics in Early Modern England" by Amanda Lehr. it’s wonderful and if you’re a cannibalism-in-poetry freak like me DEFINITELY check it out. it's lengthy but so worth the read.

[bumbled-bees]

Lily’s Surface-Level Analysis: A Shallow Approach to Media

Lily’s media critiques are often shallow, reactionary, and plagued by her fundamental incuriosity and black-and-white thinking. Rather than engage with deeper themes, allegory, or metaphor, Lily tends to take everything at face value. This refusal to explore nuance not only weakens her media analysis but also reflects her broader pattern of impulsiveness and her need for clear-cut narratives where she’s always right.

Incuriosity and the Demand for Simplicity

Lily’s incuriosity is one of her most defining traits. She’s openly hostile to recommendations from her audience, dismisses ideas that challenge her perspective, and refuses to put in the effort to understand concepts that aren’t immediately obvious. This mental laziness extends heavily into her media analysis, where she consistently refuses to dig beneath the surface.

She’s shown time and time again that she’s uninterested in doing the work to engage with complex narratives — unless they’re spoon-fed to her in the most direct, unambiguous terms. If a story requires thoughtful interpretation or subtlety, Lily will reject it as “poorly written” rather than admit she overlooked key themes.

Misunderstanding Metaphor

A prime example of this is her infamous take on Steven Universe, where she criticized the series for “locking Ruby and Sapphire inside Garnet,” arguing that it erased their relationship. This fundamentally misunderstands the entire point of Garnet’s character — that Garnet is the relationship. The show’s creators didn’t "lock them away"; they used Garnet to symbolize the stability, love, and partnership between Ruby and Sapphire.

Lily’s inability (or unwillingness) to grasp this metaphor speaks volumes about her approach to media. Rather than engaging with the emotional depth and symbolism, she dismissed it outright because it wasn’t spelled out for her.

Black-and-White Thinking and Binary Judgments

This shallow thinking also ties into Lily’s intense black-and-white worldview. For her, stories must be explicit and direct — anything that requires interpretation risks being twisted into something “bad.” She’s deeply uncomfortable with ambiguity, which limits her ability to analyze complex narratives.

If a creator attempts to convey themes through subtext, Lily often assumes they’re being “cowardly” or “lazy.” She demands that stories explicitly state their messages and avoids narratives that require patience, thought, or introspection. This leads her to label media as “bad” simply because it doesn’t align with her narrow expectations.

Her fixation on absolutes further weakens her critiques. If a creator compromises with studio executives, Lily will dismiss their work as inherently corrupt or “selling out.” She’s openly stated that she has “no sympathy” for creators who face pushback from their studios, claiming they should “just fight harder” — a statement that reveals how little she understands real-world creative industries.

Impulsiveness and Superficial Analysis

Lily’s impulsive nature — her tendency to act without thinking or planning — also shapes her shallow media critiques. Much like her frequent lies and contradictions, her media takes are driven by gut reactions rather than careful thought.

This was especially evident during her Dragon Age video series, where she skipped through key dialogue, ignored lore, and then confidently declared the series poorly written — despite missing crucial information that would’ve explained the very things she criticized. Instead of admitting fault, she doubled down, presenting her shallow interpretation as if it were objective truth.

Her impulsive style means she’s often unwilling to revisit her initial conclusions. Once she’s decided something is “bad,” she rarely reflects or revises her stance — even when presented with evidence that she misunderstood the material.

Control and Refusal to Learn

Lily’s refusal to engage deeply with media is also tied to her need for control. Just as she manipulates conversations, cuts off critics, and deletes inconvenient evidence, her media critiques are an attempt to dominate the narrative. By presenting herself as an authority while ignoring key details, she ensures her audience can’t challenge her without directly calling her out — something she actively discourages.

She also actively dissuades her viewers from seeking out additional perspectives, framing her own takes as the only valid interpretation. This echoes her tendency to erase conflicting narratives in her personal life — like her shifting stories about Stockholm or her manipulation of events to paint herself as a perpetual victim.

The Result: Shallow, Performative Criticism

Lily’s incuriosity, binary thinking, and need for control culminate in media “critiques” that are ultimately performative rather than insightful. Instead of exploring themes, dissecting symbolism, or considering alternative perspectives, she relies on surface-level reactions designed to reinforce her own biases.

Her fans — conditioned to take her word as gospel — rarely push back, further encouraging Lily’s lazy analysis. And when those who do understand the material criticize her, she dismisses them as “obsessive stalkers” or deliberately misrepresents their arguments to avoid accountability.

In the end, Lily’s shallow critiques reveal far more about her own flaws than they do about the media she discusses. They reflect her refusal to challenge herself, her desperate need for control, and her unwavering belief that her first impression is always correct — no matter how ill-informed or incomplete it may be.

[11vein]

Hello! 11vein, this is my first time sending you an ask so I hope I am doing this properly! Anyways—

I want to know what inspired you and everybody else in Team 6x11 to choose to set the story of Qualia Automata in Iraq, out of all the Middle-Eastern countries. Like, I know that Carbon Monoxide on your team is Iraqi, but still, my question remains that why Iraq specifically? I’m not Iraq, but I live in an Arab country and, from my observations of cross-cultural representation, countries like the UAE and Iran and Saudi Arabia, as examples, are usually represented more often in stories set in the Middle East. So I was wondering why you folks chose Iraq as the setting for the story of Qualia Automata, and I’ll be glad to hear how you were inspired to do so as well. Tell me all about what brought the team to the decision. Reply back soon, please!

i wish i could say we had an elaborate reason to make QA's story based out of a futuristic iraq, but it was kinda spontaneous haha. we were deciding the ethnicity of tamari and went with iraqi because some of the members knew someone who was iraqi (carbon monoxide) who we could consult for further ideas. this later led to them being added to the team :) i asked carbon for further input: "while i can't speak for why the team chose to make tamari arab initially, i can say that i haven't seen too many experiences related to my specific ethnicity depicted in media, and it's something i've been wanting to work more towards. iraq occupies an interesting place in american culture, i feel; most americans know of iraq ofc and know of the iraq war, but if u were to ask a random person on the street, they likely wouldn't be able to tell u much about the country outside of that. my family had to escape as war refugees when i was extremely little, but i'd very commonly fly back home to spend long vacations with extended family. i'm very intimately familiar with the effects of war, it was fundamental to my development and my identity as an iraqi person. infrastructure was still ruined from bombs dropping, streets were destroyed or not maintained at all, power would very routinely go out and i vividly remember need to grope around in the dark for flashlights and fighting with my cousins for the limited supply of lamps, and that's all stuff that was YEARS after the actual conflict. not to mention all the generational trauma, the metaphorical and cultural scars that war creates that has ruined people and families.the first-hand accounts of war from the perspectives of my mother and older siblings were extremely harrowing.

when i first moved to america, it shocked me how little people knew about iraq, how deeply-embedded imperialist propaganda was baked within the fibres of american culture. a lot of people i'd met were completely ignorant to this thing that shaped everything about me before i was even born, that blew me away.

qualia automata of course isn't ABOUT the iraq war, it's set years afterwards and it was never meant to really reflect any sort of real-world historical events. but i put a lot of myself and my family into these characters, and just by virtue of me being iraqi and helping write iraqi characters, i've seen war refugees from my country comment on how they relate to what's being represented. fayrouz in particular was the character i had the biggest hand in shaping, and she's someone who's deeply-molded by generational trauma, and the attitudes iraqi women had to adopt in order to survive during such awful times being passed down throughout the years. it's the type of thing only other people with these experiences would be able to immediately point out, but i'm always happy when people do

that and i think it's very useful to just write about iraqi people as, well, people. there's a stigma around arabs especially, but like i said before iraqis occupy a very unique space within american culture, so i think it helps normalize these cultures and experiences by just, having characters exist as they are!"

[hyperdragon97]

The Granny Weatherwax quote about all evil being rooted in seeing people as things has resonated with me since I first read it, to the point that I've added it to my personal ethos. Just now, however, I've realized something important about this idea that never occurred to me before:

It applies not only to how you see others, but how you see yourself.

I realized today that I've been treating myself as an object for... I don't even know how long. I guess being treated as replaceable equipment by The Economy™️ and almost every job I've had will do that, but it's scary how much a part of me has accepted this notion even as I've been fighting it.

I had come to behave as though I were a beater car, in need of extensive repairs before it could be seen in public without shame. I held off on so much of my life because I thought I had to fully fix myself before I could start trying to be happy.

This. Is. Not. True.

I have to believe it's not true, because I can't keep slogging through life in pursuit of some nebulous standard of presentability. If I keep limiting myself to surviving long enough to be Good Enough, I will never really live.

I could go on with an extended metaphor, but I think that would defeat the purpose, so. Yeah.

People aren't things. This means you. This means me.

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

[kerosene-in-a-blender]

One thing I've noticed playing around in the fan spaces for both Critical Role and Dragon Age the past few months is that Warden Antoine and Laudna have strikingly similar personal narratives but Antoine's is handled much more effectively than Laudna's is despite him only appearing in two short stories and in a secondary role in a video game versus Laudna being a main character in a long form D&D actual play and a novel.

Both were commoners living normal lives until a event outside of either's control resulted in them, effectively or in actuality, dying young. Both got a second chance by way of becoming something other than what they were, but that also has something wrong about it. Both cope by leaning into a cheerful optimism that seems to outside observers incongruous with their circumstances and what they are. Both spent a length of time traveling with the woman they would eventually fall in love with. Both consider the relationship they developed with her to be a bright spot in their second life.

But where I think Antoine (and by extension his relationship with Evka) works and Laudna (and by extension her relationship with Imogen) falls flat is that Antoine's emotional response to everything that happened to him is a driving narrative force for him in a way it just isn't for Laudna, and that Antoine more actively participates in his own narrative than Laudna does. For the first point, that Antoine is struggling to adjust to being a Grey Warden and actually feels a great deal of resentment at how limited that life is underneath all his cheerfulness is a major aspect of his character arc in "Hunger", his and Evka's short story Tevinter Nights. And this character beat is carried through into Dragon Age: The Veilguard, where in the codex "Letters for After the Calling" where Antoine admits that whatever else being a Warden is, this life gave him Evka, with the implication that becoming a Warden was worth it for the chance to be with her. With Laudna, she was initially conceived of by Marisha as a character who was completely over her trauma from what happened to her in the past, though as Campaign 3 went on, it became increasingly clear that that was not true. But Marisha's attempts to pivot and actually address and unpack this aspect of her character ultimately resulted either in no arc (Laudna's violent and defensive response to even perceived betrayal) or an arc so truncated and lacking in internal narrative thrust as to be unsatisfying (her brief use of Delilah as a metaphor for addiction; the resulting conflict with Imogen that rapidly fizzled into nothing).

For the second point, Antoine got Blighted in the first place because he chose to act a distraction after Darkspawn attacked the country estate he was working at in order to allow the other servants to escape, whereas Laudna went to a feast held by the couple ruling her town, not knowing she had been randomly selected to die as a warning to Vox Machina. And while Evka made him the offer of surviving the Blight by becoming a Grey Warden, it was Antoine's choice to accept it, whereas Laudna's undeath simply happened with no input from her due to her being a Shadow Sorcerer. Antoine being a narrative agent in circumstances where Laudna is passively pulled along by outside narrative forces also extends to their relationships. Laudna displayed zero inclination to pursue a romantic relationship with Imogen prior to the latter asking to kiss her (to the point of calling Imogen her sister just episodes prior), and even once they got together, only ever passively went along with whatever Imogen wanted and suggested for the relationship. Notably the conflict between her and Imogen over Delilah and her influence on Laudna was precipitated entirely by Imogen's hesitancy to be with someone who could attack a friend in his sleep at Delilah's urging, and promptly ended once Imogen fault secure in that no longer being an issue. Antoine meanwhile, proposes marriage to Evka in their short story "Won't Know When", and helps her work through her own hesitance in embracing that kind of commitment due to the inherent danger of being a Warden and the perpetual ticking clock that this the Calling.

Much has been said about the missed opportunity that is Campaign 3 and Laudna as a character in specific, and the fact that Antoine does a lot of the same things and more effectively in less time proves that, had the work been done, Laudna could have been a great character, but since it never was, she remains a great disappointment.

[accio-victuuri]

Wang Yibo’s May 2025 issue cover story 📝🪴

The stars in the night sky and the plants in the garden flourish and flicker, or wither and die, just like the cycle of life. A young man stands at the junction of day and night. In the space-time dimension he created, everything is given new meaning. The grand and the small, the reality and the imagination, the conventions and the meaning... collide and reconstruct in his inner sea. Just like the stars and the plants, he feels the deep blue wind and feels alive.

disclaimer: this a short story and not an interview.

At this moment, the protagonist created by the writer Ban Yu and Wang Yibo under the lens of VOGUE quietly reunited in a chapter of imagination.

THE PROMISED LAND

Like all people who have thrown all the good times in their lives on the surface of the sea, I learned the ability to arbitrarily divide the day and night early on. I lay on my back, toothpick on my mouth, slightly raising my head. If the storm bred by the ocean current and the subtropical high pressure has not yet been born, and the deck still retains its horizon attribute, I can order the sun to rise from any end of it, or translate it down, so that I can hide safely in the shadow and get a moment of longer sleep; like all people who waste all the good weather in their lives on love events that will sooner or later disappoint people.

I have never encountered any clear days on the sea. Gray fog floats, waves are fierce, and our ship is like being chased by a team of rats, always getting narrower and narrower, with strong winds and reefs everywhere. The Germans, wrapped in the hurricane, stood like solidified black shadows, circling around, chanting low spells, much like some hypnotic rituals I encountered in South America.

They taught everyone devoutly and lovingly: sleep is almost equivalent to death, but being awake does not mean being alive. For a moment, facing this scene, I thought of the wolves that lingered in the wilderness, patrolling all night without forming a team. A blue jack who lost everything in the tavern encountered these red-eyed beasts on his way home.

When the strong wind flattened everything, the two sides met each other in sincerity. How should we deal with it? Why did he have to cross the wilderness? Often before we could come up with an answer, the sound of a sinking net would reverberate from the inside of the ship, as if something had entered our internal organs, making us not know whether to scream or vomit first. In short, it only takes one lightning-like collision, our boat shakes a few times, as if swallowing up a gust of hot sea breeze, and then it is like an old man with a violent illness, rushing to the shore to rest, so that he can listen to his heartbeat quietly and make sure that his limited life will continue. The generally damaged fetus longs to see the shore, just like a strong man longs for his regrets.

During those days when I was stranded, I lived a dark life. I went to many places and made many friends. Of course, I also had enemies. Sometimes the difference between the two was not so obvious, depending on the situation.

Once, in a tavern on the island, a long-haired Indian told me the origin of the word hurricane. The pronunciation was a bit strange and ambiguous, and it was difficult to imitate. It turned out that it belonged to their language, and they were the first to return this name to this constantly flowing world.

Another wanderer singer who was born in the Caribbean region immediately objected. He said that this word clearly came from his hometown. It refers to one of the gods of creation and can also be extended to a metaphor for an invisible demon. The former was very disdainful of this. He raised half an eyebrow, patted the singer on the shoulder, and told him that the last time he talked about this allusion, one of the listeners around was Christopher Columbus, which was probably a few hundred years ago. I hope you can also become such a great conductor of ocean currents. The singer was silent for a while, drank a glass of wine, and then he sensed the irony in the words. He tapped the table with his fingers, took out the short knife he carried with him, turned around and rushed towards the Indian. His movements were so fast that the afterimage on the ground looked like a hungry leopard. I saw that the situation was not good, so I jumped up and hugged him tightly from behind.

The singer couldn't break free from me, and he shouted and cursed loudly, refusing to give up. The speed of waving the knife in the air reminded me of how sailors waved the white flag when they met a strong opponent. Although the Indian had experienced many storms, he was also shocked. The afterimage of cold sweat dripping on the ground flashed with a faint light, resembling the stripes of a leopard. Afterwards, he lowered his head, showed a cunning smile, apologized to the singer, and said, yes, you may have encountered the hurricane earlier, the words belong to you, but the last time I talked about it, the great Columbus was indeed present, there is no doubt about that.

Perhaps out of respect for this pioneer explorer, the singer's breathing gradually calmed down, and he took the embroidered short knife into his arms. In just a moment, the sun set. The Indian bought three glasses of good wine. After we toasted, we drank it all.

The singer walked to the center of the tavern, shook the bell on his wrist, and sang a sad ballad that none of us had heard before. It tells the story of a young gardener who worked hard in the flowers, waiting for dawn and sunset, and many flowers bloomed gorgeously, but his lover never appeared.

The flowers talked to him every day, but he always said nothing, neither comforted nor sad. Little gardener, little gardener, can you also listen to my dream. It's a good song, but it's a pity that I only remember this sentence now. After the song, the singer retreated to the door, bowed and greeted, and then left.

When I saw him again, it was another story many years later. But before singing, he gave me the short knife and told me that we would meet again. If you recognize me and no longer need it, please return it to me. Of course, as the price of keeping it, I will also keep something for you at that time, in this long world, in our long and humble life. Then, he went to hug the Indian tightly, like a pair of close old friends who were about to part, and it was completely unimaginable that they had drawn their knives against each other before. While the two whispered, I put the short knife between my boots.

The winter chill rushed from bottom to top towards my head. I suddenly felt that I had become a brave person, wanting to defend something, for the song, or a word, a person, for the great direction, or a basket of flowers.

The tavern closed, and the Indian took me to the garden on the island. On the way, he told me that the singer had just told him quietly that he let him go not because of an apology or an obstruction, but because he saw the yellow flower pinned on his chest. The singer recognized it at a glance and said that it was planted by his friend and there would be no other origin. The Indian was very excited. The gardener was also his close friend and might become yours, he said to me.

Let me put it this way, he said again, if there really is the ship you mentioned, and it was indeed hit by something, then, I think it could only be this night that may not exist. I was puzzled by this, and he didn't say anything more. What I didn't tell him was that this night was fleeting, and there would be no other one.

My ship and I have rested. At sunrise, I will set sail again, for the song, the great direction, or a good person who makes me sad, and also towards the next round of stranding. But at this time, I just said to him, the night has one advantage, which means we always have the same amount of time. The Indian laughed and laughed until midnight.

Then, like a magic trick, the ruins of a large ship appeared beside him, which was very inconsistent with the color of this quiet and monotonous night. I stopped and looked for a long time. How to describe such a small and rich plant paradise? It seems to be parasitic in the body: all the branches are trembling, as if writing stories in the air; all the leaves extend to different directions, sparse and dense, like frozen ancient ice, and all the flower keys fully display complex patterns under the moonlight, which reminds me of the deep whirlpool in the sea or the sky in the evening always opposes the moment when the universe keeps blinking with root red or dark blue.

Perhaps I have been at sea for too long. Before this, I had never thought that plants were such vivid beings. I could even sense their breathing, appearing and disappearing. Under the denser night, the plants were whispering, forming waves of gentle noises like waves, transmitting to the distance. When I was shocked, the Indian rang the door knocker and called the owner's name.

Now I think his name does not seem to belong to this century, and has a similar origin to words such as hurricane, comet, and continent. Not long after, an elegant figure stood up from among the plants, responded to the Indian's call with a sharp whistle, then shook his shoulders and walked towards us. I looked over and saw that many flowers made way for it, like the desert rising and the sea water pouring in, and a proud swimmer with a slender figure floating on the waves.

I think the Indian was really tired after such an incident and talking for almost an entire night. Soon, he fell asleep on the grass, and a handful of banana leaves automatically covered him like a swaddling cloth, trying to protect his sweet dreams.

Next to the honeysuckle, our gardener friend, yes, at this moment, looking at our common sleeping Indian friend, I think we are close friends, and a natural trust has enveloped our hearts - like talking to ourselves, we began to talk about the names and habits of the plants. The starry garden, he said to me. Every plant is equivalent to a star in the sky, flourishing and shining, or withering and extinguishing, all like the cycle of life. You know, I have spent too much time at sea and read a lot of books, from ancient times to the present, so this argument does not seem special to me.

After that, he continued to talk about the origins of these plants. For example, the bunch of white geraniums did not come from South Asia, but from West Africa. There was only one piece of land there that produced flowers of this color. They covered the tropical back like snow and never melted.

A friend brought them back for him from afar. The red and yellow Lantana grew on the beach by the sea and was moved here. It is poisonous and has a well-developed root system. It must be carefully cleaned to prevent invasion and expansion. As for the half-human-high thorns on the side of the column, they are named because the leaf gum has thorns. They stand upright like swords. They are the loyal guards and brave warriors here, guarding all the noise and silence. No one can easily bypass them. The more he talked, the more confused I became, because here I could not feel the time and season at all.

The plants that are usually seen always show different appearances: the flowers that overwinter bloom on the same branch with the fruits of midsummer, and the leaves that stretch towards the day are curling up at night.

It covered the back of the tropics like snow, and it never melted. A friend brought it back from afar. The red and yellow Lantana grew on the beach by the sea. It was moved here. It is poisonous and has a well-developed root system. It must be carefully cleaned to prevent invasion and expansion.

As for the half-man-high thorns on the side of the porch, they are named because of the thorns in the leaf axils. They stand upright like swords. They are the loyal guards and brave warriors here, guarding all the noise and silence. No one can easily bypass them. The more he talked, the more confused I became, because here I could not feel the time and season at all.

Those plants that are usually seen always show different appearances: the flowers that overwinter bloom on the same branch with the fruits of midsummer, and the leaves that stretch towards the day are spending the time curling up at night. After I asked my question, the gardener did not answer, but fetched a bucket of water, bent down to water, and stared at the watch.

He turned the wheel repeatedly to calibrate it, then another plant, and repeated the process. I bent down with him and thought for a long time before I realized that it was like a secret hint of magic or hypnosis. He used this method to make the plants recognize the era and time they were in. The banana leaves covering the Indians belonged to the Age of Exploration, representing a new and strange distant place.

The people sleeping on the ground seemed to be resting on the seashore. The trees with new leaves belonged to the 19th century, like solemn saints, giving great comfort to the suffering people after the wind and snow. The Scutellaria baicalensis at my feet belonged to my hometown. In the meadows and swamps, every July and August, it would bloom with crystal purple flowers, like gems or fireflies. Even at night, it would point out the direction of the water for the lost stars.

I missed everything there. It was also my only dream. As I was thinking, the gardener gestured to me, and I followed him.

When we reached the empty land, I found that during the long period of stranding, the ship had obviously outperformed the mud and sandbanks. At this time, most of the water had penetrated, making the whole ship look like it had grown out of the soil, similar to some ancient plant, huge and silent, with a strong and sturdy root system and lush branches and leaves that covered the sky.

When the few moonlights shone down from above our heads, I finally saw the gardener's clothes and appearance. He looked like someone I knew, but because I drank too much or too many years had passed, I couldn't remember it for a while.

The gardener looked at me, his expression as if he had seen through some mystery. Well, well, I thought at that time, he knew it a long time ago, and he knew that I would always carry some private seeds and leaves with me. Every time I reach land after a sad moment, I will talk to a plant about my worries for half a day, and then I will take its leaves, or sometimes its fruits, and carefully place them on my body, close to my heart.

This is the method a South Asian wandering poet told me - tell your story to those flourishing unknown things, and it will keep it for you for a long time, until some end. Now, they seem to have arrived at their promised land. The gardener, my friend and my guide at this time, has been cleaning the dirt and debris on the ground for me. Of course, the short knife on my boot also came in handy. I used it to dig down and split the warm soil.

After the work, I left it to the gardener, and he didn't thank me. The posture of putting away the knife was like putting away an object that belonged to him. In short, with his help, almost all the memories that were retrieved were distributed here in sequence.

I leaned down, whispered to the plants, and turned the wheel on the watch, with a serious and meticulous expression, as if checking every tiny vibration.

The sky became brighter, my eyes gradually moistened, and everything became almost transparent. At this time, at the bottom of the cabin, I heard some sounds of sea water, which I was very familiar with. Every time we left the shore, the waves always made such a beautiful invitation to us travelers.

Looking at the busy gardener, I thought to myself, so time passed like this, and at the same time, it also went backwards, the shuttle wheel went forward and backward, towards the four seasons, and towards the century that had just passed and had not yet come.

The gardener and the plants stayed in the same moment, forever here and there. Just like the prophecy that has not yet disappeared, a precise collision at night; just like the oath that was made, as a price, it will always keep something for us, such as those people and things that have been forgotten now.

Anyway, before I had time to say goodbye to this mysterious gardener, the long whistle sounded, getting closer and closer, the compass and the ocean were calling me. This gardener friend was still listening to other people's dreams, selflessly calibrating the seasons, memories and essence of life.

I thought, maybe I should leave quietly, without blessing or saying goodbye, there will always be a part of me that stays here, stranded, decaying, born, wandering, rotating back and forth between flowers and leaves, and our big ship has already set sail.

source

[johannesviii]

Parallels, foreshadowing and narrative echoes in Infinity Train Book 3 episode 1 "The Musical Car" [1/2]

I can pinpoint the moment I rewatched that episode as the one when my obsession with this show went completely off the rails pun intended in early March 2024. I haven't been normal about it since then even though we're currently in November. Of course almost every series ever made uses parallels and foreshadowing in some capacity, it's just that Infinity Train episodes are about ten minutes long and there's an amazing amount of foreshadowing, parallels and other narrative echoes packed in those first ten minutes and it drives me nuts

I'm not going to explain most of these things. Some of them are incredibly obvious, some aren't. I'm just listing them so we can scream about them together and hopefully I'll feel less insane afterwards

Also I had to make two posts cause I hit the new image limit. Kill me

Let's go

A familiar place becoming hostile and unfamiliar

The first time we see Grace in this Book, she's basically reenacting something she wanted to do as a kid, except now she's the one in control

I also can't help but notice there's three different versions of Hazel from three different angles when Grace is questioning her own decisions in her tape and her mind is basically using Hazel as a mouthpiece for that. When I look at you I see me

Dance lessons foreshadowing

The first time we see Simon in this Book, he's painting a miniature, and it's part of a series of parallels which makes me ESPECIALLY insane. Something about him seeing himself as a little soldier, then treating Grace as if she was one of his miniatures later on. Bear with me for SIX FUCKING GIFS here cause it's a whole extended metaphor which keeps reappearing through the entirety of Book 3 and I've never seen anyone talk about that specific one. Maybe it deserved its own post. Too late now

He clearly loves to collect stuff. I wonder who he got that from, uh

Cool radar design. I wonder where we saw that kind of round, clockpunk-adjacent type of tech before

So there's two halves of one mask, one half is golden and represents comedy and it's on the right, one is the mask of tragedy and it's on the left. Cool, cool, nothing to see here

Grace learned from the best

Not bad, Simon. YEAH UH, SO, ABOUT THAT-

"I was ten"

"never trust an adult!" being weaponised later on

Only one half of the mask survived - the right side, now a tragedy mask and placed on the left side of the screen. Wow I wonder if this foreshadows anything about how this story will end, uh

All of this happens before the title card even appears on screen and I already hit image limit. I'm fine! I'm fine

Here's part 2

[thealexchen]

I am unsure how to feel about Lost Records after I finished it. I love the characters so much but the supernatural elements were really lost on me.

I wish the supernatural stuff wasn't real, or was left vague as to whether it was real or not. I know this idea would change a lot about the game but I love the idea of this story we're being told is the way Kat copes with her illness and trauma, Inventing this magical force that allows her and her friends to feel more empowered

I totally get what you mean. It's disappointing and frustrating yet again to see Dontnod fumble the last half of their game, but I'm sure was infinitely more frustrating for them to work with a limited budget. People comparing this game to LiS have to remember that LiS1 was published and essentially sponsored by Square back in 2015, while Lost Records is basically an indie game with an indie budget because it's entirely self-made and self-published by Dontnod Montreal. I could tell that a lot of content in Tape 2 was cut and the remaining scenes were bizarrely and awkwardly condensed. For example, Autumn is shoehorned back into the main story for the raid on the ranch, going from mad at Kat for hiding her illness to agreeing to her plan in the span of five minutes. The most egregious example for me is after an entire game building up to the why of Bloom & Rage promising to never see each other again, it all comes down to... because Kat said so. Apparently she can read the Abyss's "mind"(?). Or, if Kat is dragged into the Abyss, because SWANN said so?? I have no idea where she could've pulled the "Kat would've wanted us to forget and split up even though we were literally her only real friends and we wished to stay together!" line of reasoning from.

That being said, I've learned from LiS that Dontnod (more specifically Michel Koch and Jean-Luc Cano) were never interested in creating lore for their games, because they're all about characters and story first and foremost. LiS1 worked so well narratively because you could interpret Max's rewind as an extended metaphor for her indecision and the catalyst for her character arc. An extremely unconfident, self-doubting, indecisive teenager seemingly gets the perfect superpower, but it backfires horrendously over the course of the story, and she slowly gains the agency and strength to make the ultimate choice at the end of the game that she can't take back. The writers don't consider LiS to be sci-fi, but rather a coming-of-age contemporary drama with "a twist of the strange."

I think people's enjoyment of Lost Records comes down to whether they’re more invested in the characters or the narrative. Tape 1 doubled down even more on the character and relationship building, nostalgia, and coming-of-age themes from LiS1, and there were no major freeze-frame big choices. You have to suspend disbelief for certain things to really get in the moment, like the entire dance scene in the cabin, where DN amps up the magical, surreal, indie-film imagery even more. I have mixed feelings about the sequel hook at the end too, because it's still possible Dontnod is still cooking and plans to flesh out the lore in a future game, but there's no guarantee they'll have the budget to craft a satisfying follow-up.

I agree that it's disappointing that the writers dropped the ball and seemed uninterested in explaining the supernatural elements in this game, but I do believe that they were very consistent with their characterization from beginning to end. If you look at this game as a story about a group of closeted queer girls who find belonging, acceptance, and community in their love for each other (platonic and romantic), where the supernatural elements just enhance the magic and terror of that unforgettable summer, as well as compel them to reunite as adults and prove that it's never too late to reconnect or start over, then I think they nailed it. If you want to read the Abyss as a narrative tool for Kat to cope with her illness, I think Michel and Jean-Luc (and Nina and Desiree) would gladly welcome that interpretation. In any case, this is Dontnod finally getting to make a game exactly how they want to, without any contracts or meddling from higher-ups, so at least we got to see that.

Thanks for sending this ask!

[literary-illuminati]

2025 Book Review #18 – Vita Nostra by Marina and Sergey Dyachenko (trans. Julia Meitov Hersey)

This was, I think, recommended to me when I asked for good and relatively approachable genre-fic in translation – but it’s been long enough that that’s really more of a guess on my part than any sort of real memory. Going in with only vague expectations, this book was a very pleasant surprise. An incredibly weird, surreal, meandering and oddly structured one, to be sure – but overall it worked far more often than it didn’t.

While on an increasingly surreal beach vacation, 16 year old Sasha Samokhina meets the mysterious (and incredibly suspicious) Farit Kozhennikov. After living through the same day several times, she finally speaks to him – and finds herself given a strict and bizarre series of daily exercises to ‘build her self-discipline’, vomiting up strange golden coins after each one. And finding horrible things befalling people she cares about whenever she fails to keep her schedule. Soon enough she finds herself on the train to the bleak, surreal university in the dreary provincial town of Torpa, where she will major in a vague and undefined ‘Specialty’ that her mind and conception of reality are not yet prepared to understand.

I’ve never been entirely clear on what exactly the label means, but if anything deserves to be called ‘Dark Academia’, it’s definitely this book. The large majority of its page count is spent with Sascha as she tortures herself struggling through mind-bending mental exercises and enduring strange and horrifying transformations (both mental and physical) over the course of her studies in cramped, poorly insulated and barely-heated rooms. The explicit purpose (explained only after the fact) of the first two years of lessons are to break you down completely as both a person and a human so that you can start becoming something else instead. The reward for showing real talent and aptitude at the occult and migraine-inducing exercises that make up most of your education is to have your tutors excitedly congratulate you and talk about what a fascinating and difficult career of more of the same you have ahead of you. Your faculty advisor only barely pretends to be human some days, but makes it very clear that if you fail an exam or receive a negative report from a professor some horrible freak tragedy will befall your loved ones. The causality rate across the first three years approaches 50%. It’s really one of the most accurate depictions of serious higher education in fiction.

In terms of mood and aesthetic, the book is a masterpiece. It consistently gets across exactly the vibe it wants to, and uses really wonderfully vivid prose and imagery to do so – in preserving it, Meitov Hersey’s translation is easily the best I’ve read so far this year. The way Sascha’s brain begins to break as she transcends her own image of herself if, I think, quite well-realized. Similarly, I’m not sure the vaguely gnostic metaphysics exactly cohere, but they hold together well enough to give a convincing impression of secret occult and poorly glimpsed knowledge the students are being initiated into.

On the level of plot and pacing the story holds together...less well. The book is very roughly divided into three parts of very uneven length, but beyond that there’s not really any kind of chapter or section break – which intensely exacerbates the feeling that the story is kind of just a long series of things happening to Sascha (or her doing them) without real rhyme or reason. The lack of any real consistent antagonist and the very opaque and limited characterization of most of the supporting cast doesn’t much help, either. Neither do the extended sequences where it’s incredibly unclear whether you’re reading some sort of dream or metaphor or a very literal description of Sascha sprouting wings or whatever. The whole finale sequence in particular was surreal enough that I’m only about 65% sure I actually understood what happened (and was absolutely weighed down by several absolutely pivotal revelations one after the other in far too few pages, if I did).

This is a Ukrainian book I read in translation. So it’s interesting how this having become something of a period piece (cellphones are expensive luxuries, schoolwork and research is universally done analog – I’m not sure a computer is mentioned once?) makes it feel more strange and foreign than any of the actual cultural differences between myself and the assumed audience. Not that those weren’t there as well – mostly things like diet and the stereotypes associated with different sorts of fashion and presentation, along with the levels of material privation and personal work on maintaining their lodgings a class of university students is expected to do (‘melting some butter in a mug of hot broth and drinking it on a cold night’ was much, much stranger an idea to me than it really should have been). The translation work was excellently done - or maybe so much of the narrative being intentionally obscure and only partially comprehensible made it easier to hide the seams. Whatever the case, the dialogue all ready pretty naturally (if still obvious in translation at points) and the idioms and levels of formality of various speakers came across very well.

It’s hard to know quite where to classify this book when recommending it – closest to Cosmic Horror, I suppose? But that label won’t be particularly helpful for deciding if you like it. Give this a try if you’re a fan of bleak magical university stories, narratives of alienating enlightenment and transcendence, and books where ‘the system’ is cruel and heartless but the protagonist retains a very ambiguous relationship to it throughout. Or just if you really love dark academy horror-tinged gritty urban fantasy vibes and don’t mind a meandering plot.

[multiheadcanons]

IM STILL SO UPSET. PART ONE POINT FIVE. MERCS, OVERWORKED.

scout: scout has gotten better about this, and the team will give him his credit because this was a real problem; scout used to do… a lot of shit that nobody asked for. it was nice, but it wasn’t necessary, and then he would get so resentful of the rest of the team that eventually he would explode on them. the issue with scout is that he has a lot of energy. he wants a lot to do. but it bothered him that the team’s “a lot to do” was not the same as his “a lot to do”, and that frankly, he really didn’t have to do all that! but that didn’t make him feel better. it just made him feel useless to the team. but he doesn’t know where else to put the energy, so he just keeps doing what he’s always done. the team tries to show a little more appreciation. he’s a big morale boost and they can’t have him feeling like he has no purpose to this team. they ask him to do things more often.

soldier: soldier wouldn’t believe there’s such a thing as overworking him, and frankly the team is inclined to agree with him. soldier doesn’t really “stop” unless he has nothing else left to do. if something has him up for multiple nights in a row, none of that exhaustion is going to affect him until there is a day where he finishes his tasks early. and then he shuts down. he will sleep until he is needed again, and he does not want to be interacted with unless he is needed. so unless the sleep exhaustion that he refuses to register is any indication of a sign of him being overworked or him overworking himself, there’s really no limit to how long soldier can stay on his feet and marginally focused.

pyro: pyro has gotten… pretty okay at not overloading on what they can do. they know what they can do, they know what they like to do, they know what does and doesn’t take energy! they stick to what they know, and they generally function at about 40% effort, if they had to put a number on the effort they put forth. it’s what they can manage. that’s their day to day best. this leaves plenty of room for pyro to do better. they can always do better! but doing better for a long time… that exhausts pyro. past the point of rest rejuvenating them to a place where they can give their day to day best. so what was their best gets worse. and then they get worse. and then they get worse. by that point, pyro needs a day off.

demo: the last time demo felt overworked was the last time he was sober for an extended period of time, and that was so long ago that he doesn’t truly remember what it felt like to be overworked and overwhelmed. there’s moments he thinks he may have bitten off more than he can chew. but demo doesn’t approach anything with a conscious form of anxiety or concern unless he’s sober. things will happen and he will make it through, even if he thinks he won’t. he has made it through everything else he has thought would take him, he makes it through interactions that actually take his life. he’s not really worried about it.

heavy: contrary to his defensive teammates, there is not a single day that heavy has not felt overworked. it drives him almost loopy. most people meet heavy in a state of almost annoyed, and borderline impatient neutrality. heavy, upon first and second, and maybe third meetings seems like he has other things he could be doing. you have to actually be a good friend of his to move past that and see that a: heavy, while having a healthy and full metaphorical plate on his hands, and a lot of responsibilities as a hub of the team, has established very healthy and generous boundaries between himself and his work; which leads to b: the man is a worrier. it’s not about the fact that he’s doing too much or not enough, it was that there’s more to be done. and there’s always more to be done. it never ends. and that’s what annoys him.

engineer: engineer has never felt overworked. he feels unappreciated, more than anything. engineer isn’t a stranger to high standards and many responsibilities. he got the job because he was the best at it. granted, when you’re competing against your siblings, it’s a little harder to prove your mettle. but he did, and he does, consistently prove he’s the man for this job. and he’ll put that job on anyone who wants it, knowing they couldn’t do a quarter of his quality of work with seven other people. dell conagher is a consistently high quality man. you genuinely can’t get any better than the man before you. because he can, and does it all, and then some. and he would really appreciate it if the team appreciated that more. because he’s a hell of a man.

medic: the doctor considers himself a busy man. and he is! normally moving at a pace faster than a walk, with many… many side projects on top of his job (that he takes seriously) the man’s attention is usually required in different places. this is normally not an issue! at least not to him! this becomes an issue if he can’t catch a break. he will force a break. the team knows that twice a year, the doctor will come up missing. he always returns, and oddly enough the blu doctor will come do work in the man’s stead, and battle grinds to a halt until he returns. this was a more often occurrence when he first started working with the team that he felt like he couldn’t get everything done in time. the tenure has helped. he doesn’t care that much anymore. shit gets done when he gets it done. if higher ups want it done any sooner they better pay him more or come do it themselves. they’re willing to do neither. much like engineer, the doctor knows that not only is he the best at what he does, but the only man who does what he does. the team would wholeheartedly agree to the latter. and they agree to the former because nobody would ever take his job if he offered it at double the pay.

sniper: sniper is a busy man, and he’s alright with that. if sniper didn’t have things to do, he would think too much about other things. and if he had to pick between doing and thinking, he would pick being busy. so even when he’s worked to the bone, he’s exhausted and mad and aching and his hands tremble and he’s not able to sleep because he’s already physically pushed to his limit that even relaxing takes energy he just doesn’t have… he also doesn’t have the energy to think. and he’ll take that. he’ll take that any day. because physical exhaustion is nothing compared to unnecessary pondering. that ages him more than anything else he’s ever experienced. and that’s not to say he doesn’t like to think. he just doesn’t like to worry. he finds an emotional net balance of zero to be best, and most efficient. of course, it rarely ever works that way, but he always feels satisfied after a hard time at work. it gets difficult. he grits his teeth. he makes it through. put it in your pipe and smoke it. and leave him alone when he’s taking a break. he’s done enough.

spy: spy is damn good at pretending like he is spread thinner than hard butter on soft bread. but really, spy keeps himself in low stimulation environments so he can deal with his work. it hasn’t been as difficult as he thought to compartmentalize it all, he thinks. and the team would disagree. the only thing spy feels like he’s particularly good at, aside from stabbing people in the back, is getting results without having to reveal his tricks. so who knows, maybe he puts in double the effort when it matters. but nobody really knows, because when he’s busy nobody sees him. and when he’s not busy the team rarely sees him. and he takes care of his business at the base. so should the team care past that? some of them are more curious than others. and there are times spy knows he’s overwhelmed. but he’s not getting any help, and everything is completed, if only in a less than timely manner. sometimes the team won’t hear from or see spy past a corpse on the battlefield and his chores being done for months. but when they see him again, he seems no different. he completes his tasks, he occasionally banters, and he goes about his day. so the team has to assume he is okay. and for the most part, that is an accurate assumption. and when it’s not, it’s not really affecting the team.