#without needing to split my time in multiple directions

[asinglesock]

👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀

[fadedncity]

(blood)thirst (teaser)

wc: 1.6k (teaser)

pairing: jeno x fem!reader

cw: supernatural!au, werewolf(lycan)!jeno, vampire!reader, natural enemies to lovers/forbidden love type of situation, injuries, blood, full fic tags: smut, angst, mention of death and family loss, flirting, sexual tension, teasing, pet names, oral sex, multiple orgasms, unprotected sex, way more plot than i expected, plus more

a/n: hey yall so i finished this fic a while ago and it’s just been sitting in my drafts and then i was kinda unsure whether i wanted to post it but i still might. so lmk what you think!

full fic out now

TUESDAY [3:31 AM]

Rain pours in sheets, pelting against your skin. Your footsteps are silent as you sprint through the underbrush, hot on the heels of the Lycan ahead of you.

Even with his head start, it took you no time to catch up to the him. Your pace matched his as you zeroed in on his steady breathing and rhythmic drum of his footfalls. Lycans are fast, and he hadn't even shifted forms yet. But still, you had no trouble keeping up with him.

All the while you closely trail the Lycan, you're cautious of your surroundings, keeping your ears peeled for any sign of a presence accompanying you both in these woods.

Just as you were about to fall in line with him, an unexpected sound sliced through the night—a whistle, followed by the unmistakable twang of a bowstring.

An arrow whizzed past your head, embedding itself in a tree trunk to your left. Stopping in your tracks, you tilt your head, seeing sparks and smoke emitting from the arrowhead now embedded into the old pine tree. But you aren't given any more time to investigate as you're tackled to the ground by the Lycan.

Before you could push him off, his body shields you from the explosion of blinding light so bright you could've sworn it was day for a split second.

He just saved you.

"Are you okay?" Jeno asks, rain dripping from the ends of his hair as he stands from the dirt.

"Yeah," you nod, hesitantly taking the hand he offers. "Thanks," you say, looking at the tree bark melting off the trunk.

The humans have UV explosives. Great.

Both you and Jeno hear the sound of cars approaching from the nearby road and take off running again. Without a word, you plunge deeper into the forest, your movements synchronized with Jeno's by necessity.

"How did they even find us?" Jeno asks, looking over his shoulder, his voice barely audible over the rain.

"I was just going to ask you the same thing."

The hunters were relentless, their shouts echoing in the distance, along with the pounding of their boots. You moved swiftly, navigating the maze of branches and roots with an ease born from decades of practice. The forest seemed to close in around you, the trees pressing in like silent sentinels bearing witness to your flight.

Then shots start firing off, the sharp cracks of bullets cutting through the air. It sounds like they were coming from every direction, the rain making it harder for both you and Jeno to locate where the hunters are.

A bullet soars past you and stops whistling in your ears when it hits flesh, tearing through skin and muscle. Jeno beside you roars out in pain and begins to slow down as the metallic taste of blood enters the air around you. You shoot him a look of concern over your shoulder.

"I'll be fine," he says. But when you see his hand pressed to his shoulder, blood seeping from an injury that should've already started healing, you know he's far from okay. "We need to get out of these woods," Jeno winces as he applies pressure to the gunshot wound.

"I know a place not too far from here," you tell him.

[6:37 AM]

The moon's silver glow was waning, giving way to the first light of dawn. The storm had passed, leaving the forest dank and muddy. Urgency rose as you were closing in on daybreak. You and Jeno raced through the forest, the scent of his blood and sweat mingling in the damp morning air.

Jeno's breath was labored, each step accompanied by a pained grunt as he pushed himself forward. The wound on his shoulder, though not fatal, was slowing him down.

"The sun's gonna be up soon," Jeno pants, his voice weary.

"I know," you raise your eyes to the sky, "But we're almost there."

As you ascend the mountain, you spot the entrance behind a thick curtain of ivy and moss. The camouflaged door was almost invisible against the rocky face.

The two of you approach the fortified door. But not before you start to feel the uncomfortable sensation of pins and needles all over your body, a warning of the daylight's deadly approach.

The air grows warmer with the first rays of sunlight piercing through the treetops, casting long shadows stretching like skeletal fingers across the ground, leaving you exposed. You scream out in pain just before you can reach the door, feeling the severe burns blistering across your body under the sun's relentless gaze.

Without hesitation, Jeno quickly removes his jacket and throws it around you, shielding you as best as he can from the searing sunlight.

You reach the door with trembling hands and enter the security code to unlock it. You hear the mechanism click and attempt to push the door open, but it remains stubbornly shut. The hinges, unused for so long, now rusted, obstruct your entry.

"It's stuck," panic edges your voice.

Using his good shoulder, Jeno presses his weight into the door, helping you push it open. The thick metal gives way with a heavy creak, welcoming you inside. The moment you both are through, Jeno slams the door shut behind him, enveloping you in the safety of darkness.

The flickering emergency lights cast long shadows across the walls, the only source of illumination along the steps down to the bunker. You can hear the sounds of the forest growing distant, muted, and distorted through the layers of earth and stone as you descend further down.

With the adrenaline from the chase already simmered down, the reality of your situation sets in. Here you are, a vampire, with Jeno, a lycan, forced into hiding together by humans hunting you both. The silence stretches between you, heavy with unspoken words only filled by the sounds of Jeno's steps behind you.

Your burns are already beginning to heal now that you're out of the sunlight. The cool, dim interior of the bunker feels like a sanctuary, the pain in your skin subsiding by the time you lead Jeno into a high-ceiling room.

"Thanks, again," you break the silence, returning his jacket. Even in the shadows, you can see Jeno's eyes examining your burns. "I'll heal," you assure him. "You, on the other hand, aren't for some reason."

"I'm fine," Jeno lies.

"You're not. You're still bleeding out. I can smell it."

Jeno stays silent, knowing there's no use in arguing with you.

"I'll go see if I can find the generator and a med kit or something," you say.

The underground facility is large enough to house an entire clan and well-equipped for emergencies. Or at least it had been once. The walls, thick and impenetrable, provide a sense of security, but the darkness within was oppressive, the silence deafening.

You move through the narrow corridors, blindly navigating yourself through the place. The emergency lights give off a faint glow, barely enough to see by. The bunker has an air of abandonment from years of sitting unused here. Cobwebs clung to the corners, and dust motes danced in the faint light.

You quickly locate the electrical room and, after a few tries, manage to get the generator running. The lights flicker on, and the air kicked on, ventilating the compound. As you make your way back down the corridor, you pass the uniform lockers, and just with your luck, you find a med kit sitting at the bottom of the cubby. You grab it and hurry back to where Jeno's waiting.

You find Jeno right where you left him; leaning against the wall, face pale and drawn, sweat glistening on his brow, damp clothes clinging to his defined muscles. From where he stands, the light casts deep shadows across his face, highlighting the strain etched into his features.

"Sit," you say, opening the case of medical supplies on the table.

"I can do it myself," Jeno mutters, though his voice lacks conviction as he weakly pushes himself away from the wall.

"You look like you can barely stand on your own. Just let me patch you up so you can at least stop bleeding all over the place," your words are punctuated by the snap of latex gloves you slip on.

Jeno has no energy to protest. He drops his jacket onto a chair and peels off his shirt, sitting on the table in front of you.

You don't have much time to ogle over the Lycan's chiseled physique as your eyes are drawn to the skin turning black and blue around the bullet's entry point. In all your years of existence, you've seen some pretty bad shit. But even this sight—Jeno's bloodied and seemingly infected shoulder, is enough to make even you wince.

"There's no exit, which is probably why you're not healing. Whatever specialized bullet hit you is still in there," you observe, examining the injury closely.

"Great," Jeno groans, throwing his head back. "Think you can get it out?"

"Sure, but it's not gonna be fun," you tell him.

"Let's just get it over with."

a/n: please lmk what you think! if i do post the full fic it is 11k so be weary 😭 thank you for reading! <33 feedback is appreciated!!

[machinemonstrosity]

DO YOO TAKE ANNONS????v CAN I BE 🪼 ANON? I LOVE YOUR EEITING SONNUCH IN FREAMING IUT OH MY GOD

ahem

Ahem ahem

can I request pre sacrifice azure x reader fluff :3 in so greedy I requested another writer too.....scenario is up to you but if you need one, uhhh azure taking care of sick reader :3333

AS THE SPAWN INTENDED | azure x sick!reader

WARNINGS - NONE , fluff , established relationship , pre-stabbing azure , he/they used interchangeably for azure , reader is also a cultist

a/n - an anon after my own heart with a sea creature emoji........hoping i wrote azure correctly and that tumblr doesn't fail uploading this again :]

The Spawn didn't intend for this. Surely a nasty curse must have befallen you. A targeted attack whispered by blind fools trying to shun the divine truth.

There was an indescribable drowsiness radiating through your bones, your trembling body puppeteered into a sluggish stumble of a walk. Your nose became a leaky faucet, sniffling and sneezing every few shallow breaths. Feverish heat clung to you like a parasite, adding an invisible weight to your slumped shoulders.

While you had half a mind to hunt down and punish the unknown trickster you were convinced was to blame, you doubted you'd walk further than the sanctuary grounds without keeling over. Let alone give chase.

Cursed on the day of a sacrifice ritual. How fun.

Fighting to haul yourself out of bed, you haphazardly throw your robe over your head. Everyone in the sleeping quarters was already gone, the nearby clinking of pots and pans alerting you of breakfast. You hadn't gotten up too late, it seems.

Now all you needed to do was to hobble your way around and not cause too much suspicion.

The plan sounded easy enough; eat, attend to your morning duties, and slink back to bed when nobody was watching. Perhaps pray to The Spawn that you'd be well enough to take part in tonight's ceremony as well.

Not your best work in terms of a strategy conjured up on the spot, but time was ticking.

Shakily inhaling, you straighten your spine, stitching together your healthy facade. Ignoring how your head felt like it was being split in half, you trudged to the kitchen.

There are only so many times you're able to awkwardly clear your throat to stifle a cough during the morning sermon until it gets weird.

This was going to be very difficult, apparently.

Attempting to ignore the multiple heads shifting to your direction, you swore you bolted out of the room the moment the crowd was dismissed. Accidentally bumping into a handful of people on the way out, you hastily mumble a slew of broken apologies in the midst of tripping over your own feet.

You forgot to account for how pale your face was upon promptly flushing in humiliation.

The curse of sickness wasn’t uncommon in the family. You just weren't willing to make a potential laughing stock of yourself due to your absence during an esteemed event. Or worse — having your belief and devotion questioned.

Regardless, you had to keep pretending to be useful, no matter how unconvincing it looked.

Lost in thought as you limped away from the shared lodge, you failed to notice the gentle sway of flora brushing against your robe.

And the entire person you collided with.

“Aah — !”

A firm hand grasps your arm, saving you from your inattentive fall.

“Blessed day! Can I help you?”

Snapped out of your daze, you peek at the hatted figure currently holding you upright.

He smiles warmly, the itchy material of their fingerless gloves aggravating your skin. Their other arm hooks a wicker basket full of freshly picked flowers and an assortment of fruits, the tips of their fingers dirtied with soil and the occasional strand of grass.

If not for recognizing their voice, you'd have already excused yourself and fled.

“By The Spawn, what dreadful curse is this!? You look deathly!”

Azure.

Now your face was flushing for a completely different reason.

Averting your eyes, your own hands balled into nervous fists. You knew he saw right through you, yet you still found yourself mentally shaming the odds of your encounter. Azure was the last individual you needed hearing of your liability, and you waltzed right to him like an idiot.

Noticing the way you tensed, Azure's hold softens. They always caught onto your predicaments a little too quickly for your comfort.

“You're hiding your illness, aren't you?”

There goes your entire plan.

“... Maybe.”

You simply shrug, trying your hardest to act nonchalant about your aching body. A sneeze interrupts you.

Azure sighs.

“We must get you to bed. Right now.”

He began to walk before you could protest.

Of course, you put in your best effort to resist, even if it was futile.

Going so far as to tug and struggle in their hold, your feet slide along the floor as he starts dragging you back to the lodge. Their mannerisms remained gentle despite your struggling, soon finding yourself returning to the shared bedrooms among Azure's guidance.

Zigzagging across the sea of thin floor mattresses, you're expertly parked in front of a particularly decorated bed. An arrangement of exotic flowers are neatly aligned at the head of the bed, each pot carefully painted with love and care. The colorful sheets and comforters stick out like a sore thumb in comparison to the surrounding cluster of beige and gray.

Finally given a moment to speak, a confused grimace pricks at the corner of your lips.

“Your bed?”

“Of course my bed,” Azure laughs, “you must rest somewhere untainted by your sickness.”

“And you don't care if it passes to you?”

“What matters is you being cured first.”

“Bu —”

“Hush.”

Feeling their hand slide to the small of your back, you're ushered to lie down. You're draped in the warmth of the blanket as you're tucked in, a fleeting wave of cool air momentarily blessing your sweaty form.

The sudden heat afterward makes you groan, kicking one of your legs free in retaliation.

“You'll never get better if you don't keep yourself warm, my dear.” Azure comments, lifting the blanket back over your limb.

“Now, I'm going to get you some soup and crackers. And, please — do remain still. I'd rather not be running after my ill sweetheart.”

They kissed your forehead, turning away to fetch your remedies.

You swiftly discovered being bedridden sucked.

Your only solace would be your lover, who went as far as spoon feeding you after you became too weak to hold your bowl. When you eventually pushed the dish away, they nodded understandably, sliding the dinnerware aside.

Opening their mouth to speak, you cut him off.

“Azure?”

“Hm?” He hums.

“May… may you lie with me?”

His giggle gave you their answer.

Scooting over, Azure curls up around you, legs tangled with yours and arms wrapped securely around your sides. They discard their hat, briefly running a hand through his tousled black hair. He grins seeing the adoration that filled your droopy, fatigued eyes.

“Your eyes are so beautiful,” they breathe, “I could never get tired of looking at them.”

Pulling you close, their face lands in your neck. Your pulse beats steadily against his upturned lips; a cherished sound he only wished they heard every night.

Taking advantage of the opportunity, he runs a line of soft kisses up your throat with a reverent sigh.

“Go to sleep, my love. May your curse be lifted by tomorrow.”

You don't respond, already fast asleep.

To Hell with the ceremony. Maybe The Spawn intended for this after all.

[witchywithwhiskey]

Third time is the charm! For your sweethearts game. ‘Bite me’ with Curtis Everett please. And thank you 😊 🤍 your patience is appreciated.

the vampire's pet

pairing: vampire!curtis everett x human!female reader

summary: vampires have certain rules that govern their kind, and when you test the limits of those rules, you push curtis everett until his control snaps and his monster is unleashed.

warnings: 18+ content (minors dni!!!), vampire au, monsterfucking, smut, piv sex, unprotected sex, rough sex, creampie, biting, marking, blood play, blood sucking, bloody kisses, sort of drugging/intox (because vampire bites deliver poison that gives pleasure), edging, orgasm denial/control, multiple orgasms, forced orgasms, overstimulation, spanking, some dacryphilia, begging, bdsm dynamics, dirty talk, sir/my lord kink, praise kink, degradation kink, pet names (wicked girl, pet), aftercare, happy ending

word count: 4.5k

a/n: thank you for sending in this prompt, Sparks, and for bearing with me!! i wasn't sure what i was going to do for this one until @buckets-and-trees sent me this post and i knew i had to use it as inspiration. the reader is a little mean in this one, and there's VERY little story around the smut, but i'm very happy with how it turned out 😈 thank you for playing my sweethearts game, i hope you enjoy ♡♡

sweethearts game masterlist

“May I cum inside you?”

It would’ve made you laugh, the way Curtis Everett bit out the request in such a bitter tone, his question an aggrieved acquiescence to the rules of his monstrous nature, if it weren’t for the magnificent cock splitting you open. 

It had been with great delight that you’d learned a vampire could not cum inside a person without first gaining their permission—and it gave you no small amount of satisfaction to withhold it from Curtis for as long as you were able. 

To be sure, in that moment when the vampire’s release rested upon your slighter human shoulders, you couldn’t have said which was giving you more pleasure. Either Curtis’s thick cock spearing deep inside your body, throbbing desperately with the need to cum as you rode him slowly, languorously, and forced him to balance on the edge. 

Or the sound of the vampire’s near-bestial growling, the sight of his eyes gone nearly black with desire, and the feel of his feral grip on the soft flesh of your ass and hips. It turned you on to see Curtis’s true nature so close to the surface, and you found yourself growing greedy for more. 

“Not yet,” you purred demurely, the breathless innocence of your voice at odds with the slick sounds of your pussy sliding up and down Curtis’s cock. 

You enjoyed the way the vampire snarled, the tendons in his neck straining beautifully beneath his pale skin as he gnashed his teeth in your direction. But he did not bite you without your permission, though there was no such rule governing his kind. That was simply Curtis’s moral character. 

You decided you didn’t want to be so cruel to the man whom you’d allowed to lure you back to his manor in hopes of a night of dark debauchery. After all, you’d heard the rumors that Curtis Everett was a monster, and you’d been breathlessly delighted to hear the whispers were true.

So you tipped your head to the side, offering your bare neck to the vampire with reckless excitement and utter trust.

“You may not cum inside me,” you murmured ardently, your eyelids heavy with desire as you caught Curtis’s gaze and leaned in closer. “But you may bite me, my lord.”

Curtis groaned as if in pain, but he wasn’t in any state to rebuke such an offer. His mouth fell hungrily to the elegant line of your neck, suckling on your skin and sending tremors of pleasure straight to your clit. 

When his sharpened teeth grazed against your soft flesh, your hips kicked forward. You rode his cock harder, your release bearing down on you before he’d even bitten you.

Then, his fangs pierced your skin. They sank into your neck with a sharp pain that had your cunt fluttering helplessly around his cock, your tight heat greedily sucking him deeper. The sting was quickly washed away, as Curtis sipped decadently from your vein, and your body was flooded with the pleasurable poison a vampire’s fangs gave their victims to make them submit. 

It sparked your release immediately, and a low, wanton moan fell from your lips as your body shook lightly with tremors of pleasure. Your mind was so overcome with the euphoria of your release, that you forgot yourself entirely, bearing down on Curtis’s cock and expecting your clenching cunt to wring the cum from his balls. 

It wasn’t until his teeth pulled from your neck and he grunted fiercely into your throat, sounding as if he was being tortured, that you remembered.

“Please,” he begged, his voice rough and ragged as it puffed against your neck. His chest, strong and broad, heaved with panting breaths as if he was laboring under the greatest strain. But it was merely the effort to hold himself back, to not cum inside your pussy without permission.

A sense of power so potent and so intoxicating flooded your mind and made you feel nearly drunk with its effects. You couldn’t help the smirk that slid across your lips, curling the corners of your mouth into an expression much like a cat who’d got the cream. 

Of the two of you, Curtis may have been the monster, but you most certainly had a wicked heart—with perhaps even more sinful depravity in your soul than the vampire. 

“No,” you purred in Curtis’s ear, pressing down on his cock until he was buried so deep in your body, you could feel him in your belly. You reveled in the dark satisfaction that came when the vampire’s big body shuddered in your arms.

Curtis had stripped you naked and laid you down on the plush, red velvet chaise in the private chambers of his manor house. He’d charmed you with his austere handsomeness and the magnetic brightness of his blue eyes, which were such a contrast to his close-cropped hair, dark brows and even darker beard.

But you hadn’t let the monster cage you in against the sensual velvet for long. You’d insisted he recline against the back of the chaise while you’d climbed into his lap and begun to ride him, taking your pleasure from the vampire just as selfishly as you knew he’d drink the blood from your veins.

As you’d ridden him, the tension beneath his pale skin had grown more and more taut, his biceps bulging while his greedy hands roamed every inch of bare flesh available to him. His shoulders had bunched beneath your fingertips, belying the otherworldly strength in his muscles that he kept carefully tempered, ensuring not to hurt you even as you tortured him with your tight heat. 

In that moment, when you’d refused him for a second time, you felt Curtis’s muscles growing even more firm and unyielding beneath your touch, making your breath catch in your throat as your body and mind waited with bated breath for his reaction. 

A frustrated curse snapping from his mouth and the brush of his beard dragging down over your clavicle were your only warnings before Curtis sank his sharp teeth into the soft flesh of your breast. His fangs punctured your skin and his mouth drank from your body while his tongue laved against your nipple, thin dribbles of blood dripping down your chest. 

Instantly, the sting of his bite was swept away in a flood of pleasure that had your pussy throbbing almost achingly as the need to cum rose up in you again. Your hips rocked wildly, grinding your cunt down on Curtis’s thick cock and rubbing your clit against the coarse hair at the base of his unyielding length.

An obscenely loud moan tumbled from your lips and your nails raked roughly through Curtis’s short hair, your fingers clinging to his head and holding him tight to your breast. You’d barely recovered from your first release, but already you were hurtling toward your second, and it seemed Curtis was intent on getting you there as fast as possible.

It only took a few seconds until the pleasure became too much, overwhelming you and you were nearly bowled over over by the intensity and power of your release. An embarrassingly shrill cry wrenched free from your lungs and your body was wracked with violent shudders as wave after wave of bliss rolled over you, matching the rhythm of Curtis’s suckling mouth.

Quickly, it became too much and your body sagged forward into Curtis’s hold. You collapsed against him and forced his lips from your breast so he could catch you and lean back into the chaise, helping you sprawl across his chest. 

His pale skin was covered in a thick smattering of dark hair that teased your nipples pleasantly while you caught your breath, noting almost deliriously that Curtis’s cock was still hard and twitching inside you. Little tingles of pleasure were still dancing through your body, especially in your core, which was clenching around the vampire’s hardness.

“Now?” Curtis gritted out through a jaw clenched tight enough you thought he might crack a molar if vampires were not almost entirely indestructible. 

Curtis’s hips were rocking between your thighs, fucking you in short, deep thrusts that had the tip of his cock pressing against a spot inside you. Each time the crown of his length bullied that spot, your pussy clenched and gushed with wetness, as if enticing him into spilling his seed in your cunt.

Unfortunately for the vampire, the force of your release had stolen all words from your tongue and it was all you could do to whimper and whine through the aftershocks of pleasure—which were, of course, made all the worse by Curtis’s insistent rocking, driving your pleasure higher again. 

Your head lolled uselessly on Curtis’s shoulder and you wondered dreamily what would happen if you didn’t give the vampire permission to cum inside you. Would he pull out and mark your tits and belly with his seed? Would he spill upon your face, degrading you for the torture you’d put him through? 

Once the errant thought had flitted into your mind, it refused to leave—and, in fact, it spiraled out of control when your fingertips traced the rigid lines of Curtis’s arms. You could feel that the tightly held leash Curtis had on his control was beginning to fray, and it only stoked the ember of your excitement into an inferno. 

“Have patience, sir,” you simpered coquettishly, giggling when a growl rumbled deep in Curtis’s chest. 

Summoning your slowly returning strength, you lifted your head from the vampire’s shoulder so that you could catch his darkened, hungry gaze. A salacious smirk curled your mouth and you lifted your hips, then dropped them back down on the vampire’s cock, taking great satisfaction in the way his bright blue eyes went hazy with pleasure. 

“Are you not enjoying yourself?” you couldn’t help but ask, teasing the vampire, fully prepared for the consequences of your actions. And you were swiftly rewarded for your recklessness. 

At your question, Curtis’s eyes cleared and sharpened into daggers of ice as he stared at you with his piercingly blue gaze.

“You are tormenting me, wicked girl,” Curtis growled, fury etched in his handsome face just as surely as it drenched his deep voice. “You must grant me permission to cum inside your damnably perfect pussy—or I won’t be able to control myself much longer.”

Your eyes flared with interest at Curtis’s warning, your body going tight with the thrill of excitement, your breath catching in your throat as you imagined what Curtis losing control could mean. Visions of the vampire ravaging you, biting you and fucking you with abandon, filled your mind, and your pussy clenched tight around his aching cock.

Curtis’s shrewd gaze caught your reaction and something within him seemed to loosen, as if a fear he’d held had been assuaged by your earnest eagerness to see the monster unleashed. His hands grew rougher on your body, groping you covetously before pulling away to deliver a sharp spank on your ass. 

The obscene sound of his palm meeting your heated flesh and the burning sting that followed had your pussy gushing with even more of your sticky arousal. A debauched moan slipped from your lips and your eyes went hooded as you looked up at Curtis, watching him take in the pleasure on your face while your cunt lovingly gripped at the thick cock nestled deep within your body.

“Cum on my cock again without giving me your consent to spill my seed inside you and you’ll see what a true monster I can be,” Curtis promised, though you understood the warning within his deep, rumbling tone. He was giving you a final chance to save yourself before things took a turn. 

Though you were already decidedly deep in the vampire’s lair, you knew you could’ve ended the night there if you’d desired. You could’ve told Curtis you were done and walked away from the vampire with no more than two orgasms and a couple bites. 

But then you wouldn’t have been the girl who’d sought out the vampire, let him charm you into inviting you back to his home, and followed him to his manor to live out your darkest and most depraved fantasies.

You’d made your decision before you’d even set foot in Curtis’s home, and you were going to see it through. So you pressed your tits more firmly against his chest, arching your ass and presenting it readily for his next ruthless spank.

The vampire’s bright blue eyes held yours as his palm met your soft flesh with a cracking sound, the stinging pain ricocheting through your body and dissolving into a burning pleasure that made you moan again. Right alongside it, you felt a deep affection suffuse your heart in a warmth that was entirely unexpected.

You buried your face in Curtis’s beard to muffle the obscene sounds you were making in an excuse to shy away from the intensity of his gaze. You’d expected pain and pleasure to greet you in the vampire’s manor, but you hadn’t expected the depth of the feeling that would accompany it—and you certainly hadn’t expected to see it reflected in Curtis’s eyes. 

It occurred to you that you certainly could’ve cum just from riding Curtis’s cock and feeling him spank your ass, but that wasn’t enough for you. So you pulled away from his beard to murmur in his ear.

“Bite me, my lord,” you begged shamelessly, rolling your hips and fucking yourself on Curtis’s cock while he thrust up from beneath you. 

Tilting your head to the side, you offered the vampire the opposite side of your throat than where he’d bitten earlier. You didn’t even bother to question the instinct to have his bites all over your body. You wanted to be covered by Curtis’s marks.

Your vampire wasted no time sinking his teeth into your flesh, carefully drinking little of your blood while your body flooded with the pleasure poison of his kind. His strong hands gripped your hips firmly as he fucked up into you roughly, hitting that spot deep inside you perfectly.

It was all too much, too absurdly delicious, and your eyes closed as pleasure crashed through your body, your mouth falling open on a silent scream as a third release washed over you. It wasn’t as strong as the second, but it still stole your breath with its force, your body trembling in Curtis’s arms. 

A groan fell from Curtis’s lips, only slightly muffled by his mouth still attached to your neck. He fucked you harder, his cock pushing deep into your fluttering, gushing, suckling cunt as if he could imprint himself permanently upon your body. 

“May I cum inside you?” he asked, echoing his earlier question. His voice was still rough and furious, but all of the bitterness was gone from his tone. There was even, perhaps, a bit of goading humor in the deep rumble. 

It was with an incredible amount of delight that you answered him just as you had before, your words clear and firm, with only an edge of breathless excitement. “Not yet.”

Curtis snapped. 

The vampire let out a ferocious roar and easily flipped you onto your back, caging you in beneath his bigger body on the red velvet chaise lounge, using your new position to thrust deep inside you—so deep, you felt him in your guts.

“I’ve had enough of your brazen wickedness, pet,” Curtis growled, pumping into you with a fervor just beyond what was natural. 

The force of his hips drove his cock into you so hard and fast, it nearly hurt. His brutal fucking balanced on the knife’s edge between pain and pleasure so perfectly, you felt as though you were drowning in him, succumbing to his monstrous nature—and it was glorious. 

Not to be forgotten in light of his merciless cock, Curtis’s fingers were bruising as they groped all your softness, seizing your hips and pinning you to the plush velvet chaise then grabbing at your tits. His fingers pinched and plucked at your nipples, sending ruthless sparks of burning pleasure straight to your clit. 

“Now you’ll learn how it feels to be tormented beyond belief.” The vampire’s words were a promise wrenched from the depth of his depraved soul, and you found yourself opening your heart to all of Curtis’s darkness, spreading your thighs wider so that he could sink even deeper into your cunt.

Curtis’s fangs sank into your flesh just beneath your clavicle, flooding your system with pleasure as he pounded into you, wringing another desperate release from your body. It was so soon after the last one that it felt like a small miracle you didn’t lose consciousness as your mind was overwhelmed with blistering euphoria. 

Your body clenched down hard on Curtis’s cock and his feral growl was muffled against your soft skin, his hips rutting into you so fast and so hard, another release crashed over you, making you scream with surprised pleasure. 

Your limbs shook violently as you gasped for air, but Curtis only pinned you down more firmly to the sensual velvet of the chaise and fucked you through the waves of your release with stubborn determination. 

“Please,” you gasped through parched lips when Curtis finally pulled his teeth from your skin and your head cleared enough that you could speak. 

Your vampire paid you no mind, though, brushing greedy, suckling kisses across your tits, licking up the trails of blood he’d left behind before sweeping his tongue over your sensitive nipples so fiercely, you cried out shrilly. His beard was rasping against the delicate underside of your tits and it was so depraved and delicious, it brought tears to your eyes.

“Please cum inside me, sir.”

Your words were little more than a sob, your body and mind so overstimulated, you could do nothing else but lay beneath Curtis’s larger body taking his cock while your fingers scrabbled feebly to cling to the smooth, pale skin of his shoulders. 

But Curtis only chuckled darkly at your pathetic mewling.

“You’ll have to beg me much prettier than that, pet, if you want the torment to end,” he rumbled in your ear just before his fangs sank into the delicate skin beneath it. 

Your nails dug sharply into Curtis’s skin and your spine arched almost painfully as your hips bore down on the vampire’s cock, and you came again with a startled shout.

As pleasure flooded your body and Curtis drank from your neck, your greedy pussy sucked on his twitching cock. But he didn’t spill inside you, and you sobbed loudly, the sound part pleasure and part repentance for your earlier villainy. 

Unfortunately for you, Curtis wasn’t one to be swayed by such a pitiful apology. He kept right on fucking you, ignoring his throbbing cock while he thrust into your wet, swollen pussy and sipped from your veins with a conviction that never wavered.

The night went on like that for what felt like an endless age—Curtis compelling you to beg him to cum inside you. But when you did, he’d only to find a new, unblemished stretch of skin to sink his teeth in to and wring another orgasm from your body, which grew increasingly more exhausted and submissive under his remorseless treatment. 

By the time you were babbling apologies for your cruel refusal to grant the vampire permission to cum inside you and begging him to please, please, please give you his seed, Curtis had your limp body folded in half beneath his monstrous figure. 

Your thighs were pressed to your chest while Curtis bit into the skin of your ankle, his fangs hitting bone in a feeling so jarring, so deeply pleasurable, that you tossed your head back and screamed your release to the heavens—which had no pity for you that night.

“Please, sir, please, I beg of you, cum inside me,” you sobbed, your lips feeling almost numb as the words tumbled mindlessly forth. “Cum deep in my cunt, my lord, I need it—I need you!” Your chest heaved as you sucked in a breath and continued on, “I’m so sorry for tormenting you, I will do anything to repent, please! Just cum inside me!”

Another shift came in the vampire’s demeanor and Curtis chuckled indulgently, lowering your legs to his sides and gathering your body close to his chest. He lifted both of you up using his considerable strength, and sat back on his haunches.

Your legs were splayed wide over his thick thighs, your pussy split open on the girth of his cock. One of Curtis’s hands cradled the back of your neck as he guided your forehead to rest against his, while his other palm pressed to your lower back, holding you firmly pinned to his hard, unrelenting body.

“Good girl, tell me how much you need my cum,” Curtis cooed, his thumb sweeping soothingly along the side of your neck. His mouth was so close to yours that you could feel his breath against your lips, could taste the copper tang of your blood on his tongue. “Do you need it more than you need to cum again?”

“Yes,” you cried immediately, sensing the end of your torment was in sight and grabbing for it desperately. You’d reached and far surpassed the number of orgasms you thought your body capable of enduring, but you didn’t want the night to end without your vampire’s cum in your pussy. “I need it more than I need to cum—I need it more than life itself, please, my lord!”

A grin that was both predatory and affectionate spread across Curtis’s handsome face. 

“We’ll talk about you giving your life to me another time, pet,” he murmured, brushing a teasing kiss to the corner of your mouth, making you shiver and chase his mouth, only for him to pull away. “Once you’re ready to discuss spending an eternity with me.”

Then your vampire captured your lips in a kiss and you knew you were lost to Curtis Everett forever. 

His kiss was deep and possessing, his tongue delving between your lips and stroking hungrily over every inch of the warm velvet heat of your mouth. You kissed him back just as fervently, your nails raking through his short hair and pulling a groan from deep in his chest.

Curtis’s mouth devouring yours stoked the heat in your core higher, and he was happy to hold you in his arms while you began to squirm in his lap. Your hips humped against his thighs, fucking yourself on his cock, and you thought the vampire was going to leave you to chase your own pleasure.

But then Curtis’s sharp teeth sank into your plush lower lip, piercing the skin and drinking from you once more. 

Your mind and body flooded with pleasure so potent and overwhelming, your eyes rolled into the back of your head and you moaned mindlessly into Curtis’s mouth, your hips rocking more furiously on his cock. Your clit rubbed against the coarse hair at the base of his length and it pushed you over the edge of another mind-breaking release.

It was only Curtis’s firm, dominant hold on the back of your neck that kept you conscious, grounding you in the moment even as the overwhelming pleasure of coming on his cock threatened to drag you under. You were glad you didn’t succumb, though, because your vampire finally—finally—came. 

Curtis announced his release with a furious roar that shook you to the bone, the sound dissolving into a pleasured groan that had your tight hole clenching even more greedily around his cock. Deep inside your pussy, you felt Curtis’s hard length twitch violently and knew he was spilling rope after rope of his cum in your cunt. 

You moaned heedlessly, grinding shamelessly on his cock as you wrung every drop of cum from his balls, your pussy milking him as your bodies rocked together. The two of you rode out your releases together, Curtis’s lips taking yours possessively, kissing you and biting you and sharing the taste of your blood with your hot, willing mouth. 

When Curtis finally pulled away, you sagged in sated relief, allowing his strong arms to catch you and hold you against his chest. The downy hair on his pecs and stomach was soft and warm against your skin, heated by your own body, while he remained deliciously cool beneath. You sighed happily and let him take care of you.

Curtis rearranged your bodies until he could settle against the back of the chaise lounge, your bodies sprawled across the sumptuous red velvet. He pulled a blanket over your swiftly cooling body, then tucked your face beneath his chin while his calloused hands smoothed up and down your spine.

You smiled contentedly into Curtis’s neck and nuzzled your face into his beard, loving the feel of the thick, coarse hair against your skin. He smelled like sex and spicy cologne, and a little like the perfume you’d worn that evening, which only made a surge of possessiveness take root in your heart alongside your swiftly growing affection for the vampire. 

“Did you enjoy yourself in the end, my lord?” you asked playfully, your voice soft around the edges as exhaustion settled into your bones.

“I did, pet—you are nothing like I expected,” Curtis murmured, awe and affection lacing his indulgent tone. 

On that subject, you could agree with the vampire. You were quite certain you were nothing like the gentle lady Curtis had thought he’d lured back to his manor, since that was the impression you’d given him. But you were just as certain an attachment had formed between the two of you at some point between you denying his release and him showing you his true nature.

Curtis’s feelings for you were clear as he brushed a tender kiss to your forehead and you rewarded him with a happy hum. 

“I think I’d very much like to keep you.” His statement was simple, but it made your heart soar. All you wanted was to stay with the vampire and make a life with him—a life of delicious torment and possessive kisses. A life of love. 

“I’d like that, my lord,” you whispered sleepily, snuggling deeper into Curtis’s chest. He tucked the blanket tighter around your shoulders and held you close as you fell asleep, protecting you from the chill of the night and any other monsters that might think to steal you away like he already had. 

From that night on, you became the vampire’s pet, his most beloved treasure, his most trusted partner, and, eventually, his loving wife. 

When the time came, and you grew impatient enough to beg the vampire prettily enough, Curtis Everett turned you into one of his own kind so that your love would never die. Then, you spent an eternity together, happy and content—and perfectly matched in your wicked depravity.

sweethearts game masterlist

[fruitsboots]

I'm a nail technician and here's a big list of headcanons about the kinds of clients the TOS Enterprise crew would be!

Kirk:

-shows up on time for appointment but sometimes has to cancel super last minute.

-doesn't bite his nails but picks at them and his cuticles. not enough to bleed or anything but enough that most of his appointment is cuticle work.

- "Cut them short" my guy there's no free edge.

- holds still, uses arm rest appropriately, doesn't stiffen his hands. no polish, just buffed smooth. jokes every time that next time maybe he'll go with a hot pink.

-asks a lot of questions and chats at the beginning of the appointment but ends up getting a little bored by the end.

-always tips very well but doesn't rebook, he'll call you.

Spock:

-doesn't make appointments, just shows up sometimes on slow days and asks to use certain supplies.

-does his own nails and keeps them very nice and neat. nail beds to die for. Nails grow very fast.

-On occasion has been talked into a dark polish and will let someone else do that for him (he's not very good at the application).

-sits a little too stiffly like he's concentrating. speaks when spoken to. doesn't linger long, the smell gives him a headache.

-doesn't tip but you’re not sure if he knows he’s supposed to.

McCoy:

-calls and asks if there’s time for a walk in then shows up later than he tells you but usually has a good excuse.

-Hands are dry as hell from washing them a lot. Worst, driest cuticles. Always gets a split on the edge of his pointer finger.

-Sits too far away from the table, at an angle, hunched, wrists on the armrest and elbows locked. Has to be asked to scoot arms forward a million times.

-Is annoying to work on technically, but fun to chat with. Always turns into a complaint session but in the best way. Wants to know the drama in your life and gives opinions.

- Closes eyes and tries not to doze off during the hand massage. Wipes off all the lotion that he desperately needs.

-Tips alright and always says he’ll come back soon but you know it’ll be another 4 months.

Uhura:

-has a standing appointment every 3 weeks and is never late, sometimes she’ll bring you a drink and apologizes when she doesn’t.

-Did her own nails for a long time and keeps them well manicured between appointments.

-Will (properly!) remove her own gel polish before appointments to save you the trouble.

- Tends to go for lighter, pearlescent shades. Always asks what you have that’s new but then picks one of her go-tos.

- Loves to look at nail art but doesn’t usually get it.

-Super bubbly during appointments, very patient, sits perfectly. Always enthusiastic about the result and gives lots of praise.

-Tips well and takes business cards to give to people.

Chapel:

-Not really supposed to get her nails done but does anyways. Doesn’t have super regular appointments but usually books with Uhura when she does.

-Usually shows up with chipped polish from last time that desperately needed removed 3 weeks ago.

-Gets light/sheer colors.

-Sometimes will book for a gel manicure and then tell you she doesn’t actually want polish this time even tho she needs it. Nice nails beds but they are thin and peel a bit without anything on them.

-Apologizes for no reason multiple times. Thanks you as if it were an inconvenience to do her nails? 

-After a few appointments, she loosens up a bit. Tips decent.

Sulu:

-has gotten his nails done like five times just for fun.

-Keeps them short, not much cuticle work. Why are you here??

- Will get a couple “masculine” designs and isn’t picky about them. “You just do whatever you think will look best :) “

-genuinely fun to have as a client but needs some direction on how to sit etc. can talk about anything.

-Didn’t tip the first time bc he didn’t know and felt bad so he always does, but it’s not much.

Scotty:

-how can one man have so much grease under his nails?

-Has a standing appointment once a month for just a nail trim but should be more like every two weeks.

-Asks questions about nail equipment (UV lamp, e-file, etc).

-Talks a bit during the appointment and then stands around after chatting. Always tips like 2$ but sometimes brings baked goods, etc.

Chekov:

-wanders in with a bruised nail and is like “what can you do for this” nothing dude.

-Leaves and comes back later to buy a gift certificate to give to a girl.

[howtofightwrite]

My character is an anthro octopus, arms moving independently without needing to split focus, can they wield multiple weapons efficiently? Should there be a soft limit like 4 instead of all 8? Octopi can detach arms which still move for an hour on their own. What do you think of having just an arm in combat by itself? Perhaps there are medical advances for quick regeneration so it'll fully regrow in a week or so. Also, what do you think of holding weapons by sucker instead of gripping?

So, one random piece of trivia worth knowing, but the plural is “octopuses.” The word originates from Greek, not Latin, so it's pluralized by adding, “-es.”

Now, the hard part about this question is, we don't really know how well cephalopods can split their attention. They have phenomenal control over their limbs, and in the octopuses, have very advanced nervous systems that can control their tentacles (and suction cups) with a lot of finesse. But, that wouldn't necessarily mean that everything's operating independently. So, an anthropomorphic octopus might still be limited to using one weapon at a time at maximum efficiency. Though, there's a legitimate question of, “where's the fun in that?”

Fictional characters don't dual wield because it's effective, they do it because it looks cool. It feeds into an aesthetic. If you want your octopus to swing weapons with each of their tentacles, it doesn't really matter how scientifically feasible that is.

As for a severed limb? It's going to be like any other severed limb. It might keep twitching and spasming, as the nerves continue to fire, but it's not going to be particularly effective. Octopuses do most of their hunting by touch, so, the loss of vision, hearing, and other senses isn't immediately a problem, but it would still critically impair it's ability to fight. (And, that's assuming that your octopus has significant neural tissue in its tentacles, which could have some pretty unfortunate effects for the character if they lost a tentacle in combat.)

Holding by sucker seems extremely plausible to me. That's how octopuses (and some squid) already manipulate objects. It's also where their senses are the most refined. So, that makes complete sense.

It's probably worth noting that the suckers pick up the taste and scent of an object they encounter, as well as the texture. It's a peculiar detail, but would mean that your character would literally taste their weapons every time they picked them up. They'd also taste any door they opened. And that light switch.

-Starke

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[stargazedwinchester]

ִ ࣪𖤐◞ ꙳ ๋࣭ ⭑ `i look in people's windows, dean winchester ༘♡

summary: you attempt to start afresh after dean breaks up with you. word count: 1,328 pairing: dean winchester x reader now playing;｡･:*♫♪ i look in people's windows - taylor swift this ones inspired by Taylor's song I Look in People's Windows. this has been sat in my drafts for MONTHS so i hope ppl like it!

⛧°. ⋆༺☾𖤓༻⋆. °⛧

Days like this are meant for crying. You haven’t gotten out of bed for weeks, you just can’t bring yourself to do it. Sam has tried multiple times to help you, but you refuse.

At this point, it’s been two months since Dean broke up with you. He lost feelings for you, letting the relationship go up in flames. Instead of fighting back, you allowed it to happen. If that’s what he wanted, then so be it.

Dean abandoned the bunker for his new partner. He made that decision days after he had split with you, leaving the bunker to you and his brother. It had always felt like your relationship with him was perfect, obviously had its issues, but you were made for each other. Just for him to throw everything away? It must’ve been easy.

There was nothing more you wanted than Dean back in your life. Each day that passed proved more difficult as time went on. Sharing the bunker with Sam brought up unnecessary reminders of him. Sam had offered to pay for you to stay elsewhere whilst you recover, but you declined his offer. It was the least he could do.

You put hunting on the back burner for a while. Attempting to save the world was the least of your worries. Trying to mend a broken heart takes more courage than people think.

You drive down what you thought was one of the longest country roads that has ever existed, taking you to a completely new city. The trees overhung the road, sunburnt cliffs and the sky gleams. Flocks of birds soar through the sky together, heading south. The same direction as you. You just needed a fresh distraction, a new beginning.

Not Dean Winchester. Or so you think.

When you arrive, you realise there’s no real reason why you’re here, what brought you here. Travelling on your lonesome can be exhilarating or exhausting. There’s no in between.

You drive through the town, the streets flooding with people. The sun shines down onto the pavement, birds gathering next to an old man tossing bread onto the floor. Teenagers laughing, their hands full of shopping bags and couples basking outside of a local cafe. You drive around a corner and find a space to park. When you exit your car, naturally, your head turns to look behind you.

An Impala.

There’s absolutely no way.

Beyond squinting your eyes as hard as you can and staring at the vehicle, it can’t be, right? Impalas like that are unique. One of a kind. You shake it off, like it’s all part of your imagination. Turning back around, you make your way over to the local cafe.

It sits right on the corner of the street, a green striped awning protecting the outdoor seating from the harsh heat. As you approach the door, you push it open, a quiet chime as the bell rings above the door. Luckily, there are only a few people inside, mingling among themselves, meaning you can sit by the window and ease your mind with people-watching.

It’s always nerve-wrecking travelling somewhere new by yourself. You figured it was for the best, though, a change of scenery compared to the same four walls of some dusty motel room.

As you’re telling the barista what you want, you look for a table to sit at. You pay, and head over to the window seat, sun rays beaming through the glass, casting shadows of people mindlessly walking down the street.

Glancing down at your phone, you take a quick sip of your drink.

“Hey.” A voice appears in front of you; a tall, lean frame blocks some of the light. You look up.

Fuck off.

You don’t say anything. In fact, all you can do is glare at him like he’s the sun himself. You thought life was tough enough without him being in your life, but right now, it’s even harder now he’s standing right in front of you.

“Tough crowd,” he jokes, pulling out the chair opposite you. He notices you don’t laugh, and immediately looks down at the table. “What the hell are you doing here?” You half whisper, attempting to not cause a scene. Dean places his forearms on the table, leaning forward. Your eyes travel up his body, noticing his awkwardness from a mile away. Dean picks at the quick of his nails, his cuticles burgundy and raw. His mouth lays open as if to say something - admit to something. His plaintive eyes glance up at you, his under-eyes dark and lacking of life. A low, defeated sigh releases from his throat. He chuckles. “I wanted to say I’m sorry,” he begins, his sight still stuck on the table. You tilt your head.

“You’re sorry?”

Dean looks up, his lips slightly parted and his eyes scorned. There’s something behind those eyes that aren’t fully telling you the truth. He nods.

Dean is never one to apologise unless he knows he’s royally fucked up. It’s in his best nature to distance himself, and return when he assumes you’re over it. It used to make you so, so mad, but it’s Dean. You couldn’t ever stay mad at him for long.

You thought you had settled most of your resentment toward him, toward the situation he put you in. But the feeling resurfaces, hot like lava.

“I-I’m sorry. I thought I was doing what was best for me, but… I don’t think I did, Y/N.” He admits, glancing up at you. Silence grips you. You shake your head, pushing the multiple thoughts out of the way. “Wait, so-” You cut yourself off with a light chuckle.

“You broke up with me, you caused me so much mental and emotional pain, you leave me for someone else, and expect me to accept your apology? Who the fuck do you take me for?” You scoff, and he raises his eyebrows, sitting up straight. “Woah, woah, woah. I didn’t mea-”

“Eat shit, Dean. You’re unbelievable.” Tears well in your eyes, you scrape the chair back and make your way out of the door.

You immediately turn left toward your car, hearing Dean rush after you. “Y/N,” he calls, catching up to you. “Y/N, just wait.” He pulls at your arm, causing you to twist around and face him. His eyes are glossy, tears are begging to pour down his face. Dean’s nose is a little pink, the rim of his eyes too. “I have nothing to say to you.” You attempt to pull your arm out of Dean’s grip, but it doesn’t work.

“Well I do.”

His voice is rough, desperate, but you’re tired - tired of the cycle you find yourself in, the cycle of being with the same type of man that thinks they can get away with what they’ve done to you. Like it’s nothing.

You shake your head. “You don’t get to do this.”

“I still love you,” his voice cracks, “I never stopped.”

You let out a sharp breath, a humourless chuckle slips past your lips. “Wow,” you huff, crossing your arms, your eyebrows furrowing as you focus in on Deans face, his vulnerability showing. “That’s real convenient.”

He steps closer. “It’s not like that, Y/N.”

“It’s not?” You tilt your head, shrugging your shoulders. “So, what is it like then? You leave, you move on, then what? You get bored? You miss me? So what, you want me to drop everything and come running back to you?”

Dean’s jaw clenches, but he doesn’t speak a word. He knows you're right.

You nod to yourself, swallowing the sting in your chest. “You made your choice, Dean. Now please,” You turn away from him, hot tears flushing down your face, you look at him one last time. “Kindly, leave me the fuck alone.”

With that, you keep your eyes to the floor, walking away from the man who once gave you everything -- only to take it all back.

[anim-ttrpgs]

Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy Beta March 1st Update

We have just recently released the March 1st update to the public Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy beta on itchio!

This is one of the shortest spans of time between two big beta updates, but the changelog is still pretty expansive, a lot of quality-of-life stuff, clarifications, typo fixing, lots of focus on bug-hunting in general, so overall this version should be much easier to understand.

The biggest new additions are a bunch of new art pieces, and we finally finished the Module Writing Guide in Chapter 7, so you can use all 10 steps to help you get your Eureka Mystery Module Game Jam submission ready.

Now, we can finally start moving forward at speed again on copy-editing.

Full changelog below

CHANGE LOG 

Copy-editing Progress: Thoroughly copy-edited up to p. 302. Half-ass copy-edited up to p. 322.

Don't forget, we also released Eureka adventure modules “The Eye of Neptune” and “FORIVA: The Angel Game” into free beta on itch.io!

WHOLE BOOK

Removing Examples of Play for time and more importantly page count reasons. There is a small chance they may get added back in. 

CHAPTER 1 

Added an example of very rare circumstances where Ticks can just pass from a task without a roll or Scene change. 

Adjusted some phrasing in “Be Prepared to Lose”

Added “Approaching this Game” section

Added that if a Tier of Fear fear comes up mid-session that your investigator does not have on their sheet, you add it to their sheet in the tier that it makes sense right there mid-session. 

Made it more explicitly clear that failed and partially succeeded investigative rolls should not give false information.

CHAPTER 2

Edited a mistake in the Chemistry Skill 

Clarified that a character cannot have multiple instances of the same Trait 

Clarified that even with the Did You Know Trait, an investigator can still gain bonus Investigation Points from other Traits. 

Fixed a typo in the optional fears in the tiers of fear section

Slapped in a section that better explains how the character sheet works, will fix this up later

Clarified that My Glasses Trait gives a Contextual bonus and clarified Go With Your Gut

Moved “Creating NPCs” from Chapter 7 to Chapter 2.

Really cleaned up “Creating NPCs” and “Morale” and made it much more clear

Added Sunscreen to item list, for vampires. 

Added a toolbox to the item list.

Added an option for trivial items to cost 1 Tick instead of a Wealth Roll. 

Raised the price of campers and RVs

Added a section of the item list for additional property

Split First Aid Kits into three separate items, representing different levels of preparedness. 

Added Emergency Medication, such an epinephrine, to item list 

Added prescription medication to item list

Added clarification that unless stated otherwise, most items include the means to use them, such as cameras coming with film. 

Clarified that the WP price of vehicles includes the fuel to power them

Added more drugs

Added a paragraph about how WP costs are decided and how one might adjust them for different places or time periods. 

Added a note about legality for weapons other than firearms

Increased the WP cost of certain electronics 

Added remote control drone to item list

Added a separate item list section for Medicine.

CHAPTER 3

Clarified Epicenter Initiative and fixed typos

Added a lot more bullet point summaries

Clarified falling damage.

CHAPTER 7

Finished the “Setting the Stage” section

Cut “Connections (Optional Rule)” for now. We might put it back in later, but the thing that this rule does is something that most groups have little trouble doing on their own, and we really need to reduce page count.

Moved “Creating NPCs” from Chapter 7 to Chapter 2.

Reordered chapter 7

Removed “Character Moments (Optional Rules)” for now, might put it back in. 

Removed “Car stalling Out” Might put it back in. 

Removed “Clues direct the party” and “Clue redundancy”, might put them back 

Finally completely finished the mystery module writing guide but it still needs editing

Clarified that converting some “investigation” modules from other games is not as easy as it should be. 

More art has been added.

CHAPTER 8 

Fixed typo in the Wolfman “Unstoppable” section

Fixed it so that the Wolfman “Just Built Denser” section does not make wolfmen inherently be super tall

Fixed typo under the Curse section of Changeling

Clarified how the Manifest Weaponry Mage Ability interacts with other Traits.

New hunting table entry added (this one was from a submitter, those slots are still open, you can email us about getting your own custom hunting table entry at anim.contactus@gmail.com)

Added another new fan-submitted hunting table entry. 

Fixed typo in “Where Does the Blood Go?”

Clarified Telekinesis mage power and gave it an effective range.

Clarified that dogs can’t own dogs. 

Even further clarified that talking dogs are dogs. 

Fixed typo accidentally saying that there were four types of investigators. This was because Mage used to be a separate category on its own.

Changed the default modifier for the Composure roll that vampires must make upon being exposed to sunlight the first time each Scene from +3 to +5. They will still potentially lose a lot of Composure to sunlight because this roll is also modified by the huge negative modifier that is affected by how much coverage they are wearing, but when starting at +3 it was taking way too much Composure for the monster type that has the least options for restoring Composure. 

More art has been added.

[smilingformoney]

Die With a Smile

Chapter I. Elliott's Arrival

Elliott/Mary (OC) | Turpin/Mary (OC)

Summary: Elliott Marston is visiting his cousin Judge Turpin in London, and lives are changed forever when a chance encounter leads to both men vying for the attention of the same woman. Mary Taylor, once a mere apprentice seamstress, finds herself with an impossible decision to make: her happiness, or her brother's security?

AN: It's me, I'm back with another Elliott / Mary / Turpin story. This time my plot bunny was: what happens if Elliott meets Mary first? Enjoy my latest brainrot :D

Read on Ao3 or below the cut:

Mary was sitting at her favourite spot by the window, watching the world go by as she worked on her current project, a pair of gentleman’s trousers which were to be taken out at the waist.

She enjoyed watching the hustle and bustle of London. The tailor’s shop she worked at was on the corner of Farringdon Street and Fleet Street, and so the traffic outside of both footfall and carriages was constant, and she could watch as men, women and children of all ages and classes went about their days.

The are was often so busy that it was a popular spot for pickpockets, and multiple times a day Mary saw some oblivious well-off man fall victim to the sneaky movements of the tiny street urchins that ducked and wove between their feet.

Mary might have felt unsafe herself whenever she went outside if it weren’t for the fact she knew the boys – everyone without a home of their own in this area of London knew each other. She especially, having been on the streets for at least ten years at her best guess, knew these boys well – many of them so well and for so long that she recalled changing their soiled underwear as babies.

She felt some pity for the pickpockets’ unsuspecting victims but, when a boy came to her at the end of the day with some bread he’d bought with his ‘earnings’, the growls of her hungry stomach drowned out any protestations she may have had.

She’d spent enough time listening to the boys talk, and watching them from the window as she worked, that she almost knew enough to be a pickpocket herself. She often played a game with herself as she sat, guessing which pedestrian would be the next victim.

She saw one such man now, a tall man wearing a hat against the summer sun, looking between each direction of the street as if trying to determine which way to go. He was certainly new to the area, and too distracted with trying to find his way to notice – yes, there was a boy now! If she wasn’t mistaken, the figure darting between the crowd now was Timmy, a quiet and shy boy Mary knew quite well, as he was often joined at the hip with her own brother, Tommy. Their similar names were about the only thing they appeared to have in common, as Tommy was a much more boisterous lad, but if one knew them well enough as Mary did, they’d know the boys had the same cheeky sense of humour – Timmy simply needed a little more encouragement to come out with some silly joke.

Timmy’s attack was so sneaky, Mary didn’t even catch it herself even as she payed close attention, but he must have been successful because moments later, the man looked down and seemed to realise the coinpurse on his hip had split. He looked around wildly, expecting to find the money fallen on the floor - and by the time he realised the split was from a pocketknife, rather than poor quality stitching, Timmy was long gone.

The man looked around the crowd, hoping no doubt to find an officer of the law, but as usual they had more important things to worry about. The man disappeared from view as a carriage passed between him and the window in which Mary sat, and when the obstruction passed, he appeared to have gone, and so Mary turned her attention back to the trousers she was working on.

A few minutes later, the bell above the door alerted Mary to the presence of a customer, and so she put down her needle and thread to turn her attention to the door.

Mary noticed two immediate things about the customer:

He was the same man she’d just watched through the window.

He was very handsome.

“Good afternoon, sir,” she said with a polite curtsy, trying to ignore the way her heart was beating rapidly. Had he noticed her watching his misfortune and come to accuse her of conspiracy? “Welcome to Mrs Harris’s Tailor Shop.”

The man locked eyes with her, and for a moment Mary’s heart seemed to skip a beat. His gaze was piercing, as if he were looking past her outward appearance and directly at her very self. A glimmer of what looked like surprise crossed his face, then he composed himself and smiled warmly.

“Good afternoon, miss,” he responded in a smooth, deep baritone as he took off his hat and gave her a small bow in return. “I take it you’re not Mrs Harris herself? You look far too young to be running a shop by yourself.”

“I’m the apprentice, sir,” Mary replied. “Would you like to speak to Mrs Harris?”

“No, no, I’m sure you’re exactly what I’m looking for. Would you be able to repair my coinpurse for me? It appears to have split.”

The man held up the coinpurse in question, and Mary’s first thought was that if Timmy hadn’t cut it open, it would have split itself - the material was very poor, she could see that herself already.

“Of course, that shouldn’t be a problem. Let’s have a look at it.”

She took the purse from him and examined it.

“Well,  I can tell you two things for certain, sir.”

“Oh yes?” said the man with a hint of amusement in his voice.

“Firstly, this was cut with a knife, not split. Secondly - if it hadn’t been cut - it would have split by itself in time. The quality of the material is very poor. You may be better off getting a new purse altogether, or it’s simply a matter of time before it splits again, no matter how well I sew it back up. You’re not the first gentleman to come in here with a split coinpurse, and I tell everyone the same: if you don’t want your coins lost or stolen, leather is the way to go.”

The man crossed his arms and looked at Mary with a raised eyebrow.

“And I suppose you just so happen to have the perfect leather coinpurses in stock, for twice the price it would cost to sew this one?”

“Well, no, sir, we don’t keep leather lying about,” Mary said truthfully, not realising the meaning behind the man’s words. “I could make you one, of course, but I’d have to get the materials in especially and that would cost you more – you’re better off buying one in Camden Market, that’s where I’d have to go to get the leather anyway.”

The man chuckled and shook his head. Mary smiled politely, but she had no idea what the man found so amusing.

“Well, you’re the expert; I’m just a humble customer. Perhaps you could make me a leather coinpurse? I’ll gladly pay for the materials.”

Mary frowned slightly.

“You’d not prefer to buy a new one from the market, sir?”

The man waved a hand dismissively. “And risk being ripped off with something poorly made again? No. I only trade with honest people, and you, miss, are clearly an honest woman. I’ll have a new one made. Do you need me to pay in advance for the materials? If so, I’ll have to return to my lodgings and get some more money, as mine appears to have vanished.”

“Oh - well, if you’re certain, sir, I’d gladly make you a new purse. I won’t be able to go to market until after I finish for the day, though, and I’ll be here until eight o’clock.”

“Eight o’clock?” the man repeated incredulously. “That’s a little late for a young lady to be going all the way to Camden on her own, isn’t it?”

Mary shrugged. “It’s the earliest I’m able to finish, sir.”

“Well, that won’t do at all. I’ll have to accompany you,” the man said decisively. “I’ll meet you here at eight o’clock, with the monies for the materials, and accompany you to market. I’d be beside myself if you were harmed on account of me and my coinpurse.”

“Oh - well - if you insist, sir,” Mary said shyly. “I suppose you can pick out your choice of leather, too.”

“Yes, I suppose I can,” the man replied, as if the thought hadn’t even crossed his mind. He placed his hat back on his head and tipped it slightly to her. “Well, good afternoon, miss. I’ll see you at eight o’clock.”

---

The rest of the day went by slower than usual. Mary would work for half an hour, look at the clock, and find only ten minutes had passed. She started to wonder even if the clock were running slow, but when she checked the clock in the back room, it would show the same time.

Eventually, after an age, eight o’clock did come ever closer. At ten minutes to the hour, the bell rang, and from the back room Mary heard Mrs Harris speaking to the customer.

“Good evening, sir. Is there anything I can help you with? We close in ten minutes, mind.”

“I’m actually a little early. I’m here to meet your apprentice at eight o’clock. She kindly agreed to get some materials for a little project for me from the market and I promised to escort her when she finishes work.”

Mary felt her heart leap a little when she heard the handsome man’s voice.

“Oh, yes, she told me she were expecting you, sir. She’s in the back - you can go through, if you like.”

“Thank you, madam.”

A few moments later, the man poked his head around the door, his hat in his hand.

“Knock knock,” he said with a smirk. “Sorry I’m a little early. I didn’t want to risk leaving you to wait outside for me, or God forbid making your way to market on your own.”

“Oh, that’s alright, sir,” Mary replied. “I won’t be long with this, then we can leave come eight o’clock.”

The man looked at the dress Mary was working on, his eyes raking the design up and down.

“Is there something to be fixed in this dress? It looks perfect from here.”

“Oh, this isn’t a repair, sir. I’m making this one new.”

“You’ve made it?!” the man repeated incredulously. “That’s incredible. And you’re only an apprentice?”

“For now, sir, though I hope to be a seamstress in my own right one day.”

“Well, don’t let me get in your way. You carry on.”

The man took a seat in the corner of the room, watching Mary as she worked on the final flourishes of the dress.

Elliott couldn’t keep his eyes off the girl as she worked. There was something intriguing about her, something he couldn’t quite place. When he’d first stepped into the shop that afternoon, for a moment he thought he recognised her, but he was certain he’d remember meeting a face as pretty as hers. No, she was certainly a stranger - but he had the urge to know her. When presented with the opportunity to accompany her to the market, not only did he sincerely worry for her safety, but he also saw a chance to spend time with her and perhaps determine what it was about her that made her seem so familiar.

He hadn’t yet asked her name, because strangely, he felt like he should know it. It was the embarrassment one felt after having a few conversations with someone whose name you forgot, and the longer it took to ask again, the more embarrassing it would be.

After spending ten minutes unable to take his eyes off the apprentice seamstress with the skill of a seasoned expert, Mrs Harris told her she could go, and so Elliott accompanied her outside, and swallowed his pride.

“Miss, I realise I seem to have forgotten my manners; I never asked your name.”

“It’s alright, sir; I never asked yours,” the girl replied with a small laugh. “My name’s Mary, sir. Mary Taylor.”

Of course it was. Some part of Elliott’s mind - perhaps some part of his soul - knew that was right.

“A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mary,” Elliott said with a small bow. “I’m Elliott Marston. Might I accompany you to the marketplace this evening?”

He offered her his arm, and she blushed.

“You might indeed, Mr Marston,” Mary replied, and she slipped her arm through his and led the way down Fleet Street towards Camden.

“Mr Marston, I must ask –”

“Call me Elliott, please.”

“Oh - er, certainly, if you insist. I wanted to ask, sir - I know most of the gentry around here by sight. Even if they never frequent the shop, I see familiar faces cross the street all the time. I can’t say I’ve ever seen yours before. Are you new to this area of London?”

Elliott chuckled.

“First of all, Mary, I’m not sure I’d call myself gentry . I won’t lie, I’m moderately wealthy, but I don’t fit in with all those lords and ladies. And please, don’t call me sir - it feels as oddly fitting as gentry . Just Elliott will do.”

“Then you most certainly mustn’t be one of them! I’ve had some gentlemen admonish me for not calling them sir every other sentence; I suppose I use it too often now to make up for it.”

“Well, as you seem to have guessed, I’m not from around here, although I may sound it; we have my parents to thank for that. They insisted from a very young age that I was to keep my English accent at all costs.”

“Do you live abroad, then?”

“Yes, I’m from Australia.”

“Australia!” Mary exclaimed, and Elliott thought the way her eyes widened in surprise was nothing short of adorable. “I’ve heard Australia is so far it takes months to get there over the sea! Whatever could have brought you all the way to London?”

“Well, a boat, of course.”

Mary frowned a little in confusion, then the meaning of his jest set in, and she laughed.

“Well, naturally! But what reason could you have for making such a long boat journey?”

“I wanted to get away for a while,” Elliott admitted. “I’ve worked hard to gather a lot of land there, and I have a good team of men to look after it for me; I finally feel I’m in a position where I can trust them to look after it while I travel. My parents moved here when I was very young, so while I write as often as the overseas postal service allows, I haven’t seen any of my family in a very long time. Here in London, particularly, I have a cousin who I’m currently visiting, and I hope to visit an uncle in the south too.”

“Oh, how fascinating!” Mary said. “I sometimes wonder if I might have cousins somewhere. My parents died when I was quite young, and if I had any other family I never knew them.”

“So you’re on your own?” Elliott asked with concern.

“Oh, no, I have my brother, Tommy. He was only a baby when our parents fell ill, so I’ve looked after him his whole life. Mrs Harris was kind enough to give me work, and so I use my earnings from my apprenticeship to look after him.”

Mary was focused on not stepping in horse droppings, so she didn’t see the way Elliott looked at her with a marvellous curiosity, as if what she was saying was unknown to him, but it amazed him all the same.

Elliott was glad, as the conversation changed topic, that Mary hadn’t asked further about his own family. He knew what sort of reputation his cousin had in London, and the last thing he wanted was to scare the young girl off by telling her his cousin was the formidable Judge Turpin.

Supposedly the walk was an hour, but Elliott would have sworn it was much quicker. Perhaps he was too distracted by the way she chattered on, showing him different points of interest as they passed. He’d already explored some of this area with Turpin, but the story Mary was giving was quite different. While his cousin pointed out historical buildings and paid particular attention to the courts in which he worked, Mary was more interested in the people of London, the colourful characters that occupied the streets and the stories that were passed around, no doubt embellished and flourished as they passed from person to person.

“You seem to know this area well,” Elliott commented as Mary took a pause between stories.

“Oh, yes, I’ve lived here all my life,” Mary replied. “My brother and I know these streets like the backs of our hands.”

Elliott’s curiosity was piqued, but he didn’t press the girl any further. She spoke well and dressed well enough too, although the latter was perhaps to be expected of a seamstress. And yet, she considered leather too expensive to keep around, she knew street dwellers by name, and she seemed to cautiously avoid mentioning precisely where she lived.

Elliott had no idea how much the apprentice to a seamstress earned in a day, but he suspected it wasn’t much. Her parents dead, her brother young yet no mention of school - all signs that led Elliott to believe that Mary was a street urchin.

And yet, he didn’t find himself put off by the possibility as his cousin likely would. If she were to arrive in Australia, she’d arrive an equal to all who lived there - excepting, of course, the convicts and the Aborigines. But there were no Lord or Ladies in Australia - anyone could find themselves in a position of power with a good work ethic and the right moral fibre.

By the time they came to approach Camden Market, the sun had set, and while most of the vendors had closed up for the day, one or two still lingered, and Mary approached one such stall with a friendly greeting.

The vendor helped Elliott choose his leather and measured it out to Mary’s specifications. Elliott paid for the materials, and he tried to pay for some other materials Mary bought for her own projects, but she practically shoved him out of the way when he tried.

“Don’t listen to a thing this man says, he’s not to pay for anything other than that leather,” Mary said to the vendor firmly.

“But Mary, you’ve come all this way just for me, there must be something I can do,” Elliott insisted as they left, the vendor promising to have the materials delivered to the shop first thing in the morning.

“I won’t hear a word of it, Elliott. You’ve done more than enough by keeping me company this evening.”

“Then I’ll continue to do so. I don’t suppose you’ve eaten yet. How about some dinner? You clearly know London well, I’m sure you can recommend a pub or some other place we can dine at. A real, authentic place run by real Londoners.”

Mary thought for a moment.

“Well, there’s a pub nearby, the Royal Oak - it’s run by a lovely couple, at the end of the night they always give any leftovers that might otherwise be thrown out to those who need it.”

“Perfect!” Elliott declared. He offered his arm to her with a smirk. “Miss Taylor, would you accompany me to the Royal Oak this evening?”

“Oh, Mr Marston, I would!” Mary grinned.

---

When Elliott eventually returned back to his cousin’s house on Kearneys Lane, it was almost midnight and he’d just had what was definitely the best night he’d had since his arrival in London. No night at the whorehouse or playing poker with his cousin and his friends could hold a candle to the night he’d had with Mary.

All they’d done was go to the pub, had a local-made meal for dinner and a few drinks. It was nothing new, but it felt brand new, because Mary looked at the world with a refreshing wide-eye fascination that was positively infectious.

Elliott was humming to himself as he hung his coat up when his cousin emerged from his study to look at him with wry amusement.

“Had a good evening at the whorehouse, Elliott?”

“Oh, I haven’t been to the whorehouse,” Elliott replied. “I told you I had an appointment with the seamstress.”

“That took four hours? What, did you fuck her as well?”

Elliott rolled his eyes at his cousin.

“I’m flattered you think I have the stamina, William. No, I did not fuck her. I accompanied her to the market, then took her to dinner. That’s all.”

“You’re not courting her, are you, cousin? You’re a landowner and cousin to a Lord, you can’t be going around courting an apprentice.”

Elliott paused at the bottom of the stairs and smirked.

“You wouldn’t say that if you saw her.”

[kaibutsushidousha]

The Hundred Line special guests interview from Famitsu issue 1895

A game is composed of multiple elements, like "plot", "characters", "world", and "experience". In what order do those get constructed when you make games?

Jirou Ishii: Me first. I can't present a project unless I have all parts sorted. A game only becomes a project when you have a plot, a cast, a world, and your gameplay sorted out. Of course, sometimes I can only come up with fragments of the story and characters, but I need to have some ideas, any ideas, in store for later.

Alright. You next, YOKO.

YOKOTARO: I work mainly with action games, so the process might be different from visual novels. For action games, you need to start from an estimate of the gameplay mechanics, and only then you're allowed to come up with a story, cast, and world that fit with this estimate. By estimate, I do mean a budget. Eventually, you will find some cases where the estimate will pre-establish the number of characters in your cast, and even force you to redistribute who is an ally and who is an enemy to work with that. Wait, this wasn't supposed to be a conversation about money (laughs).

Kazutaka Kodaka: But since you made it about money, I have to mention how The Hundred Line was funded from Too Kyo's own pockets and we had strict budget plans to follow. But as the game kept growing, the initial budget only lasted a few months. Mostly my fault for not knowing when to hit the brakes.

YOKO: And how much did it cost? Saying the price in yen would qualify as gore, so let's use Ronpas as the currency here.

Kodaka: I mean, I could just tell you the price in yen here and now. It's not like the interviewers would be allowed to put the number on the magazine.

YOKO: Still on the topic of money, with how inflated localization costs have been these days, I sometimes get requests to cut scenes shorter. With how colossal The Hundred Line is, how much did that weigh on your budget?

Kodaka: The Hundred Line was a collaboration with Aniplex, meaning the production costs were split between us. All procedures were carried out on agreeable terms. Well, agreeable on our end. I can't say for certain Aniplex felt the same (laughs).

In what order was the world of The Hundred Line constructed?

Kodaka: A major factor in defining the direction of the story and the characters was my age. I felt like this was my last chance to write ensemble casts and believable teenager dialogue. As for the gameplay, we went with a tactical RPG because that's what I assumed would be the cheapest.

YOKO: Oh, you fell for THOSE illusions?

Kodaka: Oh yeah, that was a total illusion alright (pained laughs). Considering this was my collaboration with Uchikoshi, we initially positioned the plot as the main item and the TRPG gameplay as just a bonus to hype up the plot. But the desire to improve the TRPG only grew as development progressed, so we kept tweaking the battles until the last day available for it. With how much we managed to add in terms of story volume, polish, and gameplay, this title is the closest thing I can call to my ideal game. Now I'm ready to die without regrets (laughs).

Ishii: So can we count the game as your will?

All: (laughs)

The Hundred Line has 100 routes and endings. Can we get YOKO's and Ishii's opinions on this length?

Ishii: It's outright amazing. Relatively short visual novels, like PARANORMASIGHT: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo or Urban Myth Dissolution Center, have been major successes lately. This game runs contrary to the trend, if anything running closer to the lengthy VNs from our careers.

Kodaka: Our goal was making a VN that the player can keep playing over time. To accomplish that, we made multiple route types, and allowed the player to interpret the ending that satisfied them the most as the true ending. This concept for this new IP came from a wish to create an aspect that would get the people of the current year to question our sanities. The best we had to offer was quality and quantity in terms of text and illustration, and that's why we created 100 routes.

Ishii: The closest thing I can think of in terms of how different the routes get from each other is Banshee's Last Cry. That game as a VN with TRPG elements instead of a pure sound novel is an amusing idea. The elements of continuing the game until you're satisfied is also an aspect I feel competes with Gnosia. All that has me very interested in The Hundred Line.

Kodaka: Making the TRPG match the plot was much harder than we imagined. We needed to fine tune the difficulty to make every battle winnable using only the characters currently featured in the story. Which is made more difficult when you have a huge number of routes with crucial differences on who is and isn't in the roster, something really time-consuming for a simple consistency check. I was often going "wait, it doesn't make sense for this character to be at this moment of this route".

Looking at the story branches, this game has a lot in common with YOKO's work.

YOKO: True. I created my route splits to add replayability to the Drakengard series. Those were times when everyone kept saying short games weren't worth it. But in the current year, making something with 100 different routes and endings is the more dangerous play.

Koutarou Uchikoshi: From a creator's perspective, my reaction to Kodaka's project pitch was "Let's rethink this one" (laughs). I showed him a flowchart with 100 routes to hammer it how rash his idea was, but that only got him more motivated…

Kodaka: I got so excited about our game (laughs).

So the document written to make him quit backfired?

Uchikoshi: Honestly, from a player perspective, I saw The Hundred Line as something that appeals both to the crowd that wants to rush it and the crowd that wants to take their time. If we actually managed to make the whole thing (laughs).

Kodaka: I remember the people at Too Kyo being really split on the volume. Due to that, I asked my close friends about their opinions on the game's length. Most Japanese friends were put off by the amount of text, but the American friends explained that only the really hardcore crowd plays Japanese games in the US, so this length would be like Christmas in July.

YOKO: Eh, I feel like the Japanese crowd is also huge on the "I want to see every ending, I want the full experience".

Kodaka: Absolutely. I certainly prefer people experiencing everything, but it's perfectly fine to walk away whenever you feel satisfied.

Uchikoshi: This might work somewhat like RPG side quests. You don't have to clear all of them, but each one you experience deepens your understanding of the game.

The Hundred Line is split into visual novel sections and tactical RPG sections. What do you believe a visual novel needs to be in this age of such rich genre diversity?

Kodaka: The most memorable title I played recently is Until Then. It felt like one of the old ones, going on extensively while still following the principles of "everything matters". We did have games that were unproductive with their high length, but nowadays, I believe the norm is keeping it short. Shorter stories mean more time-efficiency, bringing their narrative formats closer to manga chapters, TV episodes, or movies. Although I can't conclusively say one method is better than the other.

Can we consider The Hundred Line to be your personal answer to this dilemma?

Kodaka: No, not an answer to the VN genre, just an answer to the question of what VN would the current me make. Saying I hold the answer to such an indie-dominated niche would be in bad taste. I personally want large titles to be produced more often, and would love to see my game revitalizing the genre upon release.

Your thoughts, Ishii?

Ishii: I believe we could soon be getting a roguelike-style title, like the Gnosia I mentioned before. The number of games that can pull off the right balance of storytelling and roguelike gameplay is still close to zero, but I expect a high-level title to appear and codify the genre in the near future. Also, writing a visual novel has always been a battle against flowcharts and loading multiple save files. I believe in game design innovations that can create stories that eliminate the need for flowcharts and save files. I'm very excited both to discover and to create story formats never seen before.

What do you have to say, YOKO?

YOKO: I believed the advancement of technology would blur the lines between action, RPG, and visual novel. My prediction didn't come true. The genres are still as distinct as they always were. But the definition of visual novel changed. Back in the days of hardware limitations, what we currently call sound novels were the only possible style of visual novel. But now that any form of presentation is possible, the labels changed meaning. The story sections in Uncharted and Detroit: Become Human are very similar, so I imagine the only reason why only the latter gets called a visual novel is because it doesn't have action gameplay.

Uchikoshi: Good point, Detroit and Uncharted share the same base 3D character adventure controls. The only difference really is the emphasizes on their movement.

Kodaka: Visual novel and adventure game are labels used interchangeably in Japanese, but in my opinion, the English-speakers stick only with the former because it's the one that makes sense.

Ishii: Calling it a novel really draws emphasis to the writing. At the risk of going off-topic, a key similarity between novel games and basic literature is the added attention to the story text through the absence of any other element. But classic literature cares too much about being narrated in first person, and with that being the only POV option, the worlds of novels feel biased at best and barren at worst.

YOKO: Ishii, do you think you could make money with pure literature?

Ishii: Sounds doable, I already made Bungo and Alchemist a hit (laughs).

All: (laughs)

And Uchikoshi's thoughts on visual novels?

Uchikoshi: I believe Detroit: Become Human to be the ultimate form of VNs as we currently know them. Wonderful visuals, too. But if you asked me if the ideal visual novel is a live-action movie with route splits, my answer would be no. Being able to control movement is important. One project I want to create later down the line is what would Detroit: Become Human would look like if it came from the mind of a Japanese man.

Oh, I'd love to play that.

Uchikoshi: I still have a lot I want to create, but at the rate AI is evolving, I'm afraid the market will soon be dominated by AI-generated VNs.

YOKO: I'm also pretty concerned about AI running all game creators out of their jobs. In 50 years from now, people might think of us the same way we think of wandering bards nowadays.

You think AI would be able to create the outlandish worlds and stories you come up with?

YOKO: Yes.

Ishii: Same opinion (laughs).

Kodaka: I think it can copy an author's technique, but not their personality. For example, it could create a game script that resembles a David Lynch movie, but if the real David Lynch were to write for game, he wouldn't write it in the same style he uses for writing movies.

YOKO: I think a high-end AI would go beyond that and be capable of perfectly replicating the man's behavior. Its output would be based on the intention rather than the instructions.

Kodaka: The idea of an AI that fails deadlines tickles me (laughs).

YOKO: I believe we're slowly leaving the era of asking it to copy the style of our favorite creators and entering the era of asking it to create scripts catered to our tastes. The AI determines what the player likes and generates the route they would want to read. Just an idea based on how quickly the area is developing in the user recommendations department.

Kodaka: That would reduce the amount of experience people can share with one another, slowly fading away the concept of a bestseller from public consciousness worldwide.

The Hundred Line will be the first IP directly owned by Too Kyo Games. What do you believe to be the significance of owning franchises instead of only creating them?

YOKO: I don't own any of my series. I own partial rights to a manga, but for the games, I generally give everything to the client. Being real with you, owning a game franchise is not, by itself, something that makes money. But if you don't care about the money, then owning your series has one merit in the form of easier creative control. But I can control my franchises by having a relationship of mutual trust with the producers that hire me, which includes being able to tell them when I don't want a product to be made, so in my case specifically, I'd say I don't need to own anything.

Kodaka: Same here, I don't find IP ownership that significant. I may own The Hundred Line but it's not like Too Kyo Games can leverage that to make anime or stage play adaptations in our studio. We still need partner companies and production staff, and that makes the process not much different from how it would have been if the franchise rights were elsewhere. The only reason why I was so insistent in making The Hundred Line our first IP was because one of the foundation goals of Too Kyo Games was to own one franchise, didn't matter which. But with how huge of a project The Hundred Line was, it was maybe my last guess for which series we would get to keep.

Ishii: The Hundred Line really feels made with the intention of becoming a series. Kodaka already made a successful franchise out of Danganronpa, so I've been noticing the subtle details enabling the series expansion of The Hundred Line.

Kodaka: Whatever I did there was mostly unintentional. But my past successes were a basis for the creation of this new plot, cast, and world, so I could see it naturally coming out with franchise potential.

YOKO: It doesn't need to be conscious or intentional. Kodaka and Uchikoshi have a propensity for sequel hooks. A fetish, even. The games they make carry the seeds for sequels at their deepest core. I can see the sleeper agents in them.

Kodaka: I don't know about that (nervous laughs).

YOKO: You two can't help yourselves trapping characters in enclosed environments, to suffer until they reach their cruel demise. This inexplicable impact is something both of you share. It's honestly impressive how your games are so similar in plot but so different in flavor.

I agree (laughs). Onto a different subject now, tell us what makes a game built at your studio, or as a freelancer, uniquely good or uniquely difficult.

Kodaka: You think YOKOTARO still remembers anything from your employee days?

YOKO: I do. It felt really limiting, having to commute to work every day and work together with people who didn't vibe with me. The freelance life is a comfort to me. I have the freedom to choose when I go to the office and who I work with. Even when the client pitches a weak project my way, I can change it into something fun as long as I respect the important points of the budget estimate.

You're allowed to alter the client's base concept for the game?

YOKO: They get pissed because I only report that to them after the point of no return, but, y'know… negotiation skills can take you anywhere (laughs).

Ishii: I actually feel like I had more creative freedom in my employee days. I was fiercely determined to create something new, motivated by my need to charisma check the corporation in order to get my projects approved and secure a better budget. I looked really assured, since I thought casually giving them permission to fire me if it flopped was normal. That's also a reason why I wanted to be a director who supports creators after I went independent. But in reality, it's really hard to come across a director willing to quit the company for their mistakes whenever. When I say "If you're willing to put your job on the line, I'll provide you with everything you need", the default answer is "Sir, I have a family to feed". This conflict in worldview was the biggest obstacle of my early independent career.

Uchikoshi: Could it be a generational gap thing?

Ishii: No, a lot of people from my generation are strongly stability-minded, so I think I'm the only one built different.

What compromises have you been through in your freelance career?

Ishii: Once I was no longer capable of making super niche games, my first feelings were conflict and despair. I wasn't sure I'd be able to accept the person I'd become after many so many concessions to my identity, even knowing I had to do it to earn my daily bread. Nonetheless, most jobs I worked with after going solo were commercial successes. And my journey of self-search, analyzing what made them big hits, is still not over.

Kodaka and Uchikoshi went independent with the creation of Too Kyo Games. Did you notice any differences?

Kodaka: In my "salaryman era", when I had something I wanted to do, it was harder to assemble the necessary parts. Nowadays, if I ever feel like making a game for a manga or anime franchise, I can give it a shot. Being able to adjust mine and Uchikoshi's workloads at my discretion also makes life a lot easier. I can tell that trying to direct and write two or more games at the same time is too much for me, but where I have more minor roles, I have the option to move things forward by working on the weekends.

Uchikoshi : By becoming a commissioner rather than a commissionee, I learned that hierarchies were never real. When I relied on the company's salary, I assumed I was supposed to obey their request no matter how impracticable and the people being paid have no right to refuse. Then, at my first job as the one asking for things, I made my first impracticable request and heard a "No, that will not be possible. Not an option." (laughs). Turns out money and labor are items traded at the same rate. One side is not above the other. I want to be able to more confidently say no to impossible jobs.

Now we'll be moving away from the topic of work and talk about the real-life events and pieces of media that resonated with you in the past few years.

Kodaka: I've been too busy for games and movies these past couple of years. The only form of media I've been enjoying lately is wrestling. Each match ends on the same day it starts, and that's enough time to spend not thinking about my job. Things finally calmed down lately, and I took the chance to beat Metaphor: ReFantazio and Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth back-to-back so I won't get stuck behind the times. As for movies, I watched Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX Beginning and Conclave.

YOKO: The movies I recommend are The Wild Robot and Petals and Memories.

Huh, not a lineup I'd have expected.

YOKO: I rarely go to the theaters on my own, so whenever I'm invited to a private screening of a movie, I always try to take the opportunity. The Wild Robot impressed with how much content it could pack in only 2 hours, and I spent the whole second hour crying. I genuinely had to fight not to make any noises in the theater room. Petals and Memories is another emotional piece. When I watch something that plays out too similar to what I write, my head goes into work mode and I can't focus again, but those kinds of titles that have nothing to do with my inner world are incredibly effective at pulling my heartstrings. I heavily recommend both of these titles. Please let me use the magazine's space to deliver lengthy sinopses of them.

What about you, Ishii?

Ishii: Shanghai's immersive theater is impactful. The viewers go to a theater styled like a 5-6 room apartment and walk around the residence, following the plot unfold in real time where the actors go. It's so high quality that it made me feel something I haven't since the first time I played Dragon Quest on the NES.

Kodaka: Were the actors speaking Chinese?

Ishii: I went in accompanied by Chinese-Japanese bilinguals. I had 3 people interpreting it for me, but depending on what was happening on the scene, all three would get too panicked to translate. That part only added to the amazing immersiveness. The theater also has plays that don't rely on spoken dialogue, so I could go along for the ride and get the most out of the interactive experience.

What about you, Uchikoshi?

Uchikoshi : The most recent game that really got me was Nier: Automata.

Kodaka: From, like, 2017?

YOKO: Are you just saying stuff to be funny?

Uchikoshi : I mean it! I don't believe any game has surpassed Nier: Automata yet. It really consumed my brain and I'm not just saying this because you're sitting right here. The story is just so deep and philosophical.

YOKO: I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I will never make another that lives up to your standards!

Uchikoshi : Can you elaborate?

YOKO: I've grown too old to have skills (laughs).

Be serious (laughs)

Uchikoshi : Also, I don't know if this counts as entertainment media, but I was on a promotional trip to the United States and something happened at the bar I was in. The American friend who took me to the bar suddenly walked to a huge black man and started a rap battle against him.

YOKO: Ok, NOW you're just saying things to be funny!

Uchikoshi : It happened! (laughs)

Ishii: You should have joined them.

Kodaka: Convince them to play Nier: Automata with your rap.

All: (laughs)

Uchikoshi : I couldn't parse what they were saying, and most of all, I was scared… I pretended I didn't know him until the rap battle was over. As Ishii mentioned just now, nothing compares to the immersiveness of a real life experience.

YOKO: So, in summary, what you're is saying people are better off dropping The Hundred Line and going outside?

Uchikoshi : No, I'm saying you should live real life experiences AFTER beating The Hundred Line.

Lastly, tell us your next plans and ideas.

Kodaka: I've been exceedingly busy for the last few years, working on multiple projects, with The Hundred Line at the center of it all, but now I finally settled down for the first time since forever. I gotta take a break from creative work and focus on promoting The Hundred Line until April 24th. Besides The Hundred Line, I also have another game already fully produced, so I will be announcing this one any day now.

YOKO: I do have an ongoing project, but nothing I can discuss at the moment… What kind of answer does the magazine even expect with this kind of question?

Hah, throwing the question back at the interviewer! Well, it's about the obvious, I'm fishing for info on the future of your known titles. An ideal answer would be something like "I want to make a new Nier sequel."

YOKO: Ok, so that's the answer I'm going with. I want to make a new sequel for whichever series you, the reader, personally wants the most.

Now we're talking (laughs).

All: (laughs)

Uchikoshi : Same answer as him.

Kodaka: Didn't you say you wanted to make a game like Detroit: Become Human?

Uchikoshi : That's the one I'm talking about.

What about you, Ishii?

Ishii: I got the perfect content for you. I'm ready to throw a bomb at my fans on April 28th. It's my personal passion project at the moment, but I started already expecting certain people to want to contribute once I have something to show them for it. Let's see how well that goes. Don't miss it.

Uchikoshi : April 28th? That's four… two…

Kodaka: I was trying not to say it.

All: (laughs)

YOKO: That Uchikoshi, doing the job of the Famitsu editors for them!

Uchikoshi : I knew that none of you were going to say it, so I had to… (nervous laughs)

"April 28th" coming from Ishii's mouth is a pretty solid hint.

Ishii: Yes, the 4/28 date matters. I hope my impact in the VN scene doesn't fall behind The Hundred Line.

—————————————————————————–

Links:

Writing team interview

Design team interview

Music team interview

[dr-spencer-reids-queen]

Supply & Demand: Final Part

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Female!Reader

Word Count: ~1.9k

Warnings: canon violence, canon language, canon talk of death, methods of kill

Summary: One car accident led to the discovery of a human trafficking ring, one that you now need to infiltrate and take down. You need to give this case your all but it's hard when the reality of your situation with Spencer rushes at you like a freight train. You're forced to look back at every bad thing that has happened to you because it has to be someone you know who's doing this. One thing you can count on? Family. Always ready to take care of you when you need it.

Season Six Masterlist

Author’s Note: I do not own anything from Criminal Minds. All credit goes to their respective owners. If any warnings exceed the normal deaths/kills from the show, I will list them.

x

There is a chain-link fence around the property but that doesn't stop you from barreling through it. Multiple cop cars and SUVs screech to a halt, and everyone from your team to Andi's to SWAT to local police get out in waves. There is no plan of attack. You have to do this now or the women inside will be killed.

You and Derek split off and go one way while the rest split off in different directions. The men inside already know you're here so they try to shoot their way out. It doesn't work because there are so few of them and a lot more of you. You take the stairs down quickly until you get to the bottom of the factory. On either side are cages filled with women who are bruised, broken, and tired.

"Oh, God," you whisper.

"Come on," Derek whispers to you.

It hurts you to do this but you have to ignore them for now until you know it's safe for them to come out. You continue to walk when you hear someone enter the room. Seconds later, a large man runs at Derek and tackles him to the ground. You run over to help but the man stands and backhands you harshly. You fall into the cage and slide to the ground, your cheek burning red with pain. Derek pulls himself up but the man kicks him back to the ground. He's about to do more damage when Rossi rushes into the room with a few SWAT members.

"Give me an excuse to blow your brains out!"

The man puts his hands up knowing he's outnumbered and without a weapon. Derek gets to his feet and immediately goes over to you while Rossi holds the man at gunpoint.

"Let me see."

He moves your jaw to the right and glares at the angry red mark on your cheek. Derek comes in between Rossi and the man, and the older agent lowers his gun. Derek turns and punches the man as hard as he can in the jaw, and he goes out like a light.

"Are you okay?" Rossi asks and helps you up.

"Not the first time I've been hit by a man."

"Not what I asked.

"Yeah, I'll be fine."

You continue to move through the room when you get to a bigger area. SWAT already has people coming out in handcuffs, and officers work on getting the women out to safety. In the middle of the room is a woman sitting on a chair. All kinds of energies are swirling in the room, most notably two blue ones. Renee's and... someone else's. She is slumped over from the beating she got earlier. Hotch and Andi come in, and Andi rushes over to Renee who moans in pain.

The entire place has been flushed out, and Renee is taken in the back of an ambulance. She has severe injuries but she's going to be okay. Ashley escorts the last of the men to be arrested.

"This is the last one."

"How many arrests?"

"Eighteen. Seven victims were saved."

You walk outside and Hotch immediately goes over to you to check on your cheek.

"This is twice in one day. Are you part of something I should know about?"

You chuckle but wince at the pain smiling causes. "No. With all my time spent on you, how could I? I'm okay, Hotch. It'll heal."

Suddenly, tires screech and a car comes barreling from behind the building. SWAT shoots at the car and manages to flatten all four tires. The car slams into another car, activating the airbags. Officers and agents run over to the car with their guns out preparing for the worst. The driver's door is ripped open but a dead man sits there. Whether a bullet hit him or he was dead before hitting the car... Either way, he's gone.

In the back is a woman with tears running down her face. You run over to help but you stop suddenly when you get a good look at her face.

"They were gonna take me away," she whimpers.

"We need to get you some help."

"I'm fine. I'm okay."

Rossi gets her out of the car and walks with her, but you storm over to the girl. Not only are images of Renee beaten filtering through your mind, but you also see this girl giving the beating. Her energy matches the one found in the room with Renee. She was last seen with a brunette woman when she was taken. The leader isn't a man. It's a woman. It's her.

You push Rossi out of the way and harshly grab the woman's arms. You flip her around and slap handcuffs on her wrists.

"You're under arrest."

"What are you doing, Y/N?" Rossi asks.

"What's going on? What are you doing to me?" the woman sobs.

"Y/N, what are you doing?" Hotch asks.

You lean in and press your mouth to her ear. "I live to put bitches like you down. I know what you did in there. Your energy paints a pretty picture of you beating Renee. Kidnapping those women. Hurting them." You look at Hotch. "I'm sorry, Hotch, but this woman is just as guilty as those men. She's the leader. The man in the front seat of the car is a lot younger than I'd think he'd be for a ring leader of a human trafficking ring. She's the only victim he took with her, and Renee was last seen with a brunette."

"Let go of me! You fucking cunt! I will ruin you!" the woman screams.

Rossi yanks her away from you and brings her to the area where all the other arrested men are. Turns out, she was stashing a gun under those clothes. She would have shot her way out of this if you hadn't stepped up.

"I'm sorry, Hotch, but I felt her anger. I saw her energy. She would have shot us."

"No, you did good. I'm proud of you."

Spencer and Penelope stayed behind, but he did hear every grueling detail of the arrests... Including the part where the man smacked you to the ground. You walk into the briefing room when Spencer pulls you into him. You're about to say something when he cuts you off by kissing you.

"What was that for?"

"You're always getting hurt."

"All in the line of duty, Baby. It looks worse than it feels."

Derek walks in and rubs his shoulder because of how sore it is. That guy really did a number on him.

"What happened to you?" Spencer asks.

"The guy was huge, Reid. Seriously.

"You should start working out."

Penelope snickers and Spencer smirks.

"Oh, you got jokes now?"

Spencer giggles and you pull him in for a side hug. He wraps his arm around your shoulder and rubs your arm. Ashley sighs as she packs away the files and papers.

"What is it?" Rossi asks.

"We only rescued seven victims today. What about the rest of them?"

"It never ends, but we did good today."

"If we weren't so exhausted I would toast us," Penelope says.

"Good work, everybody," Hotch says and pokes his head in. "Go home and get some rest. Nobody needs to come in till nine... thirty."

"Alright, Pen, it's time," you say.

"Yes, I already have it up."

You and Spencer follow Penelope to her office where she has the footage of the parking garage on her screen. There is only one camera that faces your car, and you see yourself walking over to it with your head down and phone in hand. Seconds later, a man wearing all black walks in from behind you, but he has his hood up and a baseball cap on which does a good job of hiding his face.

He grabs you and knocks you out only to catch you and lay you gently on the ground. He leans over your body and grabs something but his body blocks the view of what he's doing. After about ten minutes, he stands. Whatever he did, you can't see. Whoever it is, you can't see. He must know there is a camera there because he lowers his head as he walks back to where he came from.

No other activity until Derek and Spencer found you thirty minutes later.

"Why knock me out and not hurt me or take anything? Who is this guy?" you sigh in frustration.

"I can try some tricks but I'm not sure I'll be able to tell," Penelope says.

"Well, the problem will still be here tomorrow. Get some rest. We'll see you then. Thanks for trying."

There are a lot of things happening to you that can't be explained, but Frank isn't staying around long enough to watch you figure it out. He has a business back home to run and a wife to see. As soon as he steps foot into his home, Clarissa throws herself in his arms and kisses him.

"I'm so happy you're home. Why did it take you this long to come home?" she asks.

"My work is done for now."

The bedroom door belonging to one of the six-year-olds opens and Rob walks out of it. Clarrisa stiffens when she sees him, and Frank rolls his eyes when he sees Rob buttoning up his pants. Rob looks at Frank and his shoulders sag either from annoyance or frustration. Frank doesn't really care.

"Damn, you're home. I was just starting to have fun here."

"Go play with your own kids. Leave mine alone."

"How would you feel about a trade?"

"We'll talk about it later. Get out."

Rob rolls his eyes and leaves much to Clarissa's relief. Frank looks at his wife and finally notices the healing bruise over her eyes. She doesn't get punished very often because she tends to stay out of Frank's way, but she knows the rules. She stays out of the way and reaps the benefits. If she doesn't, she'll get her ass knocked around a bit.

"So, how was Y/N?"

"So much fun. You should have seen her Clarissa. I don't think anyone has ever been so beautiful." She tries her best to ignore his comment considering she's his wife. "I'll tell you all of the gory details later. Right now, I need a shower and a fuck. Come on. Let's do both."

Frank is about to get up when his phone rings. He pulls his phone out of his pocket and grins when he sees the name on his screen.

"That's Y/N," Clarissa says.

Frank clears his throat before answering the phone. "Hey, Y/N. How are you doing?"

"Spencer is asleep right now. We had a long case so it was easy for him to sleep. I can't sleep. I think I'm going crazy," you cry quietly.

"Calm down, okay? Just breathe. Tell me what happened."

It takes you longer to tell the story because you're crying but you tell him about the parking garage incident, the Dilaudid incident, and just about everything that has happened to you.

"I didn't want to worry you, you know? I was able to pass it off before but now I was attacked in broad daylight. We have it on camera."

"Did you see who it was?" Frank asks, keeping his voice neutral.

"No. He knew how to hide."

"Do you need me to visit?"

"No, I'd hate to pull you from your work. I have Spencer and my team looking after me." You pause. "Maybe it wouldn't hurt if I could come visit for a weekend? I have some vacation time. It'd be nice to get out of this state right now."

Frank smiles. "I'd love to have you. You know you're welcome here any time."

"What do I do about this?" you cry.

Frank grips the edge of the counter and looks at his wife in the eyes. "Don't worry, Y/N. Daddy will take care of it."

"What lies in our power to do, lies in our power not to do." - Aristotle

x

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[trishmishtree]

Another year, another recap: a list of things I sewed in 2024

So...I kicked off the year by not doing any sewing in January or February.

In my defense, I was starting a new job and doing paperwork and moving across the state at the time, and most of my sewing things were still in cardboard boxes in my parents' guest room. Figured I'd start small when I finally moved and unpacked all my worldly possessions, so I revisited the cape I made for Capetember 2022 and added slits so that I can still use my arms without letting cold air in. I also added pockets for my phone and keys. Photo not included because, well, it looks the same as it did in 2022, just with arm slits.

Then I made this hand-embroidered Regency reticule. It's based on the one in the Rijksmuseum. It's cute, it's functional, and I made it as true to the original as I could, thanks to video footage from Sewstine on Youtube, who actually got to study the extant reticule and see the hidden side panels.

Then I got sick of back-lacing myself into Regency stays that never seem to fit my scoliotic torso correctly, so I made the c0rset a la parasseuse. They take like 30 seconds to put on and actually give the correct shape, and now I finally have regency stays that work for me. I'm not including pictures of myself wearing them, but here they are laid flat:

Then in April, I finished my red and white floral 1780s Italian gown ensemble. Technically, I'd made the overdress in 2023, but at the time I hadn't added the hooks and eyes that would allow the skirt to be bustled up in the back, and I still needed to make the contrasting striped petticoat. It's not a true HA recreation because I put all the structure directly into the bodice lining, instead of making a separate pair of stays to wear underneath, but all the other under layers are period correct, including the split rump I made to go with it. I also made an attempt at the American Duchess 18th century cap, but I made it out of limp, flimsy cotton batiste instead of linen, and it doesn't look right, so I'm going to have to revisit that once I make a proper 18th century linen shift and see how much leftover fabric I have after that. Oh, and I hand-embroidered some garters for my 18th century stockings but never bothered to take pictures because I don't like how they turned out.

In May, I also made this generic 18th century petticoat to go under my Italian gown ensemble, because the visible striped petticoat kept grabbing to my stockings and the fabric of my shift.

Also in May, I made the blue Regency pelisse. Base pattern for the bodice part is Black Snail’s #0323 regency spencer c. 1810-1815. I just altered the sleeves and added the long skirt. The oak leaf rouleaux pattern on the front of the bodice is from this pelisse from the Cincinnati Art Museum, though I wasn't going for a direct reproduction.

Then came the Edwardian nightgown, based on an actual pattern from the era. I wish I had had more fabric to work with because the final hem is less full than I would prefer, and the sleeves could use maybe 2-3 inches of ruffle to length them.

I forget why I didn't sew anything in June or July. Maybe I had gone back to fix a fit issue with the regency pelisse? I don't know. But in August, I hammered out three more projects.

I've been working on creating a series of body blocks/slopers for myself so that I can then use them to draft whatever patterns I want. I currently have a basic modern princess seam bodice block, a sloper for a generic blouse (which I've used to adapt multiple Edwardian shirtwaists, because I really just need it to fit the neck and shoulder region), a basic regency bodice block, an 18th century conical bodice block, and a bunch of circle skirt templates. I've been meaning to make a new set of Edwardian combinations (because I totally used the wrong weight of fabric on my first attempt), but I wanted to test out my drawers pattern first, so I made a pair of basic drawstring shorts to wear under my skirts for work, just for a bit of extra coverage. They function okay, but they're going to need more fullness in the legs to work for Edwardian costuming, so I didn't take any pictures, and there will probably be several more rounds of wearable mockups in my future.

My second sewing project in August was to revisit my old gathered-front regency partially-bodiced petticoat. Now that I had a functional regency bodice block pattern, I basically installed an entirely new bodice, reduced the amount of fullness in the front gathering, and also added about an extra yard and a quarter of fabric to the back of the skirt, since the original skirt hem was a little too narrow for walking comfortably. Regency skirts may look slim, but they should have at least 2 yd (preferably more) in the hem circumference in order to look and function correctly. The new and improved petticoat could basically be a dress on its own, minus sleeves.

And finally in August, I made the historybounding princess skirt. I've already detailed my grievances with this skirt in my original post, but it was basically an attempt to have a warm skirt to wear to work in the winter, but it requires a c0rset (and undershirt and c0rset cover and petticoat) to look correct, so I basically only use it for casual cosplay/Halloween costumes now.

Moving on from that dud, in September, I went back to regency and altered my new and improve bodiced petticoat pattern into an actual evening gown pattern. This dress came out exactly how I wanted. It would probably be my favorite thing I've made this year, except that it has a 2-foot train that is very unwieldy.

I had quite a bit of large scraps leftover from the gown project. My friend from residency was expecting a baby around September, so I used some fabric scraps and made her a ruffly baby dress. Since baby was due in September and I wasn't sure whether the weather would still be warm enough for white frilly summer dresses, I decided to make the dress in a 6-9 month old size so that baby would be able to grow into it come spring/summer. (Spoiler: baby came in mid-September while it was still reasonably warm. Oh well. At least she'll get to wear it in the spring. And now I have a birthday twin.)

In October, I embarked on my most ambitious project of the year and made my first pair of 18th century stays. This fabric is 100% not HA, and I did a combination of hand-stitched and machine-stitched channels, but everything else about the stays is historically...adequate. It's boned with zip ties because I didn't want to waste a whole roll of $$$ynthetic baleen on my first pair of (fully boned) stays when there was a 95% chance I'd screw something up. Pattern is self-drafted, and my only gripe is that I made my mockup half-boned and it fit perfectly, but I switched to fully boned for the final stays, and that affected the fabric's bias stretch, and I had to add a stomacher to give myself more room.

Then Halloween was approaching, so I made a witch hat from scrap wool coating fabric from my cape and wool skirt projects. Wish I had made the brim wider and the crown taller (it's just a little too small proportionally all around), but I didn't have a stiff enough interlining material, and the whole thing was floppy enough as it was. I'm just going to have to get more fabric and proper millinery buckram for next year's Halloween project.

Speaking of Halloween, I ended up not using the witch hat at all. Instead, I made what I'm calling the Anne Shirley blouse. It's another Edwardian shirtwaist I self-drafted from my basic blouse pattern. It's not an exact match to the blouse she wears at the end of Anne of Green Gables (1985), but I couldn't find a narrow-striped black and gray cotton shirting-weight fabric. Trust me, I looked for months. The final blouse is pretty, but the ruffle needs to be redone because it makes my shoulders look too wide for the wool historybounding princess skirt I wore it with, and the collar needs to be taken in a couple inches because it's too loose right now. And I need to make a proper ankle-length Vicwardian walking skirt some time in the future before I can put this project to rest.

November was another slow month for me, between the results of the you-know-what and our impending doom and I just couldn't find the time or motivation to do stuff for fun. I did have a 2-yard length of deadstock burgundy polyester chiffon in my stash that I had been holding onto for about a year without a clear project in mind for it, so I used it to make a Greek chiton. No pictures included because I'm probably only going to wear it as an accessory with my regency gown (because those white regency gowns are basically OG historybounding).

December was another weird month. I had just seen the Wicked movie and was drooling over all the costumes (designed by THE Paul Tazewell), so instead of sewing clothing to wear for myself, I went back to my roots and made a modular origami doll of Glinda, then sewed her bubble dress from actual fabric. It was a lot like draping a dress, except with a miniature dress form.

Then, because the doll is like 6 inches tall and I had a bunch of fabric leftover (I only got a quarter yard of each and even that was too much for a 6" tall doll), I used as much of the scraps as I could to make another Glinda bubble skirt but big enough to fit my brother's cat. (Neither of our cats likes to dress up, but my cat is too big for the skirt to fit, and his cat is pure black so a black Elphaba dress wouldn't show up on her). I don't think I took a picture of the skirt when I finished it, and now I don't have it because I gave it to him for Christmas. We'll just have to see if his cat lets him put the skirt on her long enough to get photos.

It looks like I accomplished even less sewing this year than I did last year, and 2023 was a down year too, but I don't feel that unproductive. This list was something like 21 projects, so I'm still averaging about one project every 2-3 weeks, which is reasonable since I'm working a Big Girl Job now. I do have more days off per week since starting this job, but my free time is now clustered into 2-3 day periods (during which I also need to remember to cook, eat, clean my living space, do laundry, shower, sleep, prep for the work week, etc.), instead of being spread out more evenly throughout the week like when I was in residency, so that probably has something to do with my productivity level.

Or maybe it's because my projects in 2024 are more intricate and involved than, say, making a batch of small things like baby bibs and tailoring hams, or so I'm spending more time on each project. There were also several other projects I started in 2024 that are currently still in my Unfinished pile, and I'm slowly working my way through them in the hopes that they'll make it onto next year's list of things I sewed in 2025.

Oh, and in other news, my sewing machine broke on 01/01/2025, and it broke even more when I tried to fix it FML, so I'm either going to have to take the thing in for repairs (if anyone even still fixes this old crappy cheap model) or buy a new slightly less crappy one secondhand. So expect to see even more hand sewing from me. I might even take up Stephanie Canada's Butterick walkaway dress challenge 2025 but do it by hand just to see how long it takes.

[anamericangirl]

Saw the post answering someone asking about God not showing as much upfront miracles in this day and age. My running idea is that during the ancient times before the new covenant and Age of Grace is that not only was it to show His presence in the world and to His people, but to protect the fledgling tribe of Israel from the dark forces. Remember how when Aaron and Moses came before the pharaoh and battled his magicians by throwing down their staves which turned into snakes? That was a blatant miracle of the magicians, but their power came from the ‘gods’ aka demons that they worshipped. Many times in the Old Testament and New are evidence of powers besides the Lord. However this isn’t proof of multiple deities but that darker powers do exist and had presence once that God needed to protect His people from otherwise they wouldn’t have made it. Baal was very much once a real threat to Gods chosen, among others, which explains His direct involvement in the world. The New Covenant also made it so that access to such magic is no longer possible, the veil between us and the Creator was split whereas the one that made connection with other powers much more difficult if not impossible without esoteric knowledge.

Interesting thoughts! I will look have to give it some more thought but I see where you're coming from.

[iamtrasch]

Minho x reader: Loyal

After you come up with the Platform, you run into the maze.

Words:700 Read here on AO3

Chapter 1 : Getting lost

-------------------------

Your eyes flutter open, the dim light filtering through the wooden slats above casting eerie shadows across the small, enclosed space. Panic sets in as you realize you’re in a confined metal box, the walls vibrating with a low, mechanical hum. The air is thick, and heavy with the scent of damp earth and metal. Heart pounding, you scramble to your feet.

But before you can even register anything else, the platform stops, and you are blinded by sunlight. After a split second, your eyes get used to the light, and you realize you are surrounded by multiple boys around your age, with expressions ranging from curiosity to concern. Without thinking, only driven by fear, you push through the cluster of boys and start running over a green grass field in the direction of high concrete walls covered in moss and vines.

Realizing in which direction you were running, some of the people in the group try to follow you and save you from running through the tall concrete gate. But their efforts were in vain, you were already past the stone pillars into the Maze.

After some time, you tired yourself out. You sit down against the cold, hard wall, trying to steady your breath and collect your thoughts.

But there were no thoughts, your mind was blank. You had no idea where you were or how you got there, you didn't even know your own name. The only thing you realized was, that running away from the only people who might have answers for you was a stupid move. You needed to go back. You rose slowly, your legs shaky from the exertion. Retracing your steps was your best bet, even if you weren't sure where you were going.

This notion ended up being futile since you had no idea which turns you took before. With each turn, your sense of direction slipped further away, leaving you more lost than before.

After wandering around the maze for some time somebody tapped your shoulder, turning around you saw a boy a little taller than you, with a fit and athletic build and short dark and messy hair. Wearing a pale blue lightweight shirt, durable pants and a utility vest that straps a knife to his back.

“Who are you?” he asked, his voice a mix of curiosity and suspicion as he eyed you.

“Uh,” you answered, not being able to answer the question because you couldn't even remember your name.

“I'm lost,” you admitted, feeling a bit embarrassed.

“Are you the new Greenie?” he continued, his brow furrowing slightly.

“What?” you responded, confusion evident in your voice.

“Did you come up with the platform today?” he clarified, his tone softening slightly.

“Yes?” you replied

his attitude shifted from being a little suspicious to a softer, understanding demeanor

“I'm Minho, I know you probably have a lot of questions, but it's not safe here so let's get back”

Following Minho through the Maze, you couldn't wait any longer for answers. The walls loomed high on either side, the air thick with anticipation. You finally broke the silence:

“Why can’t I remember my name… or anything else for that matter?” you asked, glancing at Minho’s steady figure ahead.

“You'll remember your name in a few days, but Nobody that lands here remembers anything else ”

“And where is “here” ?”

You say, turning a corner and finally seeing something else than concrete for the first time in hours. The stone pillars open into a big open area that you take in for the first time.

In the middle, you recognize the platform where you came up with hours prior, It's stacked with boxes and other supplies that a few people are inspecting.

To one side, a small, dense wooded area catches your eye, a cluster of tall, ancient trees offering a shady refuge. The air here feels cooler, the sounds of rustling leaves providing a momentary escape from the bustling activity.

To the opposite side, you see rows of lush, green plants stretching out in the Gardens. The vibrant colors of vegetables and herbs stand in stark contrast to the muted grays and browns of the surrounding structures.

“Welcome to the Glade Greenie”

Chapter 2

[pinkkittysaw]

🍉 FICSFORGAZA - SPONSOR A WIP! 🍉

hello friends ^_^ i’ve decided to join @ficsforgaza’s fundraiser and help raise money via “sponsor a wip”

please read through this ENTIRE post before sponsoring!

dividers by @/cafekitsune

HOW IT WORKS:

for a more detailed explanation, feel free to visit @/ficsforgaza’s “HOW TO PARTICIPATE” post linked here

RATE: $1 = 100 WORDS (with a maximum of $10/1000 words per donation)

you don’t have to be following me to sponsor a wip!

1) make a donation directly toward any vetted fundraiser providing aid to gaza/palestine of your choosing. (none of the money donated goes to me or the other creators participating)

2) send me an ask with the wip you’d like to sponsor along with a screenshot of your donation (blocking out all personal information), and a link to the fundraiser you’ve donated to (the asks will not be posted!)

example: hi angel! i donated (x) amount to (link of fundraiser here along with screenshot proof of donation) and wanted to sponsor (name of wip)

CAVEATS:

as i write nsfw-content, i’m requiring that asks pertaining to wip sponsorships be OFF ANON and that YOUR AGE MUST BE EASILY ACCESSIBLE ON YOUR BLOG! YOU MUST BE 18+ TO SPONSOR A WIP! refusing to comply with these rules will make your sponsorship null and void!

one donation per wip sponsorship. you can not use the same screenshot to sponsor multiple wips/the same wip multiple times

i will be sending screenshots to ficswithgaza to make sure that no donations are being used across multiple writers

WIPS:

full transparency, my word count varies across my fics so i’ve decided to place a cap on the maximum amount of words eligible to be sponsored for each wip. if the word count goal is met and i find that i still have more i’d like to write, i will increase the eligible sponsor word count goal for that wip in particular.

word counts will be updated as sponsorships come in and sponsorships for individual wips will be closed if i reach max word count goal for that wip in particular. i will reblog this post as the word count get updated

next to the word count goal you will see (subject to change) the word count goal will only ever change if i decide to write MORE than what the existing word count goal is.

as of this posting, the word count goals are the maximum amount of words i feel i can get from each concept without making the stories feel like they drag on. the word count goal will only ever go UP, not down.

total sponsored words: 1,000

1) GARDEN OF EDEN (title subject to change)

matt murdock x f!reader (nsfw)

fandom: daredevil

summary: in the midst of hopelessness, you find yourself stumbling into an unfamiliar church seeking guidance. in your daze, you bump into an unsuspecting, yet rather handsome man who offers to “mentor” you in your newfound faith. as the relationship between the two of you blossoms, you find yourself at a crossroads between following your teachings or following your heart.

content warning(s): general nsfw, sacrilege, corruption kink, religious guilt, talk of christianity (warnings will be updated as needed)

sponsored words: 0/5,000

word count goal: 276/5,000 (subject to change)

2) AS YOU WISH CHAPTER 3 (title subject to change)

knight! clive rosfield x princess! reader (nsfw)

fandom: final fantasy xvi

summary: a jousting tournament has commenced, but as you try to steady your focus on a certain knight in particular, your attention is split in three different directions.

content warnings: general nsfw, minor violence (warnings will be updated as needed)

sponsored words: 1,500/3,000

word count goal: 1,211/3,000 (subject to change)

3) (title subject to change)

john marston x f! reader

fandom: red dead redemption 2

summary: being a wealthy woman from saint denis has a LOT of upsides, but being recognized by most high society whenever you step outside your door is certainly not one of them. when your father leaves for an extended work trip you take the railway into valentine to catch up with your “favorite” outlaw

content warning(s): (tags will be updated as needed)

sponsored words: 0/5000

word count goal: 171/5000 (subject to change)

i do a lot of research for my fics and often have various things going on in my personal life so i can’t promise quick and snappy release times but if a wip gets fully funded, i will do my best to release the fic within two months of it reaching it’s goal.

i know i can be VERY wordy, if you have any questions about my post in particular, don’t hesitate to send me an ask! if you have any questions about the fundraiser itself, feel free to check out the @ficsforgaza blog and visit their FAQ page!

even if you are unable to donate please feel free to reblog this post along with ficsforgaza’s introduction post to help spread the word, and be sure to check out the other awesome creators involved with this project!

[alyss-erulisse]

Morph Madness!

Fixing Exploding Morphs

Marik's Egyptian Choker is currently in production. It is the first accessory I've made that involves assignment to more than one bone and morphs for fat, fit and thin states. So there is a learning curve, and it is during that learning curve that interesting and unexpected things can happen.

As with my other content, I'm making the choker fit sims of all ages and genders--that's 8 different bodies.

Adding fat, fit and thin morphs multiples this number to 27 different bodies.

I'm also making 3 levels of detail for each of these. The number comes to 81 different bodies, 81 different bodies for which I need to tightly fit a cylinder around the neck and avoid clipping.

That's a lot of work. I can see why most custom content creators stick with one age, gender and detail level. At least, they did in the past. Our tools are getting better day by day, and that may partly be because of creative, ambitious and somewhat obsessive people like me.

There are usually multiple ways to solve the same problem. Some ways are faster than others. This I've learned from working in Blender3D. You can navigate to a button with your mouse or hit the keyboard shortcut. You can use proportional editing to fiddle around with a mesh or you can use a combination of modifiers.

If I am going to be creating 81 chokers, I don't want to be fiddling around on each one of them for an hour. I need something automated, repeatable and non-destructive so I can make adjustments later without having to start over from the beginning. I need to work smart rather than just work hard.

This is where modifiers and geometry nodes come in. After you develop a stack to work with one body, the same process pretty much works for the others as well. That is how it became easier for me to model each of the 81 chokers from scratch rather than to use proportional editing to fit a copy from one body to the next.

But I was about to confront an explosive problem…

Anyone who has worked with morphs before probably knows where this story is headed. There is a good reason to copy the base mesh and then use proportional editing to refit it to the fat, fit and thin bodies. That reason has to do with vertex index numbers.

You see, every vertex in your mesh has a number assigned to it so that the computer can keep track of it. Normally, the order of these numbers doesn't really matter much. I had never even thought about them before I loaded my base mesh and morphs into TSRW, touched those sliders to drag between morph states, and watched my mesh disintegrate into a mess of jagged, black fangs.

A morph is made up of directions for each vertex in a mesh on where to go if the sim is fat or thin or fit. The vertex index number determines which vertex gets which set of directions. If the vertices of your base mesh are numbered differently than the vertices of your morph, the wrong directions are sent to the vertices, and they end up going everywhere but the right places.

It is morph madness!

When a base mesh is copied and then the vertices are just nudged around with proportional editing, the numbering remains the same. When you make each morph from scratch, the numbering varies widely.

How, then, could I get each one of those 81 meshes to be numbered in exactly the same way?

Their structures and UV maps were the same, but their size and proportions varied a lot from body to body. Furthermore, I'd used the Edge Split modifier to sharpen edges, which results in disconnected geometry and double vertices.

Sorting the elements with native functions did not yield uniform results because of the varying proportions.

The Blender Add-On by bartoszstyperek called Copy Verts Ids presented a possible solution, but it was bewildered by the disconnected geometry and gave unpredictable results.

Fix your SHAPE KEYS! - Blender 2.8 tutorial by Danny Mac 3D

I had an idea of how I wanted the vertices to be numbered, ascending along one edge ring at a time, but short of selecting one vertex at a time and sending it to the end of the stack with the native Sort Elements > Selected function, there was no way to do this.

Of course, selecting 27,216 vertices one-at-a-time was even more unacceptable to me than the idea of fiddling with 81 meshes in proportional editing mode.

So… I decided to learn how to script an Add-On for Blender and create the tool I needed myself.

A week and 447 polished lines of code later, I had this satisfying button to press that would fix my problem.

Here are the index numbers before and after pressing that wonderful button.

My morphs are not exploding anymore, and I am so happy I didn't give up on this project or give myself carpal tunnel syndrome with hours of fiddling.

Marik's Egyptian Choker is coming along nicely now. I haven't avoided fiddling entirely, but now it only involves resizing to fix clipping issues during animation.

Unfortunately, I'll have to push the release date to next month, but now, I have developed my first Blender Add-On and maybe, after a bit more testing, it could be as useful to other creators in the community as its been to me.

Looking for more info about morphing problems? See this post.

See more of my work: Check out my archive.

Join me on my journey: Follow me on tumblr.

Support my creative life: Buy me a coffee on KoFi.