#you could not pay me enough to get back into the cyberpunk fandom

[spicyraeman]

Saw my last drawing of her in my notifs again and got nostalgic so heres an updated ver of my shitty ex-maelstrom girlie Yvonne

comparison below the cut

[dr-peppers-monster]

Alive, With You–Chapter 2: Hitched

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Read this story on AO3 here!

Fandom: Cyberpunk 2077

Fic Rating: Explicit

Relationships: Johnny Silverhand/V, Johnny Silverhand/Female V

Chapter Summary: V and Johnny seal the deal, the Silverhand way.

——————————————————

A few months had passed since V was cured of the relic and Johnny reclaimed his body.

The couple bought a luxurious home up in North Oak, in the same community Kerry lived in but still secluded enough and away from the media frenzy that always hounded them both. V was a well established name in Night City and Johnny Silverhand being back from the dead was no small news, so their lives were anything but private most of the time.

They admittedly loved the fame, wealth, and attention that came with their respective statuses, but they also loved their little world away from it all, just the two of them (and Nibbles, of course) tucked in the hills in this new space they called home.

Johnny and V were cuddling in bed one afternoon, a tv on in the background that they were both half paying attention to. They were both naked save for the blanket draped haphazardly over them, both of them too tired from the previous night’s activities to bother putting anything back on.

“Hey,” Johnny spoke up. “I’ve been thinking of something stupid we should do.”

“I’ve already done you.” V teased. “A lot. Isn’t that enough?”

“Ha ha.” Johnny replied flatly. “I was kinda' thinkin' that maybe we should get married. If you wanted to.”

V’s eyes which were lazily closed snapped open, and she immediately sat up to look at Johnny.

“Are you…proposing to me?”

Johnny smiled. “Yeah. Guess I am.”

V grabbed Johnny’s face and planted a long, deep, excited kiss on his lips. Johnny smiled through the kiss, her answer clear before she said a word.

“Of course I’ll marry you, you fuckin’ idiot.”

Johnny’s grin widened, tucking a piece of V’s hair behind her ear. “Fuck yeah. Wanna do it today?”

V put her arms around his neck, leaning in closer to him. Johnny wrapped his arms around her waist in response, drinking in the pheromones floating between them.

“Wanna make an honest woman out of me, Johnny Silverhand?” She said in a low, smooth voice, her face now only inches from his.

“We both know you’re anything but that.” He teased warmly. “Want everyone to know you’re mine, official like. And, thinking of you as Mrs. Silverhand really, really turns me on.”

“Bold of you to assume I’ll take your last name. Correct, but bold.”

Johnny let out a low, grumbly chuckle. It was eating him alive not to kiss her at that moment, the tension between them near to snapping, but he loved how delicious it felt and knew exactly where it would lead.

V reached down and caressed Johnny’s erection over the blanket on his lap, making him quickly inhale in pleasure.

“You're so fucking hot.” Johnny groaned.

“Starting my wifely duties early.” V said, her voice like warm honey. She bit down on Johnny’s bottom lip, pulling it gently.

She pulled the blanket off of him and lifted up her hips, aligning his waiting length with her opening. Both of them let out a sigh when she lowered herself onto him, putting her arms back around his neck.

“Love it when you ride me, baby.” Johnny said, drunk with lust as he watched her move her hips back and forth, back and forth.

After a torturously long wait, Johnny finally broke the gap between their faces and crashed his lips onto hers. Their kisses were hot and messy, heavy breaths between each one. 

V bounced up and down on him, her moans like music to his ears. Better than anything he could write, he was sure of it. She shifted her movements to a rhythm she knew drove Johnny crazy, and he rewarded her with a moan that made her feel like everything was right in the universe.

“Christ, V–“

She upped the pace of this movement Johnny couldn’t get enough of, and he was on cloud nine, moan after moan escaping his lips. He held her by the curve of her waist, gripping tighter as he grew closer to his peak. V leaned into his neck and left him a generous love mark just near his pulse point. He pulled her face up to kiss her again, but was interrupted by his own groan of ecstasy as he came inside of her.

V smiled in satisfaction, her teeth touching his as they half kissed, half panted. Whose mouth was whose was barely distinguishable–but they were used to being one person at this point.

“Holy fuck, V.” 

“Just making sure to remind you of a reason why you should lock this down.”

“Solid reasoning. Can’t argue with that.” Johnny smirked.

“You’re so annoying. I love you.”

“Love you, my Valerie.”

V’s heart fluttered hearing her full name on his lips, turning her teasing into a much more romantic moment. It was such a rare thing for her to hear these days, saved for only the people closest to her. And Johnny was so far beyond that. Closer than close. Half of her soul, one and the same, everything and more.

V leaned in for another deep kiss, taking Johnny’s face in her hands.

“Valerie Silverhand.” She said proudly. “That does have a nice ring to it.”

Johnny smiled, folding his arms as V sat back onto his lap. “I’ll say.”

“Let’s go pick out some rings, get this show on the road.” Johnny said, scooping V up and moving her off to the side so he could stand up.

“Oh shit, I totally forgot about rings.” V said, standing up beside him and stretching. “How very traditional of you. I love it.”

“Like I said–want everyone to know you’re mine. Hickeys, jewelry, last names, the whole nine yards.”

“Won’t say no to any of those.” V replied contentedly, wrapping her arms around his waist.

Johnny kissed the top of her head a few times.

“Come on, let’s fuck again in the shower and then get out of here.”

V shrugged with a big smile. “Works for me!”

————————————

After their tryst in the shower, Johnny called Kerry on speaker while V put on her makeup at her vanity nearby.

"Johnny boy, how's my favorite dead man walkin'?" Kerry answered.

"Still walkin'. How it's goin?"

"It's goin', baby. Working on some new material. More fuckin' around than actual songwriting, but you know how it goes."

"Sure do, choom. Need a favor."

"You break my heart Silverhand, not just calling to say hello to your dear friend Kerry?"

"Hi Kerry!!" V yelled from across the room.

Kerry laughed. "Heya gorgeous! See Johnny? V's nice to me."

"And that's how it'll stay. You still a minister of the peace?" Johnny asked.

"That I am!"

"Preem. V and I want you to get us hitched today."

Kerry nearly choked on his drink. Johnny laughed as he listened to Kerry sputter on the other end of the line.

"Ho-ly shit! Johnny Silverhand is locking it down? Never thought I'd see the day."

"Bet your ass. This one's different, Ker." 

"I mean, I get it. V's one powerhouse of a gal. And everything you two been through together? Course I'll marry you two gonks. No big ceremony or nothin'?"

"Nah, fuck all that shit. Just want it to be us."

"Can't blame you there. My wedding set me back a truly painful set a' eddies."

"Not about the eddies. Just don't want a fuckin' circus."

"Recently-not-dead Johnny Silverhand bein' off the market's gonna be some insanely preem shit for the gossip sheets!"

"Couldn't give less of a shit. Let em' know."

"My oh my, our Johnny is in love."

"‘Fraid so."

"I got a preem spot in my backyard, real romantic and shit. How's that?"

Johnny looked over at V who was grinning widely, and she nodded.

"Works for us."

"Great. We're doing an afterparty though at least right? Get all the idiot friends and local ne’er-do-wells in town there?"

"Fuck it, why not. Partyin's the only thing we're really good at."

"Perfecto. And hey, Johnny?"

"Yeah?"

"At the very least go get a goddamn suit, let your wife-to-be get dolled up in somethin' pretty and new. She deserves for you to not look like shit for five whole minutes for this. Threads are on me."

"Thank you Kerry!" V cried out.

Johnny chuckled. "Fine, fine, Christ. Be there in two hours. And thanks, Ker."

"See ya, lovebirds!"

————————————

Johnny and V headed to a jewelry store V liked near their house to get their wedding jewelry. At the insistence of Johnny to pick out "somethin' real pretty" (which she knew to also mean "real flashy"), V decided on a sparkly silver ring and matching band lined with diamonds, a 4 carat radiant cut diamond in the center. It was a bit gaudy and a bit much, but so were her and Johnny. The satisfied grin on Johnny's face when the jeweler handed it to him and he slipped it on her finger was all the confirmation she needed.

"Now that's a rock. Only the best for my chick." Johnny said proudly, making V feel weak in the knees.

Since Johnny's left hand was (famously) silver, he opted to have a thick gunmetal black wedding band permanently added on to his chrome ring finger. Cosmetic modifications of chrome were common, and V could barely contain her feelings when she got a look at the ring on his finger for the first time. She loved how the previously fiercely guarded, wouldn’t-dare-show-an-emotion-if-his-life-depended-on-it Johnny Silverhand was freely displaying their love for the world to see. It meant the world to her, and Johnny knew that.

They also decided on a little addition just for them, getting "J+V" engraved into the insides of the rings. A little nod to V's tattoo and an excuse to be just a little corny.

Jewelry all taken care of, they headed to a swanky clothing store in North Oak to pick out their impromptu wedding atire. Johnny opted for a black suit, black shirt, and a blood red tie. Sleek, classic, and fit him like a glove. V opted for a slinky white satin mini dress with spaghetti straps and a kick-ass pair of shiny red stilettos.

Checking herself out in the mirror of the dressing room, V felt a familiar pair of arms snake around her waist and warm lips nibbling along her ear.

"Goddamn, what a woman." Johnny growled. "Legs for days and days."

V smiled mischeviously, turning her neck a bit to give him more access to her skin.  "Bad luck to see the bride before the wedding, ya know."

"We've had every single fuckin' instance of bad luck that could possibly happen to a person in the last year, this is the last thing I'm worried about." Johnny mumbled, his lips never leaving her neck.

V giggled and turned around to look at him. Her heart raced and her whole body felt like jelly as she looked him over. 

"Goddamn yourself there, Johnny. You clean up real nice." She leaned in towards him and gave him a less-than-chaste kiss that seemed to heat up the entire room. "Real, real nice. Like Jesus you're fucking sexy."

Johnny let out a satisfied hum. "As much as I'd like to get in between those pretty legs right here, we got a weddin' to get to."

V took Johnny by his chin and gave him another quick kiss.  "Got our wedding night to look forward to, baby. Gotta consummate this marriage, you know. Make it all official and shit."

"I am nothing if not official." Johnny responded, giving her one last deep kiss before they pulled apart. 

Johnny did a silly formal bow in front of her, and then held out his arm to her before saying:

"Shall we?"

————————————

Johnny and V rang the bell at the gate to Kerry's mansion, their arms around each other.

"There's the couple of the half-century!" Kerry said from the intercom. "Get your lovey dovey asses in here."

When Johnny and V approached the front door, Kerry was standing in the entryway wearing an expectedly fancy suit with a gold trim, gold pocket square, and lots of gold jewelry to match.

"V my darling you are looking more stunning than ever!" He called out, wrapping V up in a tight hug. "Dayum that's a helluva rock on your finger! Expected nothing less from you two. And Johnny! You actually listened to me for once and don't look like absolute shit!"

"Yeah yeah." Johnny grumbled with a smile, his arms crossed in front of him.

"Lookin like a million bucks yourself, Ker. As always." V said, adjusting Kerry's tie slightly.

"You two gonna sit around and suck each other off all day or are we doing this thing?" Johnny joked.

"He never was a patient man." Kerry said to V, shaking his head in pretend dissatisfaction. "Let's get you two hitched!"

Kerry walked V and Johnny over to a section of his backyard where he had installed a waterfall a few months back, cascading gently with various lights throughout it. 

"Very obnoxious of you. Just your style." Johnny said.

"Isn't it just?" Kerry replied, looking over at the fixture lovingly. "Alright kids, face eachother and hold hands. Got a camera set up to take a vid and a few pics, figured some momentos would be nice. Plus, not sure anyone would believe this actually happened if it wasn't on tape."

"Much appreciated, Ker." Johnny replied.

Johnny and V looked into each other's eyes. Behind Johnny's permanently grumpy default expression, he had a clear tenderness in his eyes that V knew he saved just for her. His eyes told her how much he loved her, and it was more clear to her than ever in this moment. V, by far the more excitable of the two, had the biggest smile on her face as she took her fiancé’s hands and looked over at Kerry.

"Figured you guys wanted the abridged version so we can get to partyin'?"

"Figured right." V replied with a laugh.

Kerry cleared his throat. "We are gathered here today for the least likely marriage I ever fuckin' dreamed of officiatin' in a thousand fuckin' lifetimes, Johnny and Valerie. A zombie rock legend and his blushing merc legend bride, here to be joined in some kinda truly batshit unholy matrimony."

Johnny couldn't help but laugh a little at Kerry's ridiculous speech, V's cheeks bright pink from smiling.

"Johnny, you've been driving me fucking crazy for well over 50 years and V, you've been driving me fucking crazy for well, slightly less. But you two are family, and I'm honored to be here today doing this for you both. Love you guys."

V felt a warmth in her chest watching her friend speak, and watching Johnny attempt not to get emotional in front of them. She knew he was full of shit, that he was feeling choked up too. 

"Now Johnny–do you take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife? I'd say 'til death do you part and all that jazz, but we know you're both pretty much well past that."

"Heh. Bet your ass I do." Johnny said, as confidently as he'd ever said anything.

"And Valerie, do you take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband?"

"I do. I really, really fucking do."

Kerry's eyes lit up blue as he processed the marriage digitally through the net via his internal system.

"Then by the powers vested in me, I now pronounce you husband and wife! You may kiss the bride, you lucky old bastard."

Johnny took V's face in his hands and held it with all the tenderness in the world as he kissed her. This kiss was full of promises, trust, devotion, and above all things: love. The bond they’d forged quite literally facing death and back with everything in between, it all felt worth it for this moment.

The couple saw lights behind their closed eyes flashing around them as the nearby camera snapped a few pictures of their moment. Johnny dipped V down low, and she laughed into his lips as he brought her back up.

"Congratulations, Mr. and Mrs. Silverhand!" Kerry exclaimed.

V leaned over and kissed Kerry on the cheek. "Thank you, Kerry."

"Now let's fuckin party!" Johnny cried out.

No sooner did Johnny finish speaking did a Delamain flying car appear on Kerry's lawn to pick them up and take them to their celebration at one of Night City's premier nightclubs.

V and Johnny's friends (and a select few trusted members of the media circus let in for good publicity) spent the night drinking, dancing, celebrating, and partying the night away. Security at this venue was beyond intense, both visible and invisible security lining every single inch of the club that night. Knowing V's overall reputation and the fact that her and Johnny took on Arasaka Tower’s entire security detail all by themselves, no one would've been stupid enough to attempt to crash this party anyway. 

Half of the couple's friends were annoyed that they just found out they were getting married today, the other half knew the unusual couple wouldn't have done it any other way. All of Night City's worst and brightest showed up–from the members of Night City's most popular bands to the most infamous of fixers. Despite having retired from the merc life after surviving the relic, V was as outrageously legendary in her world as Johnny was in his, and anybody who was anybody was at their party. Piles of gifts were left on a table in the private club suite, eddies no object for the many wealthy benefactors of said gifts. 

Despite the incredibly high profile guest list schmoozing around them, V and Johnny only had eyes for each other. They were not a shy couple when it came to public displays of affection (being on death's door and literally being dead takes away a lot of the fucks you give), especially on a night like tonight celebrating their relationship. They made out like teenagers on the dance floor, grinding up against each other with a drink in their hands. Their friends were just happy to see the two of them happy after the absolute shitstorm they called the past year. The drinks and beats flowed freely, the entire club rented out for this truly once in a lifetime party. 

At one point in the evening, V and Johnny took a break from dancing and kissing to grab some food at a nearby table. Misty approached them, putting her hand on V’s shoulder to get her attention.

"Hey kids." Misty said, as loudly as her naturally soft voice could muster. "Wanted to grab you two before you went back out to dance."

V smiled. "Consider us grabbed!"

"I wanted to tell you that your auras are sparkling. Both of you. You two are soulmates, truly meant to be together. The universe works in mysterious ways. A lot more mysteriously than normal with you two. And V, I know you know this, but Jackie would be so, so happy for you both. You meant the world to him."

Tears immediately welled up in V's eyes and she we wrapped Misty in for a tight hug.

"Thank you, Misty." V said softly into her ear.

"'Preciate it, Mist. Woulda liked to meet 'im." Johnny said, putting his arm around V's shoulders.

The intimate moment was interrupted by the sound of Kerry's voice on a microphone near the dance floor. The man never could resist an audience, after all. 

"At the request of tonight's beautiful couple, we have an age-old tradition to uphold here this evening. A good old fashioned garter toss!"

The crowd cheered and wolf-whistled, turning to face a chair the club employees had placed in the center of the dance floor.

V, as unafraid of the spotlight as Johnny, sat down in the chair, her legs straight out in front of her. Johnny approached her, the look in his eyes telling her that she was the only person the entire room he could see. Sensual music pumped into their ears as Johnny, with his famously cocky grin that drove V mad, kneeled down and placed his head into her skirt.

V threw her head back in laughter and the crowd laughed along with her as Johnny pulled the lacy white garter down from her thigh with his teeth. Both of them only wished in that moment that he could have a taste of her, but they knew that wasn’t far away.

He pulled the garter down her calf and looked up at her, the ravenous look in his eyes making V flush, well, everywhere. When they got to the club Johnny had ditched his jacket and rolled his shirt sleeves up and damn if that look hadn’t gotten her worked up.

Johnny took her calf in his hand and kissed along it as he finished pulling the garter down, finally slipping it off of her stiletto and flinging it into the crowd behind him. He didn’t even bother to look back to see who caught it, he was too busy watching his wife eat him alive with her eyes.

He was about to lean over to kiss her when–

"Speech! Speech!" Kerry yelled on the mic.

"Speech! Speech! Speech!" The crowd began to chant. 

"I'm gonna fuckin' kill 'im." Johnny grumbled, putting his face in his palm.

"Go say something you frontman, you." V said playfully, kicking him gently with an outstretched leg. "Go tell ‘em how lucky you are."

Johnny chuckled before walking away to take the mic from Kerry, grabbing a shot of tequila from a server’s platter on the way.

"I hate you, you know that." Johnny groaned to Kerry.

"Sure do, choom." Kerry laughed.

"Thanks for comin', all you fuckin' degenerates." Johnny said into the mic, making the crowd laugh. He lifted his drink to V, winking at her and making her heart purr. "To my bride–the best goddamn thing to ever happen to me."

"To the Silverhands!" Kerry yelled when he took the mic back from Johnny.

"To the Silverhands!" The crowd cried out, throwing back their drinks before returning to the debauchery.

As Johnny began to return to V, he saw that she had started dancing alongside Misty and a few other girlfriends, swaying her entire body to the music in a flow that left Johnny hypnotized. He leaned up against a column and just watched her for a bit. The way her little white dress clung to her skin, leaving just the important parts to the imagination, it was driving him so far past the point of wild. He watched her new diamond ring sparkle in the flashing lights of the club, a reminder to everyone how she was his and his alone. It felt so fucking good to feel his real heart pounding away in his chest, his real hormones racing through his system like a bullet. As transfixed as he was by the way her body moved in this light, he couldn't stand just watching any longer.

"Cuttin' in, ladies.” He said, approaching the group of girls. “Got a wife to steal." 

"Steal away, Johnny." Misty said with a smile. "She's all yours. Take good care of her."

"No promises." Johnny teased.

Johnny put his lips directly onto V's ear.  “Not wantin’ to wait another minute to get this pretty little number off of you and fuck you stupid, baby." He told her, a shiver running down her spine. "Ready to get out of here, Mrs. Silverhand?"

V leaned into Johnny's ear and bit down gently along the edge of it, not making the tightness in Johnny’s suit pants any easier for him to deal with.

"Ready and so very willing, Mr. Silverhand."

Johnny scooped V up in his arms, and she burst out in laughter. She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him, eliciting whistles and hollers from the crowd. 

V still in his arms, Johnny walked over to the microphone he had used a few moments ago.

"It's been fun folks, but gotta get to the real party now. Thanks for a hella good time."

"Everybody say goodnight to the Silverhands!" The DJ announced to the crowd. The crowd cheered and clapped as the couple stepped out of the venue's back door and directly into their Delamain flying limo to their honeymoon suite.

————————————

"Thank you for choosing Del–" the limo began.

"Fuck off Delamain!" Johnny said, putting a middle finger up to the limo's camera as he laid V down onto the backseat's couch and hiked her dress' skirt up.

"Understood, Mr. Silverhand. Privacy mode initiated–I will alert you when we are two minutes from our destination."

The windows of the limousine all darkened to opaque black, the lights dimmed around them, and a divider between the front and back of the limousine went up.

Johnny wasted no time sliding V’s silky white thong off of her and tossing it across the seat.

“Been dyin’ for a taste all night.” He growled before gliding his tongue along her folds, causing V to moan loudly above him.

“Fuck, Johnny–“

He lapped every bit of her up with a greedy tongue, sucking along her most sensitive spot until she was on a different planet. Her glossy red fingernails scraped along the limo’s leather interior, and her cries of Johnny’s name grew in volume until he was certain the whole city could hear.

Good, he thought.

She came fast and hard, her orgasm like candy on his lips.

“We are two minutes from your destination, Mr. and Mrs. Silverhand.”

Despite her fuzzy post orgasm-daze, V’s heart still buzzed hearing her new name.

Johnny looked up at her, a proud grin on his face as he wiped the sides of his mouth. V pulled herself up to Johnny and began to unbuckle his belt.

“Impatient, are we my bride? While I admire your eagerness, let’s get in this fancy suite of our first.”

V laughed and barely remembered to grab her panties off the ground before they jumped out of the limo directly onto the balcony of their hotel suite. 

Hand in hand, clothing already disheveled, they burst in through the balcony doors and sprinted to the suite’s bedroom. The hotel had taken the liberty of putting their initials in rose petals on the bed, but V and Johnny barely took a moment to notice before V pushed Johnny onto the bed and continued the work she started in the car.

Once she had his belt thrown halfway across the room, she went to work unbuttoning his shirt while Johnny yanked her spaghetti straps down and shimmied her out of her dress. Their lips never leaving each other, Johnny spent some time squeezing and caressing her breasts while she unbuttoned his vest and yanked off his shirt, popping a few buttons in the process. 

Before she made another move, V took a moment to whisper in Johnny’s ear:

“Fuck me like you own me.”

Johnny was on fire at her request, needing no further instruction. He quickly pulled off the rest of his clothing, kicking them out of sight. He turned V around facing away from him and pushed her up against the bed‘s headboard, his organic hand around her throat and his silver hand caressing her bare chest.

He pulled her lower body closer to him, tightening his grip around her throat as he slid into her. He groaned as her warm wetness engulfed him, his anticipation for this building up all day.

V cried out as he thrusted into her, and Johnny responded by moving the hand on her throat over her mouth, stifling her moans and turning her on even more.

“Like I own you?” Johnny breathed into her ear from behind. “I’ve always owned you. You’ve wanted my cock so badly since day one. Tell me.”

He moved his hand from her mouth and she took in a sharp breath.

“I’ve always fucking needed you, Johnny. I’m yours, I’m yours–“

“God damn right you are. Your pretty pussy is mine, only mine.”

“All–for you–Johnny–!”

Johnny felt V orgasm again, his dirty talk driving her over the edge.

“That’s my girl. Coming so nicely for me.”

“Pull my hair–“ V said, out of breath as Johnny relentlessly fucked her senseless.

“Pretty sure I’m the one giving the orders here, but since you asked so nicely–“

Johnny took a handful of V’s hair and pulled it back, making her scream in pleasure.

His hands moved around every inch of her body, eventually landing on the top of her hips to stabilize himself.

Johnny turned her around and sat up with his legs out in front of him, and V quickly lowered herself back down onto him to ride him. They kissed until their lips were numb, her hands tied up in his hair and his wrapped around her back.

Their lovemaking suddenly turned more intimate in this moment as their kisses and breathing grew slower.

“I love you, Valerie.” Johnny said between breaths.

“I love you, Johnny.” V breathed back.

V giggled as Johnny pushed her back down onto the bed, pinning her arms back above her head as he re-upped his pace.

Her breasts bounced with each of his thrusts and watching this he knew he was going to reach his peak, fast.

“I know that look.” V said, her voice raw and hoarse. “Kiss me while you come, baby.”

Johnny leaned down to her, devouring her with his kiss as he rapidly approached his climax. 

Both of their moans filled up the room, the ornate headboard clanging up against the wall over and over again.

“Jesus Johnny, Johnny, Johnny–“

“Fuck, fuck, fuck baby, I–“

Johnny’s orgasm shook throughout his entire body, his satisfied cries making V feel on top of the world.

Johnny let V’s wrists go, red marks all along them, as V gasped for breath beneath him. 

“Holy shit.” V whispered, half to herself.

“Don’t get too comfortable there, sweetheart.” Johnny said mischievously as he laid down beside her. “Got a lot more of that coming tonight.”

V leaned over Johnny, propping herself up with one arm.

“You’re insatiable. One of the things I love most about you.”

Johnny reached up and caressed V’s cheek, her instinctively leaning in to his touch.

“You’re so beautiful.”

“Not so bad yourself.” V said lovingly. “I don’t marry anything less than the hottest it gets.”

“You’ve got great taste in husbands, I’ll give you that.”

V paused for a moment, looking through a memory in her mind.

“Wanna know a secret?” She asked.

“I know all your secrets. Was in your head for quite a bit, ‘member?”

“Not for the last few months, dumbass. I get to have secrets again.”

“Hit me.”

“You say my name when you sleep.”

“You’re full of shit.”

“On my life. You love me, you gonk.”

Johnny sighed, closed his eyes and laughed. V absolutely loved his laugh, a sound that used to be so rare but appeared so much more these days.

“Have I not made that abundantly clear yet?” Johnny said softly, twirling a piece of V’s hair around his finger.

“I could use a bit more clarifying if I’m being honest.” V said, her voice sticky sweet.

Johnny grabbed V by her waist and pulled her back on top of him, making her giggle furiously.

“Let’s get to work on that then.” Johnny said, pulling her towards him to love on her all over again.

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[setaflow]

10 Characters, 10 Fandoms, 10 Tags

Good morning!

Tagged by @ghostoffuturespast on my main blog and both @seeker-of-truth and @ouroboros-hideout on my sideblog-- for the sake of keeping everything jointed I'll post this on my main lol.

Buckle in folks this one's a doozy.

Connor Kenway/Ratonhnhaké:ton (Assassin's Creed III)

Even as the years go by, Connor was the character I made a Tumblr account for and pretty much the only reason I bother still paying attention to Assassin's Creed as a franchise anymore. I was there, man. I was there when everyone in the fandom and their mothers hated this guy, but I will still defend him even with my goddamn life. Characters that go through intense tragedy after intense tragedy and still come out the other side gentle and optimistic are my lifeblood.

2. Johnny Silverhand (Cyberpunk 2077)

(People who follow me for my sideblog make a Surprised Pikachu Face at this placement) My gross rat bastard man I love you I hate you I love you. An intensely tortured character with arguably more negative personality traits than positive ones, but who he is and even why he is is so engaging and tragic that you almost forget he's supposed to be getting on your nerves for most of the game's runtime. Damn you Keanu Reeves and your effortless dorky charisma.

3. Arthur Morgan (Red Dead Redemption 2)

Arthur baby you deserved the world. An insanely complex character with gray morals and a jaded worldview who could never do right no matter how hard he tried until the one moment where it mattered most. I loved John in RDR1 and didn't really expect to get so attached to Arthur, but R* truly did grab me by the shoulders and said "Bet, bitch". To this day, the fact that I never finished that 200k+ word OC fic disguised as an Arthur character study still haunts me.

4. Korra (Avatar: The Legend of Korra)

As someone who'd watched the original Last Airbender series as it aired when I was a kid, I was super excited for a female Avatar when the series was announced back in...god, was I in high school? The point being-- when the show started really hitting it's stride with Korra's character in season 3 I was beyond hooked, and I loved season 4 probably a lot more than I think I should've, but MAN, was it a fun ride. Korra is a character and a show that both got severely panned and honestly I think once you get out of the mindset that you aren't watching Aang 2.0 you'll have a much funner time.

5. Steve Harrington (Stranger Things)

Maybe not as much in later seasons when they really leaned off his popularity + Joe Keery's charisma, but lemme tell y'all season 2 Steve had me in a bonafide stranglehold for two years. "Character stepping up to a leadership role and then getting forcibly adopted by the people they're leading" is one of my favorite tropes and the reason that it worked so well in S2 is partly because the concern of Steve still kinda/sorta had the potential to swing back towards being the bully archetype he showed shades of in S1, so you got to see his relationship with the kids start off as kinda selfish but grow into a genuine protectiveness. GOD this was a top tier man y'all! We had it so good!

6. Rosa Diaz (Brooklyn 99)

Maybe this is coming off the fact that my roommate and I literally just finished binge watching B99 for like the fifth time? But I forgot how much I actually really liked Rosa. One of the best sitcom deadpan snarkers of recent years and I personally liked that they affirmed that she didn't need to see herself settling down to be happy. I'm glad this role basically launched Stephanie Beatriz's career because she truly is the unsung hero of this show's comedy and heart and never really gets enough credit for it imho.

7. Melissa Schemmenti (Abbott Elementary)

Every single time I watch Abbott Elementary. Every. Single. Time. Someone looks at me when Schemmenti appears on screen and goes "Wow, she acts a lot like you do!". And I have to sigh and nod and pretend I don't see it lol. Though unfortunately our differing football opinions means we would probably end up in a fistfight.

8. Takashi "Shiro" Shirogane (Voltron: Legendary Defender)

I will never forgive the VLD showrunners for dropping a nuke on Shiro's character development. Seasons 1-2 Shiro was some of most fun I've ever had following a protagionist's journey to conquer his inner struggles and solely for that, I still have a massive soft spot for him. Dreamworks think about how you massacred my boy and feel bad for it.

9. Benjamin "Benji" Ovich (Beartown Series)

This gif is from the HBO Nordic series (haven't watched it, desperately still want to, don't know if I even can at this point lol), but I'm specifically talking about Benji from the Beartown book trilogy. He evolves into the series deuteragonist alongside Maya and god, he is just such a tragic character who deserves all the world and more. Go read Beartown and scream at me for it.

10. Joey Tribbiani (Friends)

"Characters I See a Lot of Myself In 2: Electric Boogaloo". Joey is the best friend in the entire cast there I said it. Honestly my ideal relationship is a funny overly-assured man who loves the New York Rangers, loves his friends intensely, and has dumb himbo energy. The loud Italian family is just an added bonus.

Uhhhhh who hasn't been tagged yet sorry guys I was late to the party on this one lmao.

[valleyrunearchives]

Binary

Rating: Teen and Up Audiences Fandom: Boku No Hero Academia/My Hero Academia Pairings: Aizawa Shouta/Yamada Hizashi Warnings: Graphic Depictions of Violence

Chapter 30/?

“Binary code is a series of zeroes and ones strung together in a specific sequence. On paper, it’s useless. Annoying. Worthless. But put that same string of zeroes and ones into a computer, and suddenly it’s a language far more complex than the human mind can comprehend. I was the same way. The world decided I wasn’t good enough in the physical plane, so I went digital. That’s why I chose the name Binary. And you should be very,” He smirks at the underground hero on the screen, “Very afraid of the reach I have here. Aizawa Shouta.”

Or

Midoriya Izuku is tired of the world treating him like nothing. So he decides to becoming a hacker to show the world that nothing can be anything.

Featuring Midoriya Izuku as the Genius Hacker Aizawa Shouta as the problem child wrangler Yamada Hizashi as the moral support to his husband Tsukauchi Naomasa as the man who needs a long vacation PLEASE Shinsou Hitoshi as the intentionally adopted one Toga Himiko as the unintentionally adopted one Dabi as the really didn’t want to be adopted one but he guesses this is his life now and Nedzu as the Rat God of UA

Previous | First | Next

Click here to Read on AO3!

Class 1A was aflutter with various chatter and chit chatting while waiting for their first Heroics lesson. Izuku was excited too but kept mostly to himself about it, preferring to use the spare time to fill out another page in his notebook; An update page on Ectoplasm now that he’s actually had real interactions with the man and seen his quirk on a far more up close and personal level. Hitoshi was quiet as well from what he could hear but Hitoshi wasn’t very sociable in the first place during moments like these so it’s not overly odd at all to not hear his voice. He’s just putting some final touches on the new drawing he made when the door bursts open.

He jumps as a booming voice calls out, “I AM HERE! Coming through the door like a normal person!”

All the students coo and simper at the sight of the number one here coming through the door (like a normal person, as proclaimed). All except Izuku who has a disgusted grimace on his face. And Hitoshi too, who has about the same look on his face when Izuku glances back at him. Their thoughts about the blonde buffoon still stand, he’s still ew… 

He wishes he could tune him out but, unfortunately, he’s their heroics teacher so he has to pay attention in order to figure out what they’re doing. Doesn’t mean he has to like it though…

“Welcome to Heroics! First things first, future heroes!” Izuku notices that All Might’s eyes trail to him. He keeps his face absolutely blank and just blinks at him. All Might’s eyes quickly shift away from him at that which Izuku counts as a win, “Your hero costumes!” 

Various panels in the wall open to reveal steel cases inside of them, each with a name on them. Izuku stares at it in wonder. He knows what’s in them and he’s beyond excited. 

“Inside each of these cases are your hero costumes! Find your case and get changed into it, then meet me in Ground Beta for an exciting first class!” 

With that, All Might leaves the room. Izuku guesses to head to Ground Beta. At least they’re not on a time crunch this time like with Aizawa’s apprehension test thing. Izuku gets up and finds his case. He picks it up and waits for Hitoshi to join him with his own case before they head out to the locker room together to change. A few of the other guys are already there when they arrive. They change fairly quietly, only exchanging a few sentences here and there. 

“Whoa dude!” Kirishima crows as Izuku finishes changing and turns to face him, “I love your hero costume man! It’s amazing!”

“Yeah, the green and black design is so… like… futuristic cyberpunk! It’s awesome!” Kaminari agrees.

He glances down at his outfit. The top part is sleek and streamline. Black but covered in various green glyph designs. The glyphs also glow in the dark to provide a bit of light for him as well as be an intimidating figure (hopefully) to whoever he runs into. There’s built in wired headphones to them that connect automatically to his phone, and therefore CATRA as well. She’s a valuable part of his hero persona that none but him and his family know about. He also has black pants similar to cargo pants on. They're covered in pockets full of various equipment such as knives, gas canisters, and even a small first aid kit. He went with a steel toed boot option for the shoes but they are cushioned to be able to let him walk, run, and just generally be on his feet longer than the shoes he normally has to get. He hates those stupid “quirkless” shoes… Thank God for the support department!

He looks back up at them and smiles, “Thanks! I really like the pants of my costume! They have lots of pockets!” 

“Pockets rule, for sure,” A student he hasn’t yet spoken to often, Shoji, nods in agreement. He gets it!

“What about your costume, Shinsou-kun?” Iida asks with a chopping arm motion.

He looks over at Hitoshi, who also glances down at his own costume. It’s a sleek bodysuit in black with purple accents designed to allow for Hitoshi to have a wide range of movements since his litheness is a good quality for him in combat. He’s also wearing combat boots and gloves, both in a dark violet color. It’s a fairly simple design but the pièce de résistance of his costume is the persona chords hanging around his neck; An idea Izuku had a while back when talking about their hero costumes. He also has something of a utility belt around his waist for things like cuffs and a first aid kit as well. Just in case.

“Meh,” Hitoshi shrugs in nonchalance. 

Izuku rolls his eyes and holds up a hand to shield his mouth, “Hitoshi’s favorite hero is Eraserhead so he wanted his costume to incorporate a lot of his designs in it.” 

Hitoshi hisses his name as if Izuku just promised his first born to a witch while Izuku snickers. Iida nods in understanding while some of the other students look at him in confusion. 

“Who’s Eraserhead? I’ve never heard of him,” Kaminari asks.

Hitoshi physically chokes at that as Izuku blinks at him in shock. “Eraserhead?” Izuku asks slowly, “You know… Underground hero? Known for his quirk, Erasure? Very similar to someone we know!”

Most of the students make noises of understanding but Kaminari shakes his head as Izuku balks in shock at him before spitting out, “Our homeroom teacher?!” 

It’s quiet for a moment before, “HE’S A HERO?!” Kaminari shouts in shock now.

Izuku facepalms while Hitoshi quietly mutters, “I am literally so upset right now…”

Kirishima chuckles awkwardly before pointing, “Let’s get out of here before Kaminari says something else that may or may not upset you…”

“Hey!” Kaminari whines at that. Everyone just chuckles good naturedly and heads out of the locker room. They all get to Ground Beta and wait for the rest of the class to join them. Some of the girls' costumes look really good in Izuku’s opinion, like Asui’s and Jirou’s. Very well done for their quirks and general aesthetics. Others… not so much. Yaoyorozu looks very uncomfortable with her costume and Uraraka keeps stumbling from the heels in her shoes. The visible parts of Hagakure’s costume are just her gloves and boots. Wait… does she even have a costume?! That may be something to ask her later and, if it is the case that her costume is just gloves and boots and literally nothing else, bring it up to Aizawa-sensei.

“Excellent! Now that everyone’s here, we can commence with our first lesson which is…” All Might pauses for dramatic effect before throwing out his arm, “Battle trials!” 

Izuku reels back a bit at that. Hitoshi clicks his tongue in a certain way that he knows is him trying to get his attention so he turns his head towards him. His brother makes a face that seems to say, ‘what is this shit?’ Izuku shrugs. He has no idea. This isn’t the norm as far as he’s researched from past heroic students on their first day of Heroics.

All Might’s smile falls just a hint of a bit before he turns to Izuku nervously. “Erm… Young Midoriya… Perhaps you’d want to sit out of this lesson? And Young Shinsou as well? This will be a far too extreme lesson for… someone like you.”

“Like me huh? Quirkless you mean?” His voice is cold, “No thanks. I’d rather participate in the clase I’m a part of.”

“Young Midoriya, I must insist! If you were to get injured-”

“Read my face and lips,” he uses his finger to circle his very blank and stony expression before slowly enunciating, “No. And if you continue to… ‘insist’ as you call it, I will march myself straight to Nedzu’s office to let him know.”

All Might flinches at that before clearing his throat and turning to Hitoshi. His brother just shakes his head with the same expression on his face. The number one hero sighs in what appears to be defeat before putting his ‘award winning smile’ back on. “Alright then, students! Allow me to explain the battle trials! We’ll be having you go up against each other in teams of two. One group will be the villains and one will be the heroes! The villains will place down a paper mache bomb in any location of their choice in the building with the goal of defending it until the timer runs out! The heroes will be attempting to stop you! The villains win if either they capture both the heroes in their capture tape or by stalling the heroes until time runs out. Likewise, the heroes win if they capture the villains with capture tape or if they can locate and successfully touch the bomb. After each match, we’ll take a few moments to discuss each team's pros and cons to their approach, regardless of who won or lost!” 

Seems simple enough, and oddly intuitive for All Might to be honest.

“Now let's get the teams decided by the randomizer!” With that, All Might hits a button on the computer behind him. Within seconds their teams are decided and so are the opponents. Izuku pales at the sight of them while he sees Bakugou smirking almost evilly out of the corner of his eye. Hitoshi also sees the matchup and reaches out to grip his arm almost nervously.

Midoriya Izuku and Uraraka Ochako (Team A) VS Bakugou Katsuki and Iida Tenya (Team D). “I suddenly have a very bad feeling about this…” He mumbles to Hitoshi.

[trashcatsnark]

Don’t know if you have noticed but lately (last week or two) there had been less and less new silverV fics on AO3. It breaks my heart. So thank you for all your answers here! You are keeping the fandom alive.

And as you answered recently a « daddy » Johnny ask, do you think V and Johnny could end up marrying each other?

I don’t necessarily think they fit the description but if it had to happen how would it be in your opinion ?

I havent really noticed but tbf, I havent been reading as much fanfic and have been preoccupied writing my own (hehehehe) as well as other life stuff. But its natural for these things in fandom to kind of slow down, speed back up and have an explosion again. Things happen, life gets busy and less folks are writing, then life frees up and they can again. Im always happy to help keep up the flow, but I wouldn't worry about the fandom or ship dying, if I can enter the FC5 fandom like 2ish years after the game came out and still find an active fandom. Cyberpunk 2077 and SilverV will keep going for a long long time.

But anybuttts, SilverV and marriage. My personal opinion and feelings, and as always to each their own. But kinda like my personal opinion that SilverV would be childfree, I dont see them really caring much about marriage (at least not Johnny for sure). I see them as mostly a "we dont need the government involved in our relationship or a piece of paper to prove our feelings," type of people.

However, I still can see them feeling that way and doing marriage/marrying stuff. Cause so far into their relationship, Johnny kind of start acting like they are married. Like, maybe he starts to kinda wanna call them wife/husband, because we're all kind taught those words have a deeper meaning/connection. And no normal word encompasses what they are, but he wants those "deeper" words. But hey, fuck the paper, he'll call V that cause he wants to, the fuck he needs the governments approval to do it.

And, he'd love the idea of a ring, not necessarily blowing cash on consumerist capitalist giant ass engagement ring and fuck the diamond industry, but him and V wearing aNOTHER PIECE OF JEWLRY THAT REPRESENTS THEIR CONNECTION, ONE THAT ALSO SIGNALS TO OTHER PEOPLE THAT THEY HAVE A PARTNER SO BUZZ OFF, HE CAN GET BEHIND THAT.

So they end up with wedding rings and people give them shit teasing them , you're not even really married, you got wedding rings but no wedding.

And Johnny and V get thinking; a wedding is basically just a party to show off to people that you love each other. And that aint bad. Excuse to blow some eddies on top shelf booze, food, drag all their friends into one place. Excuse to see each other dressed up, though not too dressed up, Johnny would try to add in there. He doesnt wanna look like some corpo, c'mon, V. So look at that they're having a wedding. The ceremony of it would be the shortest part, maybe let Padre do the whole spiel so to him and Mama Welles they're at least married in the eyes of god. Johnny doesnt really care about that, I know my V doesnt, but someone elses might. But hey it makes Mama Welles happy and thats reason enough to do it. Vows are fun, baring their souls about each other in front of people??? Hmmm, ahhhh, at best short but emotional. Neither can really stand to be that...gushy and vulnerable for too long. Honestly, they may just save their vows until they're alone, keeping it between them. They love their friends and essentially family sure, but no one outside of them could ever understand the connection and...they kinda like it that way, kind of like that those deeper feelings, the vulnerability of expressing it. Is just for them. Then Johnny shoves his tongue down V's throat in front of everyone cause no shame in that.

The reception, party is the longest part of it all; just everyone having a fun, giant party essentially with everyone dragged in, going until entirely too late in the day.

Oh, and they never sign a certificate, when everyone finds out theyre screaming, YOU TWO ARENT LEGALLY MARRIED?? And nah, only good reason to let the government in on their relationship is tax breaks and guess what; these bitches dont pay their taxes anyway!

EDIT: WHY DO I HAVE SO MANY TYPOS IN EVERYTHING, WHY DO Y'ALL ACCEPT THIS FROM ME

[dgcatanisiri]

This is too long for me to be comfortable to put out without a cut, but dear god, did I need to rant and ramble on this subject...

I always feel awkward when I want to complain about how video games portray and fandom reacts to queer men, because I feel like the conversation (at least here on Tumblr) gets focused on the female protagonists - you know, the Commander Shepard or Alexios/Kassandra debates and that sort. The things where there’s valid comments to make about how important these female protagonists are, especially in an industry that is deeply misogynistic, and, in the case of the Assassin’s Creed protagonists, keep being developed with an eye towards the female-only protagonists, only to have a male protagonist shoved alongside them, if not upstaging entirely (such as Jacob being the center of Syndicate’s marketing, or how Bayek was originally going to die and Aya be the central protagonist of Origins, or the creation of Alexios and probably male Eivor on the basis of “women protagonists don’t sell.”)...

BUT, when I want to talk about my perspective as a gay man, as wanting to play these games for that empowerment, get to enjoy these games for representing me as a gay man, because Shepard, Ryder, Alexios, etc. get to be played as such, that having these male characters who are able to be played as attracted to other men means something to me, and that leads me to not just play the male characters, but prefer them to the female characters, or even to talk about the subject of homophobia in both the games themselves and the fandoms surrounding them... I do feel like there’s this pressure to just effectively shut up and stay quiet and let the women have their empowerment, that the moment needs to be theirs, not mine, that “fandom” (meaning the monolithic entity that is ‘the fandom’ and not necessarily any singular individual who I’m referring to or anything) is pressuring for anyone who enjoys the male protagonists for whatever reason to be silent and let the women enjoy their win, even if there’s a win for underrepresented men in there as well, or even a need to address the problems of homophobia by not representing queer men. That in its way, it’s effectively saying that a win against the sexism against the industry is outweighing or more important than any win against the homophobia. (Or, since I brought up Shepard, racism, considering that Shepard, Ryder, any game with the character creator, can be different skin tones as well, but that’s outside my lane.)

Like, this isn’t a callout post or any kind of directed screed against anyone, just... I suppose it’s a cumulative effect, based on the fact that I remember what the internet in the corners I frequent was like when Odyssey dropped, focused very much (and understandably - let me be clear that I have no desire to step on anyone’s victory or enjoyment of these games here) on Kassandra, and it felt like the fact that I got to play a character I could portray as gay (don’t start me on the bloody DLC though...) was a victory celebration at a table set for one, while (to really stretch my metaphor) seeing this massive party happening across the dining room at the same time, and that (and again, I’m really straining my metaphor, I’m aware), if I wanted to join that party, they would not combine our celebrations, I would have to join in theirs, and, in my wanting to pay attention to my victory, getting laughed at for it. It’s one of those things that makes fandom feel a little alienating, because I don’t particularly have much of a place that feels like it’s a space for me to celebrate my victories, rare as they are, and on occasion, even end up with the impression that, so far as fandom at large cares, that victory I want to celebrate is somehow less important. That the importance of Alexios, playable as a gay man, meant less than Kassandra, period. And, with Valhalla and Cyberpunk’s release on the horizon, along with (maaaaaaybe?) a Mass Effect Trilogy remaster, I find myself bracing myself for this to start up all over again.

And I know some of this is based in the fact that Tumblr and the transformative elements of fandom in general are more of a space that is dominated by women in fandom, who are going to celebrate the wins for them. That’s just how things shake out, I understand that it’s as much the place I’m going for involvement and interaction with fandom at large as it is anything else. Just... I obviously don’t fit in to the areas of “straight male” fandom, and then getting to the places in the “marginalized” segments of the fandom, it still feels like I need to find my way over to the margins of the margins to feel like I have a place in fandom more generally.

Like, I understand that I have male privilege and that is a factor in things - the male characters are probably more likely to be the ones in the marketing, so I get to see that idealized image of myself individually all over the covers and posters and trailers. BUT that doesn’t remove the straight privilege of the people who are shutting down conversations about the importance of the male PCs being portrayed in M/M relationships, even starts going into the realm of casual homophobia - because no acknowledgement of how important it is for the portrayal of gay men, or bi men, IS homophobic. I mean, how often do these companies have their official accounts post images of the M/M pairings? I’ve seen BioWare account retweet FemShep/Garrus and FemShep/Kaidan things, on top of the MaleShep/Female LI pairings. I’ve even seen FemShep/Liara content, which... We could go into the way that F/F pairings get fetishized and tend to be there as either fodder for cishet male titillation or just because the female PC gets swapped in for the male PC (in the way of Peebee riding a non-existent dick in the FemRyder romance scene in Mass Effect Andromeda), I don’t mean to discount that being a thing, so queer women are getting a short stick too. But where’s the M/M relationships? Hell, remember the whole #MakeJaalBi thing? After we got that notice about the patch for his romance would come... Has any official Mass Effect account actually SHOWN content of BroRyder and Jaal?

I mean, remember the Citadel DLC? The appearances of Kaidan’s romance material included FemShep, and Cortez’s content included a split second shot of just him and Shepard holding hands, and since it was blink and you’ll miss it, that means that it doesn’t even make any effort to portray the M/M relationships. And since I brought up Jaal already, BioWare had to be publicly shamed into offering M/M relationships in equal amounts to the other pairings in Mass Effect Andromeda. Like, it’s bad that Peebee’s romance for FemRyder just had the model swapped in for BroRyder, sure. But at least that content was THERE, at release. For gay/bi men who wanted to romance male characters, we have to make sure that we get that patch downloaded (meaning if you play the game without an internet connection, you can’t get access to his romance) - and only because the outrage actually GOT a response, which is not necessarily the norm in this industry.

Hell, the disparity there actually GOT noticed - if you include Scout Harding as a romance, M/M romances are the lowest numerical romances in Dragon Age Inquisition as well, with only Dorian and Bull as options. And I didn’t even realize this until this past year, despite being disappointed in those two options. Even recognizing that Harding is more of a fling than a full romance, it’s still more than M/M romances had. The closest we got was being able to flirt with Cullen twice before he shuts it down (and the rants I’ve had on THAT subject...). 

And that’s just the focus with BioWare - I saw it all through the initial release of Odyssey, while I know that the official metrics are all saying that Alexios saw more play than Kassandra, Kassandra got a lot of positive response in the fandom that was often framed in opposition to Alexios, that she was the “better” protagonist. 

Like, I’m bolding this for emphasis, and so if anyone is TL;DRing this it’s eye-catching enough: My issue is the dismissal and denigration of the male PCs when building up the female PCs. It is not being against celebrating the female PCs. It’s just the way that people will, in their positivity towards a female PC, dismiss the audience who relates to and connects with the male PC. The way that I’ve seen since day one the common “joke” that male Shepard is unnecessary, condemning the voice acting, even asking why he’s there when female Shepard is “the real Shepard”.

It makes fandom a hostile place to be when you’re looking to that character as your representation, your inspiration. Yeah, it’s a joke, but when it is coming from all corners, or at least feels like it, all the time, the humor dies, and you’re left with just the words. The words telling you that this mirror for yourself is something that people don’t care about.

Again, it’s that feeling of already being on the margins and then being pushed further. You are the freak among the freaks. 

But it feels like saying any of this, like I have, is opening the door to be dismissed as being sexist, or misogynistic, or lesbophobic, or anything like that, because people want to boil down what I’m saying to no more than “but what about MEN? Why aren’t you talking about MEN?” in that dismissive way that so many MRA trolls attempt to derail the conversation - except, no, I am TRYING to have a genuine conversation, about men who aren’t represented, men who need these male characters as much as women need the female ones - queer men get the short stick in a lot of cases, like this goes back to the representational matters in a lot of kids TV shows - while we can absolutely talk about the bad representation it was broadly, I remember when Voltron concluded, having Shiro, having arguably the lead male character of the show, end the show marrying and kissing another man... That was heavily ignored by Tumblr. Meanwhile Tumblr EXPLODED for Korra and Asami or Bubblegum and Marceline. 

It’s seeing what is representation for me as a queer man being played down or ignored while the queer women are praised. And, again, I’m not trying to take anything away from queer women, or women in general, but... Where, exactly, am I supposed to look for that same empowerment? And, more importantly, when the same media offers the empowerment for both groups, like video games do, why does it seem almost expected that I as a queer man back off and allow this to just be for the women in general, when the whole point of a variable protagonist is that it allows that empowerment for EVERYONE?

I mean, I say it feels like “opening the door” to these comments because it has happened before, and likely will again. Because saying “this joke feels hostile to me, as a member of an underrepresented group, can we please not?” or speaking about my individual experiences and feelings - often even just in my own space, on my blog, frequently only tagged with my individual tags for organization in my space, rather than publicly shouting it through a megaphone by putting it in public tags, and somehow STILL getting attacked for these comments - is apparently all those things... That’s been the response I’ve gotten to saying things like this in the past. 

And, in case I haven’t been clear with the repeated comments and the bolded statement above, it’s not about me, a man, trying to take away this thing for women. Rather, it’s me, a queer person - and fine, yes, a queer man - who wants to celebrate being seen, wants to celebrate what is still not a common thing of seeing myself in my media, and then feeling like I’m being shoved out of the way because other people celebrating their representation is considered more important, to hell with me and my mirrors.

Like, I’m not saying any of this is anything actively conscious or even intentionally malicious. It does seem like a reflexive defensive position - “men have tried to take this from us, so we’re not letting ANY man through.” I don’t want to come across as flippant or not aware of the fact that this isn’t a walk in the park for women. I get it, I really do. I’m just... It does feel like my struggles are something that I’m being told to downplay in the name of allowing others to have their celebration.

Thing is, my own experiences as a queer person already leave me feeling like I’m getting that as well - I mentioned before (and have elsewhere) that Dragon Age Inquisition’s M/M romances didn’t work for me. But I have often felt like I need to downplay the fact that I don’t emotionally connect to Dorian as a character - in the immediate aftermath of the game’s release, you could not say ANYTHING negative about him without getting shouted down as either a homophobe or dealing with internalized homophobia. Meanwhile, I’m here, pointing out that, hey, the previous games did not really have any direct homophobia, and the little bits that did lean in that direction felt more like the writers living in a homophobic society and not able to wholly divorce that in their writing than anything in-universe. To me, Thedas was a place where being gay was a difference that made no difference. And then Inquisition tore away that escape from homophobia so bluntly.

So, Dorian doesn’t empower me, you ask, so what about Bull? Yeah, I identify with “queer man” because while I’m a man romantically attracted to other men, I’m also asexual - just regular vanilla sex is in the fringes of my comfort zone. Bondage is an outright catapult out of there. At mach three. So I’m left uncomfortable by both of my “options” in Inquisition. And the response I have always braced myself for when I bring this up, when I do add my voice to the conversation about the M/M options, is “well, they can’t please everyone, and this was good for some people, so you should be content with that.” Being told I can’t have everything, so feeling uncomfortable at best is just something I have to live with, because hey, THOSE OTHER PEOPLE got satisfied, and so you should just be happy for them.

It’s that pained metaphor I offered earlier - the victory celebration isn’t for me, I’m on the outside looking in EVEN STILL. I am the freak among freaks. 

Where is my place to belong, in all of this? Because it’s honestly hard to find, when all the spaces deemed “for me” still feel like an exclusionary party?

[louadorable126]

Demons(you).me - Chapter 6 Redgrave Market

>>Click here to Read over on AO3!<<

Art by Aya/ITOUYAS! <3

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Summary:

In a city controlled by the generally altered race of Demons, Lady's life as a mercenary on the lower floor was never easy. Especially when she ran into Dante. A demon on the hunt for his missing brother.

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Important information!

Fandom: Devil May Cry

Rating: Mature

Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence

Realtionships: Dante x Lady, Vergil x Lady

Characters: Lady, Dante, Vergil, Morrison, Nell Goldstien, Eva, Sparda, Mundus

Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Cyberpunk, Genetic Engineering, Sci-fi Fantasy, Strip Clubs and Strippers, Dystopia, Seizures, Flirting, Eva and Sprada are alive!, Human Experimentation, Cults.

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Chapter 6

“Hang on. You want me to do what?!” A familiar deep voice, on the other end of the phone, exclaimed.

“I need you to find us a way into that event, Morrison!” Lady repeated herself; words laced with growing frustration. Her hand tightening its hold around the bright yellow ceiling handle hanging above her. “Yes, I know you don’t deal with the Cult of Fortuna! But this is really kinda urgent!”

The heat of the compartment was really starting to get to her. Sweat beads welling up on her forehead and covering it in a wet, salty glaze. It was hard to tell if this was because of the stress of negotiating with Morrison, or the 60 or so people rammed into the same monorail cart around her - pressed up against one another like sheep in an inclosed pen. It felt as though she was being cooked in a gruelling dry oven. The air conditioning unit stationed above her, trying its best as it worked overtime to pump small blasts of cool air in the mercenary’s direction, to little avail except for a brief millisecond of chilly relief she gained from it.

Her compatriots, likewise, also seemed to be uncomfortable in their current situation.

Apparently, Dante’s already non-existent attention span had been quickly eroded away in the 15 or so minutes he had been forced to stand here. Well…not really stand. As he had leaned back against one of the glass archways, in-between the main seating area and the exit door, arms crossed. Obviously rather bored, if the occasional upset, deep sighs she heard coming from his direction, were anything to go by. Alongside the sweet sound of him humming some kind of rock song, unbeknownst to anyone but himself, and tapping his foot on the floor to its invisible beat. His eyes closed, although occasionally peaking one sapphire eye open to see if their final destination was coming up on the floating holographic sign above them. Only to always be sorely disappointed, then returning to his sweet humming.

Vergil, meanwhile, was sitting on a small plastic bench in between the pair of them. It seemed he had declared some sort of silent, and bloody war against a screaming and whining young child across from them; the child’s ignorant mother taking no action to stop them. His sharp eyes fixed intently on the small, high-pitched creature. Glaring at them angrily, as though the demon thought that by some miracle, it would get the child to shut up. That...obviously wasn’t working however, and the little boy continued to screech regardless.

Lady took the opportunity to slip a glance over her shoulder at the elder twin, while her conversation between her and her employer lulled for a moment. Morrison deep in thought as he lit up another cigar.  

It was crystal clear from how tense and rigid the blue demon’s body language was becoming - his sharp pale jawline, peaking from beneath the veil of shadows covering his aristocratic features, hardening - that Vergil was soon going to blow. Massively. Which given the elder twin's track record for bloody slaughter, could only really lead to a disaster on a packed train like this. All Lady could do was hold her breath, and hope they could get off this nightmarish train before that happened.

“Alright. Cause’ its you little missy, I’ll see what I can do.” Morrison relented. A touch of fatherly gruffness to his voice. "Not making any promises though. Fuck. I don’t even wanna to think about whose strings I’m gonna have to tug to pull this off!”

“I certainly appreciate it, Morrison. Cheers.” Lady thanked, before ending the call. Sliding her phone into her skirt pocket.

“So is he going to do it?” Dante asked. Smiling hopefully at her.

“Sounds like it.” Lady confirmed with a nod. Switching her cramping arm, holding onto the ceiling handle, over to the other. “I’m sure he’ll pull through with something.”

More accurately, they needed him to pull through with something.

Despite being the one to send them off on this perilous quest in the first place. Augustus had been kind enough to provide them as much information as he could gather about this “Charity Ball”. Sending through several of the emails he had received from the cult’s network, after the group had handed back his laptop.

And it was just as well he had! Because, as it turned out, the Charity Ball drastically moved location every time it was held. From fancy restaurants on the middle floor to a gentrified warehouse in the slums. However, this time it seemed the location of choice was a small expo centre. Ironically, it was surprisingly close to the hotel where she had first encountered Vergil.

But, even if they at least knew this secret meeting's location, it still didn’t mean they had any way to actually enter the Ball. It was an invite only event. Unless Lady wanted to bankrupt herself a few hundred times over, she sure as hell was not buying her way inside! It wasn’t even like the twins could do much to help either, even with their father’s limitless wealth. As Vergil had pointed out, it would be obvious they came from a demonic household, given that they weren’t already a part of the pre-established wealthy society of humans. And thus, given the Cult of Fortuna’s fears about being found out by the demonic authorities, they’d be swiftly rejected regardless.

“MUUUUUUUUUUM I WANNA GET OFF! THIS SO BORING!” The bratty child screamed at the top of his lungs. Before pointing a chubby finger over in the group's direction. “SERIOUSLY THIS PLACE SMELLS FUNNY!! ESPECIALLY THAT CREEPY GUY WHO KEEPS STARING AT ME-“

The child didn’t have a chance to finish. Pinned against the opposite train wall by the sharp tip of Yamato’s silver blade, held dubiously resting above the boy's heart, in less than the blink of an eye. The boy fell, choked on his words. Only letting out a small whimper in terror as he looked up at the towering man before him. The whole crowd erupted into a mania of panicked screaming and backing away from the scene. Leaving a circle of free space around them.

Crap, this isn’t good! Lady thought to herself. Silently cursing the child for antagonising Vergil when they had seemed so close to being able to get off without a hitch. The next station’s only a minute away, dammit!

“What on earth are you doing!” The child’s mother cried hysterically. Reaching out to push him off her son, before being stopped dead in her tracks by Vergil’s cutting glare.

“Teaching your child the consequences of his actions.” Vergil informed her sharply. A look of genuine confusion shot onto the woman’s features at his declaration. As though she had no idea what he was talking about."You really are a terrible mother, aren’t you? Don’t you realise there are other people on this train who do not wish to hear your child's screeching? You are not only neglectful to your son, but also to common decency.”

The mother grew enraged at his accusation. Clenching one hand tightly around the handle of her crimson handbag, as her heart-shaped face twisted and disfigured in offence. “B-but I don’t control what my son does! He’s his own person-“

“Yes. But as his guardian you have an obligation to do something, woman!” Vergil snapped angrily.

“Yeah, as much as my bro might be overreacting. He’s kinda got a point lady.” Dante chimed in. Causally moving to stand over beside Vergil so that they were back to back; Dante leaning a portion of his body weight against his brother.

Subtly, he elbowed his twin’s lower back. Getting Vergil’s attention off the child and towards him. The blue demon tilted his head over his shoulder in Dante’s direction, before leaning in close and whispering into his ear. “Think the kid’s got the idea, Verge. Wanna let him go?”

At his brother’s words, Vergil withdrew his blade. Returning Yamato back to its holster under his coat with a satisfying click. He turned away with a flourish of his blue coat, leaving the now silent child in his tracks. As he headed for the train doors, the packed crowd standing in his path shifted aside for him, like he was parting the Red Sea, just as a masculine, artificial voice stated; “We will shortly be arriving at Redgrave Market Station. Please stand clear of the doors for those exiting.”

“That’s our stop! You coming babe?” Dante called out over his shoulder, walking straight past Lady after his brother, as the train’s heavy doors slid open and bright artificial street light flooded through into the dim cabin. Illuminating their escape.

“Yep!” Lady exclaimed, embarrassingly high-pitched. Finding it hard to keep her cool with all these people, likely hundreds, staring at her. After quickly sparing a glance to check if the young boy was ok - which seemed to be the case, as his mother cradled the now crying child close to her chest, ironically finally paying him the scrap of obviously needed attention - the mercenary fled the train just as its metal doors slammed shut behind her.

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Click here to read more over on Ao3! :D

[wickednerdery]

Title: Out of Time: Time to Make a Deal Author: @wickednerdery Fandom: Marvel Pairing/character: Loki x Stark!OC Rating: Mature Summary: “You pick your friends poorly.” Notes: Continuing my strange little foray into cyberpunk with Loki on a futuristic Earth (after his escapes with the Tesseract in Endgame?). This one actually has violence and bit of gore, so head’s up on that one, haha!

Masterlist - Previously

The shurikens burst into metal flakes, flutter to the ground. Loki smiles, victorious, until he catches them moving in the dim light. Like a thousand insects they scurry, then fly at Cyno and him like locusts. Loki feels them slash across skin, slip between lips and up nostrils, until he gags on the taste of metal and blood. Cyno tries to cover his face, scrambling to unroll mask built into shirt, but soon falls to a seizing heap. Loki drops not long after, overwhelmed by the strange weapon.

...So this is why so many wear masks…

Loki wakes in a nicer location than he expects, which is a plus. Though he’s alone, no sign of Cyno, and there’s a constant itch under his skin. He shifts, tests the chains holding him to the bolted chair, and breaks out in sliver-cuts as the metal under his skin breaks through. Fuck. His eyes dart, take in the room. He looks out the window, only to realize it’s a false view; it’s not a window, but a screen. There are no windows.

“You pick your friends poorly.” A man’s voice breaks the silence.

The god smirks. “You’d be amazed how frequently that’s the case.”

“I doubt it,” the other smirks back. “Cyno owes me a lot of money.”

“And this is my problem, how?”

“You’re his new employer, instead you pay me now.”

“I’ve no way of paying him to start, so I’m afraid you’re out of luck.”

The man approaches, sets large, gloved, hand over Loki’s nose and mouth. He holds it there, cutting off Loki’s air, but that’s only the side effect. Loki can feel the metal bits pulling together inside him. Magnetizing and reforming towards the back of his throat until he gags. He gags harder as the glove over his face suddenly dives into his mouth. Loki vomits as the man pulls the first, partially intact, shuriken from out of him. He vomits again, this time with blood, as more pieces come up. In total, nearly two shurikens come up.

“There’s a shipment coming in from Nagoya. You and Cyno will bring it to me here and the debt will be forgiven.”

Loki spits out another bloodied metal point (three shurikens), then looks up. “Might I know what the shipment contains?”

“No. Look for the IronMan mask on the crate.”

“Of course.” Because who else? 

The man smiles suddenly. “You heal quickly, like me.”

“And who are you?”

“My name is Akihiro. You are?”

“Loki.” He drops the Asgard bit, no one seems to believe him anyhow.

“Perhaps, in other circumstances, we would work together willingly.”

“One never knows.”

The water tingles along Ana’s new flesh as she swims laps, losing herself in the repetition. She runs through ideas, ways to contact Loki once he’s found again. There’s a rush when Tony buzzes her implant with a notification, but as she surfaces she hears him announce a call. Ana pulls herself from the pool, presses wrist to accept. The hologram appears over the pool, she doesn’t bother hide her body or her displeasure at the face. “Orly.”

“I’ve...” He takes in the view, fit female body in burgundy bikini. Much better than the usual business suits or formal gowns he saw her in. “...Caught you at a bad time.”

She sighs. “What do you want?” Besides Stark International, of course, he always wanted that.

For all her attitude, he only sees her as unprotected, vulnerable, as she drips by her pool. “I was merely calling to see how you were. I heard about the assassination attempt, of course.” His eyes drop to where he imagines her skin patch, but she only seems to arch to show it off.

“Yeah, well, you know what they say.” She shrugs, unwilling to shrink from his gaze. “If you’re not making enemies, you’re not getting ahead.”

“Yes, yes, but to try and kill you. It’s terrible. You should  be more careful.”

She snickers. “Thanks for the advice.”

“You know, if we were to work together, it would be safer for both of us. Imagine, Stark International and Oscorp-Alchemax, working together. Building a better future, together.” Ana groans, Orly presses. “With your technological abilities, your nano tech, and my skills in chemical and genetic manipulation we could have an empire.”

“I already have an empire, I don’t need you. Thanks for the well wishes though.” She disconnects the call, lays back with legs dangling in the water. “Arrogant prick.”

“Fucking bitch, hope the next one kills you.” Orly turns to examine CCTV of floating docks. “Cyro? What’s your position?”

“You mean, am I at the docks?”

Orly sighs. “Yes. That is what I mean.”

“You have the cameras, you tell me.”

The next sigh edges toward growl. “Never mind, just tell me when it’s done.”

“Will do.” The moment his boss disconnects, Cyro sighs. “Fucking 404 Corp Wolf.”

“You do realize, at best, Akihiro intends to kill us once he has what he wants,” Loki says.

“Yeah. I do.” Cyno wheezes through bandaged nose. He’d let Loki heal him, took a strip to kill the pain, but had yet to clean up the remnants of the break itself.

“We could just kill him. Perhaps the shipment is valuable, we could spilt the profits.” Loki smiles. “Better yet, you could take the whole thing, consider my half payment for services to-be-rendered.”

“Akihiro doesn’t work that way, he’s a mutant. You could cut his head off, he’d just grow it back.”

Loki opens his mouth to counter before the words sink in. “You don’t see a way out.” It’s not a question, just a sad realization.

“Nope.”

“Then I suppose we’ll have to do this then.” 

“Yup.”

Loki says nothing, but refuses to give up so easily. There isn’t a problem in the universe that one can’t find their way around if they’re clever and persistent enough. And besides, he’s more interesting things to do than die tonight.

Gah, another one finished, yay!! LOTS of new characters, I know, but you’ll get to know them over time, don’t worry. (Though Akihiro is, in fact, a Marvel comics character, he just usually goes by another name, lol!) While I’m still figuring out the plot as I go, I’ve got ideas, I’m not just floating in a sea of randomness anymore...I think...and hope, lol!!

Still/Always playing with this one, feel free to share ideas/thoughts/suggestions!! 😉

Tagging: @lady-crowned-with-stars​​​​​, @beccaliciooouuusss​​​​​, gravitational-anomaly, @fuckthatfeeling​​​​, @v-2bucky​​​​, @ultrarebelheart​​​​, @tarithenurse​​​​ @latent-thoughts​​​​ @chibiyanai​​​​ @lukeevansandjdmobession​​​​ @sweetfictionalworld​​​​ @ladyfluff​​​​ @theangelsfightwithdevils​​​​ @holykryptonitekitten​​​​ @kpopgirlbtssvt​​​​ @michellearel1​​​​​ …If you wanna be added, just lemme know!!

Gifs made off ones I found on Google, then combined myself.

[virtual-crisis]

⭐Alpha Centauri⭐

Yes, you heard right, my..... Er, 43 followers [goddamnit my follower count on my main blog is the homestuck number as of writing]. I've started up a new story here, and this one's actually original [albeit dipping into a few fandoms, but it doesn't owe its plot to them]; this one's about an awkward college student that's roommates with an.... Interesting individual, to say the least. Stay tuned if this first part is engaging to you.

Next Part

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Darkness. All I saw was the black of the void. It got darker in pulses for a few moments before growing light on one side. Why? Well, probably because my head was leant on my arm. I winced once more before lifting my eyes off my forearm—I’d dozed off mid toilet break… Lovely.

I groaned, sitting up. I wanted to check the time, but my phone was in my pocket, and my pajama pants were pulled down to my ankles, so I looked out the window. Solaris was pulling its lower half out of the horizon line off to the East, which meant I’d REALLY conked out, considering it was night when I’d sat down. Oh well, at least I wouldn’t have to worry about anything else having to “exit my premises”.

I stretched my arms for a moment before grabbing a long strip of toilet paper and finishing up on the toilet. After that, I skipped over to the sink to wash my hands, then headed back into my connected bedroom.

By this point, I realized while playing narrator that I should probably tell you who the Hell I am. Oops.

So, name’s Alyssa. I’m a college student at Boston University, studying software engineering with a minor in the arts. My parents encouraged me to make good use of my scholarship by going for a PhD, so I could get a really good, high-paying job relatively early on. At twenty-six years old, I’m on my third year for that doctorate, and I’m yet to see this path make itself a mistake. No dead end career, no crippling debt, none of that.

In the meantime, I’d gotten dressed: a pale blue t-shirt, with a blue plaid skirt and black shoes. Covering my legs was my favorite garment—A set of leggings patterned like a starry sky, with various blues, purples and greens under the white dots. Aside from clothes, I held a Hispanic complexion, a fuckton of freckles, and a glossy pair of blue eyes to go with my long, black hair.

As I fumbled around to get my backpack open and my phone inside, I walked myself through the past week’s lectures, mentally. Lots of boring C++ and script writing, but one can’t make the fun stuff without the bare basics.

Thinking on basics reminded me of food, so I closed my bag and headed to my dorm room’s kitchen, where my roommate was seated at the table.

Yeah, uh, my roommate. She was… Green. Bright green and glowing. Not unlike uranium, because that was exactly what she was.

While she had a form that looked human like myself, she was anything but. She said her parents call her a “uranium atronach,” but in layman’s terms, she’s a demon. From Hell.

Yes, I’m serious.

My hand reflexively went over my mouth and nose. “Hey hey, whoa, what’d I say about going all radio in the kitchen?”

The demoness—going by “Tyler” for her human guise—tensed up, pulling on the mask of a hazmat suit she wore in her “pure” form. “Oh fuck, right, I forgot about that,” she said, voice muffled by her mask as she glanced over to me. “Morning Ally, how’d you sleep?”

“Like a damn rock. I fell asleep in the bathroom.”

“Shit, that sucks. Maybe should’ve gone earlier….”

“Oi, I can’t control my ass like that.”

Tyler snorted, before chuckling under her suit. I stared blankly for a moment, before joining her as I went to grab a container of cup ramen to heat up.

“Alyssa,” she said, “do me a favor and never think before you talk to me.”

“Whoever said I did?” I quipped. “Now come on, I got dressed already. You go change into your flesh-suit-thing so we’ll be ready for class.”

Tyler sighed, getting up. “C’moooooon, I just put my mask back on,” she groaned.

“Oh hush, I took like ten seconds to wake up and get moving. That’s like, dangerously fast for me.”

Tyler broke out laughing as she stepped past me to leave the kitchen, and I laughed with her. Once she was out, I turned to the microwave, glancing at the ramen cup. “Microwave for three minutes”. Pfft. I set it to six to be thorough—never could trust the shitty appliances in these dorms.

Soon, a caucasian human girl came into the kitchen wearing a t-shirt for some dime-a-dozen death metal band and jeans she’d cut wear into herself with a knife. Tyler’s ‘human’ form, though she didn’t do a good job of staying inconspicuous with her ‘isotope-green’ mohawk flipped over on the side of her head. Like some dumb 2070’s cyberpunk hacker or something.

I stared blankly at her. “...What’s with the hair?”

She furrowed her brows, swatting a hand in my direction. “Stoooooop asking that every time I change.” she whined in annoyance. I just snickered in response.

Once my ramen was ready, I pulled it out and seasoned it to start eating. Tyler grabbed another cup from the fridge to do the same. I went ahead and headed into the living room, sitting down and flicking through channels aimlessly on the TV. Very little of interest, even on the cartoon channels. The cartoons were just a bunch of mindless pandering to kids’ amusement at randomness, and the rest was either boring news or inane soap operas.

“I wonder if that’s what it’s like to be schizophrenic.”

I blinked, looking over at Tyler. “...What?”

“...Y’know, hearing voices in your head. Or would ADHD be more accurate? Fuck if I know.”

I looked back at the TV, then her again. “...What the fuck?”

She shrugged, sitting next to me. “What’re you even on the cable for anyway? None of these shows are good.” she said, grabbing for the remote.

I held it away from her. “Nooooo, I wanna flick through them. If I watch youtube I’ll just be stuck there for hours.” I whined.

“But youtube’s actually FUN to watch. You get to see people being idiots for others’ entertainment!” Tyler whined back, putting one hand around my shoulders and trying to grab the remote with the other.

“You get that on these stupid shows too if you think about it enough!”

“But I thought you didn’t like thinking!”

“I- agh!” I yelped as Tyler toppled both of us over, flopping on top of me. Fortunately, whoever teaches demons about imitating humans doesn’t get skeletons right, or it would’ve hurt a lot more than it did in this instance. “Ugh… Get off me, fatass…”

Tyler huffed, shifting position to lie on top of me casually and snatch the remote from my hand. “Pff, or what, you’ll thump me on the head? No.” she teased. I rolled my eyes, shifting and struggling to get my legs up under hers since I was stuck there either way.

“...Whatever. Put on one of those ghost pepper challenge tags.”

“Ew, no, that’s a minefield of people like, hiccupping in really gross ways.”

“Not if you know the right channel.”

Tyler scoffed, leaning over to grab an Xbox controller off the coffee table. She used it to turn on and navigate our shared Xbox to its Youtube app, where we spent a good hour or two watching dumb videos of dumb people doing dumb things. It was amusing for the time being.

Eventually, Tyler’s alarm went off on her phone, signaling we had to get the hell out of our dorm and off to class. Tyler was quick to turn off the TV and urge me to get up, but I’d half dozed off underneath her, and my legs had fallen asleep.

“I don’t wanna go to school…” I whined.

Tyler rolled her eyes. “Hey dumbass, you’re already IN school.”

“Well I don’t wanna already in school……”

Tyler snorted in amusement for a moment… Before grabbing me by the shoulder and pulling me off the couch. “Come on you lazy ass, time to learn how to speak robot.”

I sighed in frustration, wrestling away from her and stumbling a bit as my legs got used to having to move again. “Ugh, fine. But what if I don’t wanna-”

Tyler put a hand over my mouth. “You literally asked to learn how to talk to robots.”

I rolled my eyes, pulling away from her again and turning to saunter out the door of our room. “Whatever…”

Class was uneventful. Another lecture on the inner workings of computer programs. I’d been taught a good bit of software engineering by my mom, growing up, but even she was reading the ‘For Dummies’ book on it. Something something binary, something something programming project, something something research on the developments of programming over the decades.

I elected to spend the afternoon dicking around with some old CD-ROM games that my parents had let us get a hold of to use for school stuff. ‘Us’ as in me and my little brother, Nate.

“So how do you think they programmed the shadows to move in real time? It has to generate a new silhouette texture on the ground every time the model is hit by a new light source.”

He’s about three years younger than me, so I act as his tutor. After all, he decided to take the same major as me, albeit minoring in culinary arts.

“I’m surprised it doesn’t drop the framerate when you pass between rooms, thinking on that. The shadow textures are probably really compressed, since you don’t have to worry about all the details of the actual character model.”

You can definitely tell the food-loving part from a glance—he’s more than a little chubby, same with me—though his real passion’s making new worlds through computer programming. Me, I just love turning reality inside-out through the possibilities of game design.

“Oh yeah, we were talking polygons in class last week. Maybe we should pull up a rendering program and get a closer look at it.”

Call us nerds, but we’re the kind of people that make games for people to be nerds about, so at the end of the day it’s a compliment.

“Nahhhhh, let’s go look for a video on the topic. There’s bound to be some cool stuff talking about atoms and pixels or some shit like that.”

Nate chuckled in response to my suggestion. “Okay, okay, I’ve got lessons on matter states coming up in science anyway.”

The afternoon went by as one would expect with two cheerful, get-along-y siblings like us. Of course in this, I neglect to mention my older sister, Paula. She might not’ve been there now, but she had recently finished her studies in social sciences, supporting us from three terms ahead. Nowadays, she’d be vacationing up in Europe somewhere, but Nate and I always enjoyed when she’d visit, and it’s better I mention her now than have it come as a surprise later.

Before long, we were listening to dubstep and collaborating to make a mock-up of a platformer game. It was a moth and beetle skittering and flying through the rafters of a rave venue. Lots of lights, lots of colors, and nice, complex character models to play with. Nate kept saying to make it run well in time with the music we listened to, but I complained that we’d need music of our own. He retorted that we weren’t really gonna publish it for money anyway. I said, “Fair point,” and we put in some of our favorite tunes and built levels around them. Man, I envied people with synesthesia- they’d have a field day fusing visuals and music for something like this.

As if I’d summoned her or something, Tyler proceeded to walk in on us. “Holy shit you guys, that’s like fifteen songs too many at once.”

“What?” I called, cupping a hand to my mouth. “I can’t hear you over the great-a-f music!”

“UGH.” Tyler grunted aloud, putting up her hands. “I’m supposed to be reading physics textbooks this afternoon!”

I immediately hit mute on Nate’s computer. He seized up reflexively, blinking several times in surprise. “Woah, what the f-” he cut himself off to shake his head.

“Alright, alright, go soak up the universe or whatever that prof’s got you doing.” I said in a slightly mocking tone.

Tyler scoffed, walking to her bedroom. “Yeah yeah, I’m soaking up a lot more than the universe, I’ll tell you that.”

I watched her disappear past the door, before looking to the clock on the computer. “Oh shit, I’ve got art class in half an hour.” I said.

Nate leaned back as he closed most of his music tabs and set the volume to low. “Time for me to go, then?”

I snorted, waving a hand. “Hey, miss Manhattan isn’t gonna possess you or anything—she would’ve done that to me long ago if she had any plans to, heh.”

He shrugged, switching back to his Notepad++ window to make notes on changes he was making to the program. “Eh, true. Maybe I can ask her for some suggestions here…”

“Ah, I wouldn’t bother her with it. She’s got a lot of nuclear shit to read about.”

“Oooh, I can go talk through atomic physics with her, then.”

I snorted again. “Hey, leave her alone, ‘kay? And don’t go eating our food either.” I said, getting up to go switch out notebooks in my room so I’d have my notes for art class—oh right, and my sketchbook. I didn’t use it much, but my professor would chew me out if I didn’t have something of the sort available.

In art class, a couple of my classmates I sat next to were muttering about how the professor looked like Bob Ross, lecturing about color theory. I was too busy blending neon rays and spotlights to bother with their gossip. While some of the others were painting dainty flowers and landscapes, I had dubstep coursing between my ears, translating to rave lighting painting colors on a white moth—a kind of bug I’d always adored—and marking charcoal over the negative space to give an especially blatant night atmosphere.

For a while, I could feel eyes over my shoulder. I glanced over, and one of the other girls was watching me put color to paper. She blinked, and waved at me. “Oh, whoops, didn’t mean to stare.”

I glanced away for a moment, then back to her. “Er, yeah, hey. What’cha want?”

She shrugged one arm. “Well, wanted to let you know there’s a game next week. Gotta practice tomorrow, and the captain’s been upset about you being late recently…”

I stared for a moment, before thumping my head on my sketchbook. Cheer practice. I knew I was forgetting something. Between all the academic stuff I was juggling, I was on the cheerleading team too, and oh god I did not enjoy the physical exertion. I’ve always been a lazy and sedentary person, but I direly craved the love and attention cheerleading could bring. Dad said it wasn’t a good idea for someone so averse to exercise as me, but mom said it could be a good way to get some activity in here and there.

“God, jeez, I forgot about it again, thanks for the heads up…”

“You really oughta get one of those calendar apps to remind yourself—all the rest of us use ‘em.”

“Yeah, but those take time to set up…”

“Well someone’s gotta take the time to remind you…”

I groaned. “Fine, fine, I’ll get to it when I’ve got a chance…” I muttered. That, of course, was a flat lie.

Both of us winced as the professor called us back to attention, specifically calling us two out for ‘gossiping’. Oops.

When I got out of class later, Tyler swung by to bring me to a restaurant for dinner. Nothing fancy, but it was a good quality pizza place, not some ‘drive-thru’ pizza hut. Tyler said she couldn’t tell a difference, but I for one actually had a stomach, rather than some boundless void concealed only by a sphere of whale blubber. Demons being ‘superior beings’. The one I lived with was a superior lack of standards for food.

“God, this pizza’s great. Imagine people COMPLAINING about this being unhealthy.”

“Right? Shit’s delicious, who cares how greasy or high calorie it is?”

I nodded to Tyler’s remark, glancing around. “Best part’s when they put pineapple on it. Real shame they don’t have that here.” I said aloud. I could practically feel people around us squirm.

“I thought you didn’t like-?”

I waved a hand at Tyler to shut her up, quietly shushing her. I motioned at another table with my eyes, where one guy had literally facepalmed Captain Picard style because of my lie about pineapple pizza. We quietly snickered with eachother.

I motioned a hand coyly at her after a minute. “So why didn’t you tell me about cheer practice tomorrow, jackass?”

Tyler rolled her eyes. “I already set my phone to ping you for class, I’m not your cheer team reminder too.”

I huffed, pouting and looking away. “Gee, I thought roommates were a thing to help eachother out.”

“You’re LAZY. El-ay-zee-why. When’s th-”

“I’m ALSO a straight-A student.”

“When you remember to DO your projects.”

“Which is always! I’m literally a professional procrastinator!”

“It’s not literally if you don’t make money from it.”

“Check the dictionary, dumbass, some idiots online got it changed to also mean figuratively.”

Tyler scoffed haughtily, rolling her eyes and going back to eating.

Fast forward a few days. I managed to catch a date with one of the jocks on the football team- him asking me out, surprisingly. I decided not to tell him I was leaning lesbian recently, ‘cause honestly, I was fine going either way. Though if it turned out well, I’d probably have to tell him… Well, nevermind.

The date was kinda boring. He wanted to hang out at a nice bar and grill, get a drink or two, a hearty course of burgers and fries. A great effort, considering the dumbasses he played alongside. I found it kind of dull though—only thing we could really connect over was football, me as a cheerleader, and him as an athlete. His main coursework was in economics, and mine was in software engineering, so neither of us could really make sense of the other’s intellectual interests in that regard.

We decided against talking through more… Recreational interests.

“Sooooo, how’d it go, succubitch?” Tyler said tauntingly when I got home. ‘Succubitch’—pretty obvious what demons like her thought of their lustful counterparts. Then again, she was a demoness of envy. And gluttony. But the latter’s obvious just at a glance—I call her ‘fatass’ for good reason.

“I told him it was a very nice time and that I enjoyed it.” I said, sticking up my nose at her.

“So you hated it.” she retorted, smirking and raising a brow.

I glared at her. “I did not! It was just… Kind of boring? He asked if we could go again some time, and I…”

“Spat in his face?”

I put up my hands. Tyler was sneering evilly. Even for her, this was excessively mean. “No! I told him to maybe look for a girl he can find more to talk about with!”

“Oooooh, he’s gonna be crying about that at the frat house~”

“Shut up!” I whined. Tyler just laughed.

[ask-them-bois]

🍁 what inspired you to write/create (specify muse) All??

hooo boy. buckle up, this is gonna take a minute. I’m gonna do this in the order of their creation.

Vornik. My inspiration was a 14 year old, closeted trans kid’s desperate attempt to gain control in his life by creating a character he could project on and relate to. I put everything i was into him. Wolf freak, artist, outcast, giant softy that be a monster if pushed too far- I poured myself into him. But he eventually became his own person as I moved on to accept myself and find new interests. He was my first ever fantroll, and he’ll always hold a special place in my heart, no matter how many more I make.

Makeno: Look, I don’t care what the fandom says. I fucking LOVE the Amporas, for all their flaws. So I took my favorite bits, mixed it in with a little originality, and boom. Made my bastard. He’s seadweller, sexy, flirty, emotional, and tries to protect himself with bullshit walls that instantly crumble thanks to goldbloods. Just like Amporas. But he’s also a chef, a compassionate person, and a pianist. I am also a giant shark nerd, so of course I had to add that in.

Corden: I am a slut for tragic backstories, and overcoming tragedies through found families and inner strength. I think Goldbloods have it the worst, so, it only seemed natural my (at the time) most tragic troll was a gold. I had a troll based off a land predator, and a sea predator, so I needed a sky. I chose the bumblee bat. While not a predator, it pays homage to Sollux and his bees, while still being original. Speaking of Sollux, i took Psiioniic’s story and thought ‘how can i make this sadder?’. And so his story was born. The ‘found family’ part comes from Makeno and later, Incoding.

The Innocent: Okay, let’s be honest, I rebranded the Signless. Pacifist, only trying to do what is right, illegal blood color- yeah. The Signless was... let’s just say he was important to younger me. I’ve had shitty male adult figures in my life, and i was desperate for any semi-decent man in my life. But, I didn’t want to completely rip off Signless, and his only original inspiration was ‘Vornik, but older’. So, more wolves! More kindness, more empathy, more adventure, and more tragedy.

Ruthless Deepbite: Dualscar, but... not. Fleet soldier, but no armor. Give him traditional soldier garb. A captain, but not a famous one. A soldier, but not an Orphaner. I thought, ‘if Makeno’s life hadn’t turned out how it is, how would it be?’. Ruthless was born, but he seemed... empty. He needed something. The part in Homestuck where Dualscar saved Delarosa from Mindfang had me w e a k. He needed a jadeblood. Not good enough. I want him to hurt. So I ripped her away. I saw what this sort of thing did to people, so I made him an alcoholic, too.

The Incoding: Corden 2.0. Make! It! Sadder! Take more limbs! Not just an arm, but his leg, eye, and part of his chest!! Make him suffer worse! Make him kill himself!! But he needed to be his own person, too. Make him a semi-lady’s man. Give him a fascination for bikes and a cyberpunk aesthetic. Make him a disaster. Ta-da, you got yourself an Incoding.

Gehero: I’m a capricorn! I love gamzee! I needed a clown! So I scrounged around in my head. What are more of my interests? Spiders? Yes, good! Uhh what else? Oh fuck swords! Samurai, and Japanese culture! CATS! Nature! Fuck it, throw it all together. What did we get? Cat loving spider samurai gardener. Hm... Could I add more? Yes. Give him ADHD, like me. Make him trans, like me. Fuck it, let’s make him a hermit, and consequently, dumb as hell. Boom, got ourselves a grade A himbo. Oh, but he needs a conflict in his backstory. How about daddy issues? I’ve been crippled with those, why not have the character that’s most like me have them, too.

The Hounding: All these guys had been pretty soft at this point, let’s be real. Yes, they can be badasses if they had to, but they weren’t savage, bloodthirsty freaks. And we’ve all got a side to ourselves like that, so, let me make that. Every regret, every angry thought, every transgression against myself, every negative experience and thought, I poured into him. Make him giant, to contain the rage. Make him like the Grand Highblood, but more soldier-y.

Note: It was at this point I realized, “Hey, I’ve got quite a few characters here. I bet I could make something out of this.” And so the blog and this whole story was brought into being. And I just kept coming up with more characters and angles to this story, and so the others were made and put together, including the ones i haven’t introduced.

Musrio: I needed to answer a question: Why are the ancestors back? How? Easy, what brings people back? A necromancer. All my characters had so far been based on deadly animals, so what’s another, that’s not a canine, bat, shark, or arachnid? uhhh frogs. Yes. Poison dart frogs are the deadliest amphibian in the world. That’ll work. From there came the poison obsession. From there, mushrooms. His name, translated, literally means “Mushroom (Musrio;latin) Death (Almawt;arabic)”. Okay, great, got a character. But what got him here? What drove him to this? Hm... I have ‘lover ripped away’, what if i did the oposite? ‘had to kill lover’? Boom, done. Love it.

The Decaying: I am a Skyrim fanatic. The Thieves Guild questline is my absolute favorite. I needed a character like that. Let’s make him a thief! No, a KING of thieves! Robin hood! Hm... I’m also a buzzfeed fan. I listen to it while playing skyrim. Hell, let’s merge them. he’s a conspiracy kook! But where does he fit in the “three friends on the run” story? Make him part of one of their backstories. hm... Incoding, why not. They were brothers in arms. Decaying took him in when he escaped. Ooh, died protecting him! An old flame, now best friend! His mind rotted, but like Mituna and Latula, they stick together no matter what. It used to be them against the world, but now they’ve got Innocent and Ruthless on their side.

Rufuss: I’m a Texan, and proud of it! Fuck being an American, that is a brand I wear with shame. But Texan? I’ve never been prouder of that. So, stereotypical cowboy. Hm, I don’t have a blueblood, yet. I want more than that, though. Blue seadwellers seem a rare deal, let’s do that. Hm, but what else? Let’s make him trans. I’m a chubby, trans guy, so why not make him a chubby tans guy. What kind of stuff would a seadwelling cowboy do? What creatures would he deal with? Seahorses? Ehh, Eridan did that. Kelpies! A different, more deadly kind of sea horse. That can’t be all, though. Are there sea cows? Yeah, manatees. Sea pigs? A kind of slug. Oh! Both are endangered, let’s make him a conservationist! But he needs conflict! Hm... Oh, hohoho, i know, but I’ve already got the blog up, let’s do it online. We’ll get there eventually. ;)

Bluegill: I was still running on Cowboy Pride, after just making Rufuss. so, another cowboy! But, uhh, how to make him unique? Ooh! Country singer! And let’s make him elderly. Aw, make him grandpa-eque. All grandpas need a faithful companion. Let’s give him the most country dog I can think of; the basset hound. Okay, great, but where does he fit in the ancestor’s story? Hm... He’s a big man, let’s make him raise the other big man, Hounding. Perfect, that can be why he wasn’t killed until he was old. Ooh, betrayal is fun, let’s make his own kid kill him.

[hermanwatts]

Sensor Sweep: D&D Cartoon, Tim Kirk, Lin Carter, Literary Swordsmen and Sorcerers

Animated Cartoons (CBR.com): When CBS ordered a series based on the latest trend, fantasy role-playing games, perhaps they didn’t know what awaited them. Debuting on Sept 17, 1983, Dungeons & Dragons (inspired by the game created by

Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, and published by TSR) came to air already surrounded by controversy. The game’s use of occult imagery wasn’t the only factor disturbing parents groups. Some even declared it a literal danger to young people.

      Art (Black Gate): Tim Kirk, another artist who has had a major professional career, was nominated for Best Fan Writer 8 times in the between 1969 and 1977, winning the Hugo in 1970, 1972, 1973, 1974, and 1976. It would be fair to say that for me, coming into contact with fandom in this period, my image of “fan art” was formed by Tim Kirk’s work, along with two more artists who won for their 1970s work, William Rotsler and Alexis A. Gilliland. (Not to slight the excellent Phil Foglio, but for whatever reason his art didn’t enter my consciousness until later. And Alicia Austin, four-time nominee and 1971 winner, was and is a favorite artist of mine, but for her professional work.)

        Fiction Release (DMR Books): DMR Books is proud to present our next release: the picaresque fantasy novel The Road to Infinity by Gael DeRoane. It will be available in digital and trade paperback editions very soon (within the next few days), and the classic size edition (6.5” x 4.25”) should be released before the end of June. Read on for more:

Poised on the brink of manhood, young Aran Dyfar makes a rash and momentous decision that will either elevate him to glory or seal his doom.

  History (Barbarian Book Club): “No silver, no Swiss,” commented Gian Trivulzio, a Milanese Condottiero during the Italian Wars. He was talking about the Swiss Mercenaries that served in the armies of the Italian City States. They were expensive and often sieges and sacks depended on the city’s ability to pay foreign soldiers.

A more recent quote “Amateurs talk about tactics, but professionals study logistics,” quoted to Gen. Robert H. Barrow, Commandant of the USMC.

  Fiction (Uproxx.com): Martin is no casual fan of Lovecraft. He regularly cites the writer as one of his earliest reading obsessions. He’s visited

Lovecraft’s grave in Rhode Island, and even wrote some elaborate fan fiction back in 2011 pitting Jaime Lannister against Cthulu in a deathmatch. When George sat down to speak with Stephen King, their conversation kept leading back to Lovecraft’s influence on both of their writing.

  Fiction (DMR Books): When I was eleven years old, I preferred Lin Carter’s Jandar of Callisto series to Edgar Rice Burroughs’ books about Mars. Sacrilege I know, and that’s not the case today, but as a kid, I liked that the Callisto books were written in modern language, and the events described not only took place within my lifetime, they were still occurring now, in the 1970s when I was reading them. I could almost believe they were true.

  Gaming (Player One): What happens when you have a cyberpunk futuristic world and put in the themes of H.P. Lovecraft? You get the latest offering from Stormling Studios, Transient. Aside from this announcement, Stormling Studios also released a reveal trailer. So what is the game all about? It begins in a distant and post-apocalyptic future. Whatever remains of mankind are now living in the Domed City Providence, an enclosed citadel that was created in order for humans to survive the harsh environment. Amidst all of this, the story focuses on Randolph Carter, a member of ODIN, a hacker-for-hire group.

  Robert E. Howard (John C. Wright): The Devil in Iron was published in the August 1934 issue of Weird Tales, several months after the previous story, Queen of the Black Coast. It is the eleventh published story in the Conan canon. We have reached the halfway mark of the published Conan stories completed by Robert E. Howard.

Howard here recycles elements of his own previous stories – there is a magic blade as in Phoenix on the Sword, the sole bane of an otherwise invulnerable eldritch monster, who is a resurrected necromancer as in The Black Colossus. 

          Comic Books (Paint Monk): Our tale begins as Conan, Bêlit, and Zula battle Stygian warriors in the catacombs of Luxor. As the fight progresses, the trio finds a secret passage that allows them to descend further into the depths beneath the city.

Zula shows some empathy toward the Stygian soldier’s fate – Conan and company are killing them simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Bêlit declares she will kill any Stygian, because they were the people who helped her Uncle overthrow and kill her Father.

  History (Real Crusade History): Henry was born May 3, 1217, the third child but the first son of King Hugh I of Cyprus and his queen Alice de Champagne. (Alice was the daughter of Isabella I of Jerusalem and her third husband Henri de Champagne.) When Henry was just eight months old, his father died suddenly, while absent from the kingdom on the Fifth Crusade. According to the constitution of the kingdom, a minor king’s regent was his nearest relative resident in the Latin East, in this case, Henry’s mother Alice de Champagne. However, Alice showed remarkably little interest in wielding political power.

  Fiction (Eldritch Paths): I  was reading The King Beyond the Gate, the second book in David Gemmell’s Drenai Saga. I really enjoyed the larger-than-life heroes in Gemmell’s first book, Legend. Druss the Legend was an awesome character, taking on scores of baddies and coming up on top. Even the leader of the enemy invasion force respected the strength and sheer force of will that was Druss. I was expecting, no, wanting more of the same from the second book. Most of this second book seemed to deliver.

  RPG (Pulp Rev): Designing for games is vastly different from designing for stories.

Readers engage a prose story through the plot, characters, and prose. The writer guides them on a journey in the mind, directing the story from start to finish.

Gamers engage a game through its mechanics. By playing as their avatar, they create their own experience.

Readers and gamers have different ways of approaching their chosen media. The requirements of these media lead to different design choices.

  Writing (Mad Genius Club): Write the soldier as he (or she) is, not as you wish to caricature them, not as your narrative demands.  Haven’t served in the military? Start looking through your list of friends for somebody who has. Sit down and ask them questions (bring drinks), listen and be respectful.  See, contrary to popular belief, we will talk. If you show yourself to be trustworthy, we’ll tell you the unvarnished truth about life in the service. What hurt, what sucked, what made us laugh, made us cry, made us mad, made us happy, what made it home for us.

  RPG (Brain Leakage): About three or four sessions into my current campaign, I noticed that my players didn’t really like the abstract nature of D&D combat. No matter how much narration and dramatizing I did, combat just felt too passive to them. Specifically, they wanted to do something besides stand there and take it while the enemy rolled against their AC. Now, one thing I’ll say in favor of D&D combat RAW. It’s streamlined. And if the players are happy enough to fill in the blanks by imagining feints, dodges, and other maneuvers happening in between declared actions and combat rolls, then it’s fine.

  T.V. (Pulpfest): Rod Serling’s THE TWILIGHT ZONE ran on CBS from 1959 to 1964. It remains in syndication to this very day. A new version of the series — narrated by filmmaker Jordan Peele — premiered on CBS All Access on April 1, 2019. Sixty years after its original debut, Rod Serling’s remarkable creation is still very much embedded in the public consciousness.

The creator of THE TWILIGHT ZONE was born on December 25, 1924 in Syracuse, New York. His brother, the late novelist and aviation writer Robert Serling, said: “We were fairly close as kids and we played together a hell of a lot, despite the seven-year difference. The two of us used to read AMAZING STORIES, ASTOUNDING STORIES, WEIRD TALES — all of the pulps. If we saw a movie together, we’d come home and act it out, just for the two of us.”

  Lit Crit (George Kelley): Just by chance, I stumbled across this 1976 Arkham House edition of L. Sprague de Camp’s wonderful Literary Swordsman and Socerers at my local public library. I immediately took it out and read it. De Camp’s informational essays on these fantasy writers made me want to drop everything and reread some of the great books by these authors. I’m a big fan of Lord Dunsany, but I haven’t read more than a fraction of his oeuvre. I’ve read most of Lovecraft, but I can always pick up one of his collections and find delight in its pages.

        Sensor Sweep: D&D Cartoon, Tim Kirk, Lin Carter, Literary Swordsmen and Sorcerers published first on https://sixchexus.weebly.com/