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mochinomnoms · 2 years ago

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In regard to interspecies romance

Humans have a fairly easy time pursuing the other species in Twisted Wonderland, though there are exceptions to that rule.

multi (separate) x reader [wc] - 2,252 [note] - one of the first things i ever wrote, though i never posted cause i didnt edit it. thought i would anyways cause its kinda cute. Edited 12/14/23 to add a readmore

Despite their animal like tendencies and courting methods, it's incredibly common to see human-beastmen couples and families. Perhaps it's due to how similar their behaviors are to their animal counterparts, but humans are fond of how beastmen flirt and display affection. Beastmen are offended by the comparison, but it's hard to deny how similar, and cute, they are to the common wolf, hyena, or lion.

Wolf and other canine beastmen enjoy being close to their mates. They like to be physically affectionate, almost playful with their partners. They'll nuzzle into the crook of their neck—no matter how much bigger they are compared to their human—lean against them when they walk, and will happily be by their beloved's sided at all times. Furthermore, they primarily show their effectiveness as partners by being great providers, regardless of gender, and showing off how tight-knit their packs are. After all, family is very important to them, and they'll expect to have one, no matter how big or small, with their partner in the future.

If you catch Ruggie trying to slyly and smoothly place a hand on the small of you back when moving through crowds, no you don't. If a person notices Jack momentarily grabbing (gingerly, mind you) your sides as he slips behind you to reach the potion ingredient on the shelf above you, don't mention how his touch lingers ever so slightly. Maybe take it with a grain of salt when Jack tries to invite you to visit his family over break, as friends, of course. And when Ruggie brags to you about how well he watched over the neighborhood kids growing up, how he'd make for a great family man, it's all hypothetical.

Feline beastmen are more reserved in their affections in public, especially compared to canines, and even more so for lion beastmen. It's more common for them to show affection in more subtle manners, such as buying their partner's food and drinks without being asked, going out of their way to help them when they're struggling at school or work, and are able to spend hours just in their general vicinity. As long as their beloved is around, they're happy. In private, though, expect to have their entire body draped over them, weight and all, shoved into their personal space to the point that it becomes a foreign concept. Leona embodies this to his entire core, too prideful to perform PDA, but just prideful enough that he knows he can take up all your time and space with no consequence. Unless that consequence is your love and affection, which he supposes he could suffer through if you hear him purring, don't point it out.

All lion beastmen hold their pride close to their heart (no matter how much a certain prince would deny it) and their partner is no exception. Their pride is an intrinsically developed social network made of an extended, but closed family network. It requires all new partners to be carefully and slowly introduced to the rest of the pride, more so in Leona's case due to the royal family being traditionally made up of Sunset Savana nobility. You won't be the first non-beastmen, but are the first foreigner in a very long time to be introduced. Don't worry, though, Leona is nothing if not patient, and his family are just happy to know that he's found someone.

On the other end of the spectrum, however, are human-fae relations. Uncommon, though not for a lack of trying on humans' parts, due to most of the fairfolk residing in the isolated Briar Valley. The complicated history between the two species, ancient to humans but still relatively fresh for fae, doesn't help either. There's also the unfortunate consequence of humankind's rather short lifespans compared to the average 1,000-year lifespan of the fae. Unless the fae is in their final hundred or so years, they'll almost always outlive their partner without magical interference.

It's not impossible though, and as younger fairfolk leave the valley to explore the world, more marriages have resulted in half-fae children, both human and beastmen. As partners, fae are devoted to the health and safety of their loved ones. Increasing tenfold into nearly coddling territory with non-fae. Compared to them, their humans and beastmen are awfully fragile and naive, and require their protection. This can cause animosity between them, however, and only fae that are willing to learn and change their old ways result in happy, long-lived marriages.

They're also generally known to have lengthy courting methods: not dating, that implies something casual, no they court. Once they've established interest in you, their end goal is marriage, no ifs, ands, or buts. Fairfolk are generous with gifting during courtship: all gifts are about an equal-exchange and your acceptance of their gifts is a reciprocation of their feelings. At the end of the courtship, you can expect a small feast to be displayed at a ceremony held between their and your family. This is an especially important ceremony when courting humans and beastmen: fairy food can often cause lasting damages to those that consume it without permission. By offering their food to you and your kin, they are welcoming you into their world and telling you that they will never intentionally bestow harm to you or your kin. If you choose to accept the food, then you agree to do the same til the end of your days.

Lilia is a strange case, having already lived a long life and being well traveled, a gleeful participant in the strange customs and traditions of humans and beastmen. He'd much rather participate in other's dating and courtship rituals than his own people's. It's fascinating how fleeting the process can be, yet it can result in everlasting devotion. Don't mistake his flexible nature for disinterest, however. He's still a fae, and if you start finding silly little knickknacks of his on their desk, you can expect to never be rid of him.

The Draconia family-line is steadfast in their traditions, even if Lilia raised the latest prince. So don't expect anything other than the previously explained rituals from Malleus, even if you're not aware of them. Taking gems, jewelry, and clothing made of the finest material you'll ever lay hands from his hoard means little to him if it means you'll accept the gift (and him). Even if you aren't aware of how courtship works, the moment you pick up the black ring with the big oval emerald and Briar Valley crest, you're practically engaged in his eyes.

The courtship is long, even for Malleus who was one step away at every turn to skip over the entire thing in favor of just eloping. All for the person who decided that the great and terrifying Malleus Draconia was actually just a simple Mr. Hornton, a friend, companion who just wanted someone to stay by his side. If it means calling you his spouse, his fellow ruler, and the only love of his life even a moment sooner, then he'd be willing to throw tradition and ritual out of the very tall tower window just to do so.

Many years later, when you reminiscing how the two of you first met, and how long it took you to notice his feelings, you'll offhandedly mention the random gifts you found at your doorstep. How you wish you knew who was leaving those precious stones and golden amulets with no indication on who the admirer was. Upon further questioning, you'll tell him that you didn't even know you were being courted until two months into the ritual. It'll then click in Malleus's mind how utterly lucky he was that the two of you even got together in the first place.

It may be surprising, but human-mer relations have been extraordinarily rare. Only a handful of them have popped up since the times of the Sea Princess, who left her home for a human prince. In fact, you could probably count them on one hand! Perhaps this is due to the difficulties of having a romance between land dwellers and undersea folk; after all, it's much easier for humans, fae, and beastmen to interact when they all live on land. Merfolk can come up to the surface, and have been doing moreso in the last century, but having a relationship with someone who quite literally could not breathe in the same air/water as you is near impossible. At least, not without significant effort on one or the other's part.

Nearly all the human-mer romances that have occurred in history resulted in either one or the other abandoning their home to turn into a human/mer and live the rest of their days with their love in their new world. Certainly a romantic notion to be sure, but it most definitely require their love to be truly eternal. Or else you might run the risk of resentment brewing between the two. With a slowly growing need to easy access transformation potions and spells for business and diplomatic reasons, such romance is not far from reach, at least for those with money to spare. The next issue though would be the significant difference between land dweller and undersea folk's courting methods.

Perhaps it can be contributed to the more...feral nature of merfolk. Most of them still retain more animalistic features and behaviors than the average beastman. The twins are no exception to this. Even if you were to remove their claws, mucus covered skin, and 6-ft tail, you're still left with eyes suited for a deep-sea predator, nose that can smell the tiniest drop of blood in a pool, and rows of razor sharp teeth begging to bite down on your neck. The deep-sea is not only cold, but quite ruthless. So, it'll probably come as no surprise that moray eels will prove themselves as suitable partners by fighting either their competitors or you. If they can prove that they can hold their own, protect you from the horrors of the deep, then they have the right to go for your heart. That's not to say softer sentiments don't exist, and while similar the twins are still two separate people with different tastes. These tastes show during courting, though mers have a more casual date-like ritual.

Like fae, merfolk court via gifts, particularly handmade or ones they found themselves, and Floyd is awfully fond if gifting you the strangest things. A tooth that was knocked out from the student who shoved you a little too hard, a rock you tripped over in P.E., or a sand dollar he found on a trip to the beach were a few of the many items he gave you. Jade is similar, though he's more fond of making his own gifts. A necklace made of seashells found at the beach you had your first date in, a terrarium he made from plants that remind him of you, but your favorite was the small garden he started tending to on your kitchen windowsill. Breakfast was particularly delicious when made with his fresh mushrooms. Expect soon after the gifts lots of physical affection, public and private.

Don't be mistaken, they'll still bully you. But each of Floyd's bone-crushing hugs will be accompanied by a soft headbump from his forehead to yours. Jade's teasing, mean remarks will follow with a swift, sweet peck to your knuckles. They'll grab your notebook and hold it above their head until you agree to give them a kiss or punch them in the stomach, both are acceptable responses. Be a little mean back, they like the idea of a sweet and cute little human that can throw a punch. Your their sweet little human, and you make life in the deep exciting. Just don't ask about their flushed face every time they see you yawn, they aren't quite ready to explain that one yet.

Azul intensely studied a variety of topics before coming to land, even briefly glossing over dating, romance, and marriage before deciding he wouldn't need it anytime soon. He regretted that soon after meeting you, though he made do with what he knew. And what he knew as food. A combination of octo-mer courtship and being the son of a cook, Azul will discreetly court you by personally cooking and feeding you your favorite meals. It's the result of the dangers of ancient octo-mers eating their spouses after mating. Afterall you can't eat more if your already full. While not something they have to worry about now, it's an old ritual still used today, Azul has hear the way to a person's heart is their stomach and can wholeheartedly agree.

What's surprised you the most was what followed after, especially for someone as physically reserved as Azul: octo-mers are extremely clingy and affectionate. He doesn't have the heart to do anything more than handholding and chaste kisses to your cheeks in public, but he yearns to wrap all 8 tentacles and two arms around you so tightly that your gasping for a breath that he steals with his lips. He won't mention it, but he can taste the salt from your skin and the pulse from your wrists with his suckers. Take it from someone who grew up with a refined palate, he thinks your taste is equivalent to ambrosia from the gods, though that might be the lovesickness speaking.

i have a hard time writing savanaclaw for some reason, but imma working on it now! also tagging for all the guys is stressful idk what i should enter, like fullname or just first name idk man!! pls reblog and comment! lmk what you time, xoxo

#twst #twisted wonderland #twst x reader #twisted wonderland x reader #jack howl x reader #ruggie bucci x reader #leona kingsholar x reader #lilia vanrouge x reader #lilia x reader #malleus x reader #malleus draconia x reader #floyd leech x reader #jade leech x reader #azul ashengrotto x reader

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potofsoup · 1 year ago

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Happy July 4th, everyone, and good luck to the UK voters out there!

Wow it's Year 11 of doing these!! Here's the AO3 link to the past 10 years, and here's the tumblr link.

Reminder that this is a long game -- some of the judges making decisions were appointed back in the 80s. Many of the cases that were decided this round were from Trump's term. So it's going to take long-term, consistent voting over a decade to start tipping things in the other direction. (Which I talked about in 2018 re: Trump shenanigans and 2022 re: Dobbs).

A lot has been done by the Biden administration (I'm assuming most folks have seen this post by boreal-sea with their very helpful sources), and much of that will be overturned by Trump, especially if he gets the Senate, and especially now that he would have a blank check for anything "official". So let's make sure that doesn't happen.

And even if Trump does get elected, your decisions down-ballot might effect control of the House or Senate, or might make it easier to vote next time, plus the whole plethora of state and local issues. It's Republican state attorney generals who are challenging climate regulations, for example.

Plus, when you really get down to it, only one of the candidates plans on pardoning himself and all his friends if he wins, and attacking the government if he loses. Maybe that guy shouldn't be the President.

If you're new to voting, remember to check voter registration deadlines! I'm a permanent vote-by-mail voter and it's so nice. :)

Transcript under the readmore

Page 1: Sam and Bucky meet up with Steve for a picnic. Steve: Thought you guys were still in Sudan? Bucky: I’m forcing Sam to take a break.

Sam collapses onto the picnic blanket. Sam: Oof, it just never stops, does it? Steve: Nope.

Bucky hands Sam an orange popsicle. Bucky: Eat and relax for a bit, Sam. Sam: Thanks.

Page 2: Bucky asks Steve: How are things state-side? Steve responds: HORRIBLE. Bucky: I thought you’ve been tentatively hopeful about what Biden has been able to achieve? Steve: I was! Student loans, child care, climate regulations, infrastructure, labor, trans rights … he’s quietly done a lot through regulatory improvements and congress bills. But now all people will talk about is how he’s OLD. And then there’s the Supreme Court’s decisions … Chevron and immunity… Steve puts his head in his hands, while Sam and Bucky look on with some concern.

Page 3: Bucky hands Steve a blue/raspberry popsicle: Steve, take a deep breath, and a popsicle. Sam: Sounds like we missed a lot. What’s going on? How bad is it? Steve: Pretty bad. The Supreme Court has made some decisions that give the Court and the President A LOT of discretionary power. Sam: Yikes, that doesn’t sound good. Steve: Well, the Chevron thing means that judges with life-term appointments can override policies made by government agencies. And now it’ll be harder to hold a President accountable because he will have immunity for any “official” actions.

Page 4: Sam: So if the President tries to, say, overturn a democratic election result, he’ll be allowed to as long as it’s in his job description? Steve: I don’t think threatening state electors is “official” business, but that will be decided by federal judges. Who get their jobs by approval from both the President and the Senate. Bucky: Yeesh. No wonder you’re stressed. Any good news? Steve: Well, thanks the Biden and the razor-thin Senate majority, the newer bills don’t rely on the Chevron deference. Still not great but not catastrophic. Sam, squirting ketchup on his hot dog: So what I’m hearing is that it’s now more important than ever to have a President and a Senate who you can trust to appoint fair judges, pass bills, and not commit crimes.

Page 5: Steve: Plus all of the state level offices, now that more and more deciding power has been thrown back to the states — abortion, LGBTQ rights, voting access… Bucky: Hey, at least this is a big election year so we can actually do something! Steve, with his arms crossed, looking surly: Except that all people want to talk about is how Biden is “too old” and “not doing enough,” as if that is on par with Trump’s desire to dismantle basic rights! As if the candidate who doesn’t embody ALL their ideals is not worth voting for! Bucky interrupts with a smart and a loud “PFFT.”

Page 6: Bucky: Um, Steve. YOU were like that in 1940. Sam, nudging Bucky: “Oh, this I gotta hear. Spill, Barnes.” In sepia, Steve is pacing around their apartment while Bucky is sitting and reading a newspaper. Steve: I can’t believe he’s running for a 3rd term! we need a fresh candidate to vote for! This is hardly a choice at all! AND he refuses to engage in Europe! All of Europe under fascist control and we’re just twiddling our thumbs? He’s letting millions die through his inaction! Bucky: Most people don’t want another war, Steve. If he came out for it, he would lose. Steve, indignant: But Buck, it’s your Polish relative who are in danger! Bucky, closing his newspaper and looking at Steve: Yeah, and between FDR and Willkes, I trust FDR to help if he could.

Page 7: Steve, in sepia, looking away: Should he be encouraged to do more? Maybe I should vote for Browder. The Communists have historically be Anti-Fascist.

Sam interrupts off-screen: Waitaminute! STEVE was going to PROTEST-VOTE? Steve: We were in a Blue State, Sam! Sam: But what about the down ballot races?! Steve: RELAX, I did my due diligence down-ballot. I wanted a senate that’s more progressive than the President.Voted LaGuardia for Mayor, too. Steve hesitates: Then, when I got to the President… I realized that the Best case scenario would be that my vote did nothing, versus if it actually spoiled the election. And when I asked myself who I could trust to work with my Senator… well, FDR had a good record with Labor. (sepia shot of young Steve voting) Bucky interrupts: Hold on, Steve.

Page 8: Bucky, eating a cookie, arching an eyebrow: You didn’t vote for Browder? Why didn’t you tell me? Steve: And have you say “I told you so” for the next century? Bucky: Heh.

Steve, with hand on his chin: What’s weird was that, despite everything, I still felt HORRIBLE when I ticked that box. Sam: Sounds like you built up the meaning of that vote far too much in your head. Logically, we know that a single box can’t represent all of the complexity of a whole system, but the desperately WANT it to. Just look at how people have built up so much around the term “Zionis” that it’s made productive conversations difficult.

Page 9: Sam and Steve speak in the background while Bucky reaches into the cooler and pulls out a box. Steve: Sigh. And that’s something that goes beyond the election. Sam: Which is why we need to vote, AND do other things. Bucky, looking at Steve and Sam: Like how Steve works to push organizations on the local level? Or like all the work you do as Captain America? Sam: Exactly. Vote AND.

Sam looks at Bucky fondly: Like how you vote AND make me and Steve take breaks. Bucky, looking stern because he can’t handle compliments: Shush, Sam.

Bucky holds up a cake that has the number “107” on it: It’s time for cake. Happy Birthday, Steve.

#happy birthday steve #supreme court #election #steve rogers #bucky barnes #sam wilson #11th year holy fuck #mine #my comic #oh hey i'm traveling for the next month so i might be not very responsive #longpost is long but I think everyone has the longpost shrinker by default now?

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stars-obsession-pit · 10 months ago

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I feel like the potential of different methods of treatment of Jason’s Lazarus Pit side effects in DPxDC fics is often underutilized.

Like, yeah, the crossover brings in more ghostly stuff that could help, but it’s contamination on his literal mind/soul (definitely soul in a DPxDC context, idk about in DC canon) brought on by an unnatural resurrection. At least to me, that feels like it should be significant.

Having Danny just reach in and pull it out or Frostbite treat it in a basic procedure feels almost… cheap?

Like, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with it being easy. Stories don’t need to go deeply into the soul healing process; if it’s not meant to be major plot point, it can absolutely be just a quick thing! I’m not trying to insult those stories at all!!

But I feel like there’s a lot of room for more complex or esoteric stuff in there to be explored!

Some ideas for such unique condition things under the readmore:

What if his “revenant” thing some fics use comes into play and the only way to remove it is to fully achieve his revenge? And if that’s the case, what if someone/something else kills the target of the revenge without his influence? Yeah, the person is dead now, he’s technically avenged, but he wasn’t the one to get the revenge. So does it still go away, or is he stuck with it? If he still has it, is it just permanent now or can he just find some other revenge method (ruining their legacy or etc) to break it?

Or oppositely, what if he literally can’t achieve that revenge or his body will die again, its mission complete. Thus, his only way to survive and remove the side effects is to smother all those vengeful urges until they fall silent. Which could make that “someone else kills the target unrelated to him” thing from the previous idea now the good ending - basically guaranteeing his survival since he can’t achieve the vengeance as easily now and can move on. Or maybe it’d be even worse as it forces him to move on regardless, dying randomly when the target of his revenge meets their comeuppance.

What if cycling out the corrupted ectoplasm is a long-term process of meditation (and/or emotional control) - something that takes up significant space in his life and forces him to plan/work around until it’s complete (reduced work hours, avoiding certain situations that might cloud his thoughts, etc)

What if he needs to obtain some sorts of special items/materials (either connected to his own life or more general ghost stuff) for a cleansing ritual, forcing him to go on some sort of quest(s) before he can perform it and recover

What if the tainted spots on his soul can’t be fixed, only excised, leaving other types of consequences for his mind/soul (some that will gradually disappear as the “incisions” heal, others that persist in the scars left behind)

What if the healing process requires him to go over his memories and smooth out the jagged emotional edges left by the Pit, and he isn’t experienced enough with ghostly matters to do on his own, so it forces him to get help from another ghost (and thus bare all his secrets to them)

What if the Pit Rage has to be fully pulled to the front - leaving him completely consumed by its control - before it can be literally fought back and suppressed

What if it can be healed only by taking pieces of healthy ghosts to patch him up - which’d require a lot of smaller ghosts (e.g. blob ghosts) or could potentially only need a couple if he’s willing to harm more intelligent ghosts for it (which Jason likely wouldn’t do, but he’s hardly the only person who’s been revived by the Pits…)

#dp x dc #dpxdc #dc x dp #dcxdp #danny phantom x dc #danny phantom x dc crossover #dpxdc jason todd #liminal jason todd #lazarus water is ectoplasm #(or well at minimum this is about lazarus water in dpxdc and this is the best tag for that (even if it doesn’t specifically have to be true #dp x dc prompt #dpxdc prompt #dc x dp prompt #dcxdp prompt

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speakergame · 1 year ago

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Progress Update - 3/4/24

Hello and happy March!

It’s been a while, hasn’t it? 😅 Well, I finally have some good news for you this time: I have some actual news!

I'm happy to be able to announce at last that an update is on its way! I’ve still got some assets to make and code cleanup and testing to finish, but I should finally have something to show you soon.

I’ll put a cut at the end of this and go into more detail about the what and why of what I’ve been working on during this long and unintended hiatus, but the tl;dr is that I hope to have an update out by the end of the month, and that said update will break any saves made in Chapter 4. Unfortunate, but unavoidable, since Chapter 4 had to be recoded from the beginning 😞

I just want to thank all of you once again for sticking with me through my extended silence! Especially to my patrons who’ve put up with me putting everything on pause month after month while I dealt with my real life shit, and to everyone who’s sent me kind and supportive messages to let me know Speaker hasn’t been forgotten. It really means a lot to me.

Okay, enough of that sappy shit! I’m gonna get back to work finishing this up 😁 I’ll put out another update later this month once I have a more definite release date.

Thank you all for reading! I hope you’re having a fantastic 2024 so far, and that the rest of the week treats you kindly. See y’all soon! 💙💙💙

(For those who want a more detailed breakdown on what’s been happening and what to expect, hit the readmore)

I won’t go into the personal life stuff I’ve been dealing with this past year that has slowed down my work, but as far as the actual game goes:

To put it simply, I just wasn’t happy with it. Some of it could be because of how many times I had to reread the same section while I was coding the scenes that would’ve taken place after the last update, but no matter how much I edited or rearranged it, I didn’t like how that scene turned out. There was something… formulaic that had been happening with the way I always laid out scenes, and a bit of stagnation in the story, character, and relationship development that bothered me.

So I rewrote it. And when I still didn’t like it, I rewrote it again. And I still didn’t like it. I thought about scrapping the whole thing on more than one occasion as I struggled to get out of the corner I’d written myself into.

Inspiration finally struck at the beginning of this year, thanks in part to another interactive novel I follow, and I really like the direction I’ve taken it now.

Instead of the RO split scenes happening where the last one left off, Speaker, Seer, and Gavin are gonna have a chat about Things™ to move the next story arc forward. Then Speaker will get some downtime, by themself at first and then in an extended scene split with the RO of their choosing.

All the Big Plot Things that were going to happen in Chapter 4 will be moved to Chapter 5 instead, and 4 will be a bit more of a filler episode. A deep breath before the plunge, as it were.

This split won’t just be a quick conversation/reaction from the RO, but a full on different direction for the rest of the chapter based on who you choose. Most of them will involve leaving the house; all of them will involve actual one-on-one time (or one-on-two time, as the case may be) away from the others. And though romance isn’t required, all of them will have the potential to really move the romance forward if you so choose. One or two might even have a lock-in choice (maybe. I’m not 100 percent on that, so don’t hold me to it)

These scenes won’t be in the next update, because they’re all very complex, but the update will definitely have the Seer chat and at least some of the by-yourself stuff. The update after will have the rest of the alone time stuff (including the clothes/body CC you’ve all been waiting for), and then the one after will start the RO scenes. I think.

I may actually split the RO scenes into separate updates, and let my darlings over at Patreon vote for the order they’re released. That way I can focus on one at a time instead of trying to split my attention six ways at once.

Okay, that’s enough rambling for me today. Time to get back to work! Still got a lot to get done before this is ready, but it’s so close now.

#speaker game #progress update #so happy to finally have some progress to update about XD #maybe I can finally start answering some asks again too and fully resurrect this poor blog

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jude457 · 1 month ago

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so the main reason why i’ve been sitting on a bunch of fics lately—stuff i haven’t posted, even though it’s finished—because i keep getting stuck on this one question:

how much medical detail is too much in a fic?

like, is it too much to show what a body goes through after prolonged sexual trauma? concerning the fics where i explore a darker side of inho’s relationship with the vips. i don’t write this stuff to be shocking. it’s not about being graphic or edgy—it just feels unrealistic and unfinished to me to leave it out. examples of what i’ve included are underneath the readmore:

if i’m writing inho truthfully he’d have chronic, complicated UTIs—pain when he urinates, burning, pressure that never fully goes away, constant urgency without relief. because when you’re used repeatedly for years, when you’re used by multiple men with no care or protection, your body breaks down. infections become constant. systems stop working the way they should. the tearing wouldn’t have healed properly. there’d be scar tissue, nerve pain that burns down his spine and into his hips, days when his whole pelvis feels locked up with the trauma of what has been done to him. a deep, raw ache that flares when he moves wrong, when he sits too long, when he’s cold or stressed or simply remembering. (what i believe most people would find too realistic for a fic) is how going to the bathroom after the body is traumatised like this would be painful in some way. not sometimes—always. the unhealthy relationship with food that would stem from that. it would change how he eats. he’d learn quickly which foods pass more easily, which ones leave him shaking in agony so badly he bites the inside of his cheek to stay silent. how over time, eating becomes something he fears. not because he isn’t hungry, but because he knows what comes next. he builds a mental list of what’s “safe” and sticks to it obsessively.

including these symptoms adds a deeper layer of in-ho’s self-hatred and destruction too. because it’s not just that he’s in constant pain—it’s that he won’t let anyone see it. he carries the infections, the nerve damage, the tearing, the nights spent hunched in silence with his pelvis on fire. sometimes he bleeds. so he hides his laundry—washes it alone, scrubbing stains out by hand before anyone notices. it’s become a ritual. a quiet way of keeping the worst of it hidden. because even the blood feels like evidence. and he can’t let that exist in anyone else’s hands. not when it all leads back to the same thing. not just because it hurts, but because it’s tied to his greatest shame. what the vips did to him. what he endured to stay alive

he’d never let gihun or junho know. he thinks if they find out, they’ll see what he sees: someone broken. someone used. someone dirty. so he hides it. he always hides it. until one day his body gives out and there’s no more room to pretend.

to be honest i also find it important to explore the way inho struggles to even see himself as a rape victim. he spent close to two decades as a detective before being dismissed, dealing with these kinds of cases—he knows the language, the legal classifications, the evidence kits, the expected responses. and somewhere along the way, whether he meant to or not, he built a picture in his head of what a victim looks like: vulnerable, broken, not him because inho still views himself as a monster. and now he’s on the other side of it, but the image won’t shift. he can’t reconcile the man he’s become with the reality of what was done to him. it doesn’t match. it doesn’t fit. and that disconnect—the inability to grant himself the same compassion he offered others—is almost more painful than the trauma itself. because naming it would mean accepting it. and accepting it would mean facing the full weight of what was taken from him.

#squid game #hwang inho

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submarinefleet · 10 months ago

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Imagine dating Usami in the modern day, and having Ogata as a mutual friend. Maybe you met them at the same time, or Usami introduced Ogata as his roommate in college. Maybe you even knew Ogata first, and Usami swept in after he introduced the two of you at a party.

(More under the cut. Open the post if you don't see a readmore.)

Whatever the case, Ogata has been secretly pining after you for a long-ass time. Usami picked up on it almost immediately, and has been lording his relationship with you over Ogata ever since, just to fuck with the guy (because of course he is). It doesn't help that Ogata's being kind of an incel about the whole thing, wondering how you could go for an asshole like Usami. Ignoring, of course, the fact that he himself is kind of a dick to you most of the time...

Ogata has it built up in his head that Usami is a terrible boyfriend, and it's only a matter of time until you break up and he can have his shot... but no, that's completely wishful thinking. Usami is an exemplary boyfriend, actually. Loving, attentive, always showing up for you, and spoiling you with fun dates and presents (and he remembers exactly what you like, too!). Doing the lion's share of the housework if you move in together, and making you breakfast every morning before he leaves for work because he wants to make sure you're eating properly. Not to mention the sex--if you have it--is phenomenal...

Ogata is left coming home to an empty, messy apartment every night, to eat a microwaved meal and watch gun historian videos on YouTube with the lights out. Wondering how an asshole like Usami has you so fooled. He knows what that guy's really like...

#golden kamuy x reader #ogata x reader #usami x reader #imagine golden kamuy #and that's the end of that... or... perhaps there's a polyam part 2?...#usami mentions thinking about going ring-shopping to ogata one day literally just to fuck with him. ah that guy's so easy...#ogata mostly watches a (real!) channel called Forgotten Weapons and he has a t-shirt with all the guns used in WW2 on it #also yes if you're sex-repulsed ace you still have a loving relationship with usami in my au i specifically included you pls enjoy #ogata hyakunosuke #usami tokishige #gk

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saras-almanac · 8 months ago

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So I wrote this post the other day about my feelings on the handling of the BuckTommy breakup (which you can read here if you want). And @parrishjeanna reblogged with a link to an article from Tim. I wrote out a reply to it but it became so long I needed to put it in a separate post because it’s over 3k and I need to put it until a readmore.

Okay so I did read that article thank you @kawaiifacesong for linking the not generating revenue clicks because I don’t like reading any articles for 9-1-1 because it’s literally all buddies who can’t ask anything about the show. (Case in point, in this particular interview, the interviewer brings up “The Couch Theory” because Buck and Eddie sit on a couch.)

So this interview was trash for many reasons but I’ll narrow it down to three for the sake of this response: Biphobic nature of the breakup and aftermath, what’s being said in interviews isn’t what we’re seeing, and Tim writes as he goes so there’s no actual plan going forward.

First: The Biphobic Nature of this breakup is still moving full swing.

The idea that Buck is “still figuring himself out” and needs to explore is insulting in so many ways—especially to myself as a bisexual lady in my 30s. Firstly, being in my 30s, the idea that you need to figure yourself out still is absolute bullshit. Yes, you can still find new things out about yourself and make some changes, but usually by this point in your life, you have a pretty decent handle on who you are as a person. Which Buck does have… and we’ve seen that? So it has to be a reference to his newly discovered and realized sexuality.

Which, AGAIN is so biphobic and plays into incredibly harmful bisexual stereotypes that bisexuals need to “explore” to figure out what or who they want. This means either they need to fuck around and make sure they’re really bisexual. OR they need to get enough experience with their same gender to then be able to have a same-gendered relationship. Both of which are insulting and harmful. This idea that Tommy couldn’t possibly be a lasting relationship because Buck just came out as bisexual is wrong. It’s fine if they didn’t want Tommy to be a long-term love interest or even an end-game love interest, but why couldn’t they have done it differently, to hopefully not play into these harmful stereotypes that are still incredibly prevalent today.

Now do I think they fully intended it to play out as biphobic as it is? Not really, but I do think that the heart of what they wanted—Buck exploring his sexuality—is inherently biphobic because of the way they have chosen to go about it. There’s a world of difference between having Tommy break up with Buck so Buck can go exploring and having OS and TM saying similar things in interviews and Tommy and Buck breaking up and Buck getting back out there and dating around. Which if they had given it just a smidge of thought, I have to hope they would have come to that same conclusion and maybe gone about it in a different way.

Second: What Tim’s saying in interviews about what’s happening on the show and in these storylines doesn’t match up to what we’re seeing

I’m going to paste the few paragraphs related to BuckTommy break up here, just to read. I have bolded what I thought was important and what I’m going to talk about after it.

“Look, I think the breakup was premature, but that was by design. For me, the story that I was trying to tell was here’s a guy, Tommy. He’s not a main character on the show. We haven’t done ‘Tommy Begins�� or something. But you do see him in the ‘Begins’ episodes, in flashbacks, and by the time he leaves in ‘Bobby Begins Again,’ he’s turned over a new leaf. He’s feeling more comfortable. He’s hanging out with the new people at the 118 once Bobby takes over, and they throw him a party and bake him a cake when he goes off to his new post. There was even a reference in Broken when Chimney calls him to do the water drop,” Minear explained. “But Tommy’s a guy who’s in a different place in his life than Buck is. And I think what Tommy realizes is exactly what he said, which is, ‘I’m not your last. I’m your first.'” Minear referenced the coffee shop scene in Season 7, where Buck asked Tommy to give them another shot and come to his sister’s wedding, as a point when Tommy thought, “Alright, this guy’s kind of great. He’s super hot and he’s sweet. And this will be nice. And I’m going to be vulnerable for this.” As the relationship grew stronger and the stakes grew higher, however, Tommy reevaluated things. “I think Tommy, in the end, understood that this was not forever — that Buck is exploring himself. He’s still figuring himself out. And even if Tommy doesn’t know it, he might sense the fact that Buck likes to jump in with both feet a little bit precipitously,” Minear mused. “So was the breakup premature? Yes. Because Tommy was put in a position where he had to be honest. And once he speaks the truth, which is, ‘I think I know where this ends, and I can’t move in with you,’ he’s kind of breaking the spell — the spell of that honeymoon. Tommy even says, ‘I didn’t see this coming either.’ I don’t think either one of them did.”

Okay, lots of things happening in this quote but ultimately there’s a massive disconnect in what TM thinks is happening or what he’s saying is happening and what is actually on screen—and that’s a huge problem. You can’t rely on interviews to explain things, it needs to be in the actual text of the episode.

I think the real crux of the issue is this: “Tommy’s a guy who’s in a different place in his life than Buck is… Tommy, in the end, understood that this was not forever… he’s kind of breaking the spell—the spell of that honeymoon.”

Let’s break this down a bit. Tommy being in a different place in his life than Buck… How? Buck has, since the pilot episode, been looking and searching for a stable romantic relationship—he’s always craved that and wanted that. Even in the breakup, he was thinking about their future and marriage and moving in with Tommy. Is that not what the next logical step of a relationship might be? So doesn’t that—regardless of whether it was premature or not—prove that Buck and Tommy are in the same place of clearly wanting a long-term, committed relationship? So if this wasn’t the case, why didn’t you show that? Show them having that disconnect or make it clear that Tommy’s dropping hints about their future and Buck is not in the same place so he’s not picking up on them at all. Because what we saw was Buck wanting and seeing a future with Tommy and Tommy basically telling him that the doesn’t actually.

“Tommy, in the end, understood that this was not forever — that Buck is exploring himself. He’s still figuring himself out.” This is my villain origin point—for real. Because this is also not what we saw! What we saw, was a Buck who was so secure in himself and his relationship, arguably for the first time on this show, that he didn’t panic or second-guess anything really. He was all-in with Tommy and enjoying himself and being with Tommy. He even said that being with Tommy makes him more comfortable with himself—aka what a lot of couples say when they’re in committed and reciprocal, healthy romantic relationships—that being with you makes me happy being me. (Paraphrasing here, but hopefully my point gets across.)

Because what is there for Buck to figure out yet? He knows he’s bisexual and incredibly into Tommy. He’s happy and content with his work life and seems pretty happy with where he’s living. His relationships with his friends and family are all as good as they usually are. So what is there for Buck to still figure out? I’m left to assume that this is again only about his sexuality, which just keeps adding more to the pile of shit that makes me feel crappy and uncomfortable with this storyline.

Also, why couldn’t Buck and Tommy last? Why is that assumed to be the correct conclusion to come to? How many high school sweethearts get together and last? How many people who don’t date until they’re in their 20s-30s find someone right away and stay together? How many people come out as queer later in life because they have found someone they click with and it just makes them see more of themselves and they stay together? Sure, this is not the case with every single person in these situations, but it’s not unheard of. To me, this just feels like the show and Tim are acting like Buck is a young, 20-year-old child and now a grown man in his 30s…

What we actually saw on our screens, was two people who genuinely seemed to enjoy each other and spending time together. That had an easy and sweet relationship, where they both felt settled and comfortable together. It’s why the weird change in 806 felt so abrupt—what do you mean these two people who had amazing communication up until that point, have not talked about their past relationships at all? I think that was done as a shortcut for the writers and TM to say, “Look, see, they’re not compatible, they can’t last because they’re not talking about anything serious.” But again, my point is: then you should have showed us that beforehand, given some foreshadow or lead up to it. Instead, they chose to blindside the audience for the “shock value” and it didn’t work. Shock value for shock value’s sake never works for the audience. They don’t want the rug to be pulled out from under them, they want to see you building something and only after it’s built can they see what you were doing the whole time.

Now, I understand that they just wanted to break them up for “story” reasons (which I have no faith is going to be anything good). While I personally hate that because I feel like there would have been much more storylines and things for Buck to be involved in and it would have opened up a lot more potential stories for the future, I get that it’s not my decision to make. But why couldn’t they actually make this make sense in the actual context of what we’d seen already? If you wanted to break them up because they’re in different places, then having Buck ask Tommy to move in could have caused more of an argument of Tommy saying that Buck doesn’t really see him and doesn’t seem to understand that Tommy has a whole life outside of Buck. O Tommy could have been the one to propose moving in together and Buck freaks out because it’s too soon—which leaves Tommy to come to the conclusion that they want different things right now and he can’t just sit around and hoping Buck will catch up because it would be too hard for him to let go of Buck later. Or have Tommy literally going to a different place—whether temporarily or permanently—and so they have to break up because Buck has a whole life here and Tommy wasn’t about to ask Buck to uproot himself for Tommy…

There’s so many other ways this breakup could have gone instead of the route they went—and they would have made much more sense contextually. Instead, they went this cheapest way possible and have Buck now acting like a child about calling Tommy, when in reality and with the growth we’d seen of Buck in the past 8 years, he would have reached out to Tommy already. At least to talk things through. The baking thing was cute for an episode and it would have been okay for longer, but I’m just sitting here wondering exactly why Buck can’t call Tommy… If it’s because he’s hurt, then they needed to say that because right now, it just seems like Buck is literally being forced to not call him but the audience isn’t really sure why.

All this brings me to my biggest point. Third: I don’t trust anything that’s being said in interviews or by TM because he doesn’t write in advance and that’s a major problem

Before we get into it let me make a disclaimer: I’m gonna need every single network and studio to start requiring all the white men who write for them to actually be getting them scripts. We cannot rely on their “genius” to make sense because these scripts—especially season 8—should have had a few more passes before what we’ve seen. The only episode so far that actually felt like a complete episode was the Halloween episode.

And if this season has taught us anything, it’s that Tim not having any real plans or anything written is actually a massive problem for this show.

Now me not believing TM is not me saying that I 100% believe Tommy is coming back (though I feel like the chances are higher now with the reaction from the GA for ABC to suggest some things or at least give a closure beat to this character and relationship) This is more, nothing that TM has said in interviews up until this point for season 8 has really actually happened on screen except for Eddie shaving his moustache… Granted, I don’t read every single article with him so I might have missed something, but I just feel like he’s got no interest in setting anything up and actually paying it off in any real way.

So many people were so excited for season 8 because it was the first season in years where we actually knew so many storylines going into 8—that weren’t told to us in interviews; they were introduced in the actual show! We had Bobby/Athena’s house hunting, HenRen fighting Ortiz and trying to get Mara back, Madney fostering Mara in HenRen’s place, Eddie dealing with Christopher leaving, and Gerrard back at the 118. Any one of those storylines would have been so amazing to really see explored and fleshed out. Instead, everything was basically settled and done by episode 4—apart from Christopher and Eddie resolution and Bobby/Athena actually moving in / building. To me, as a writer myself, that decision to rush though those other stories was a massive massive misstep. There was so much there to explore and delve into that could have been so satisfying to watch and really reap the emotional payoff.

Instead, we had like 2-4 minutes max of processing HenRen not being able to see Mara again before they were all reunited. Not that I wanted to see HenRen struggling again in this way, but it would have been different and they could have put some humor into it with Karen suggesting they tail Ortiz and try to find things out about her—or Hen comes back from a shift to find Karen has stayed up for 38 hours tracking every single facebook post from Ortiz and her family to try and find something they could use and she’s the one who uncovered the link between Ortiz and Gerrard, which then promts Hen to ask Buck as Gerrard’s specialist boy to ask for a favor or try to convince Gerrard to help them deal with Ortiz.

And Maddie and Chimney having Mara would have been so interesting to see them actually having conversations about what they want for their family going forward—do they want more kids, do they not? Are they wanting to try naturally or adoption? And then Mara being with Chimeny could have also added another layer of tension between Hen and Chimney with Hen being jealous that Chimney is raising her daughter.

I mean Eddie… the fact that it took 8 episodes (basically) for him to actually acknowledge that he needs to do something to be a part of his son’s life is a major problem as well. It makes me not want to root for Eddie to reconcile with Chris because he has shown hardly any initiative in actually confronting what he did and the actual reason why Chris is so upset and feels betrayed. There was a little in 6, but that’s sort of it.

Bobby and Athena, they just don’t seem to know what to do with them anymore. And that’s a shame because there are so many things they could do—namely my favorite thing which is give them more comedy to do! They are so funny together (cruise ship is one of my favorite things). Or they could have had the first few episodes be them sort of couch surfing through the firefam and be a fun little runner of “we really need to figure out what we’re doing.” Even their storyline of their house burning just doesn’t seem to be a thing anymore.

Buck, it would have been so amazing to see him dealing with the work stuff more and having Tommy to lean on, to see Buck who’s been pretty secure in his work for the past few seasons now dealing with Bobby being gone and Gerrard there, just really gets him thinking about the future. Or even the comment about budget cuts, why was that never brought up again? That would have been so interesting to lead up to the midseason finale, which of the 118 is going to get laid off? And Buck being in such a secure spot maybe he volunteers because he wants to explore something outside of firefighting and/or because everyone else has kids and a family and he knows it’s easier for him to not have a job? And then he’s saying his goodbyes and the midseason act out is Bobby announcing that Eddie is going to be leaving them instead.

Instead of really exploring any of that, it’s all been rushed through to move on to the next thing, but the honest truth is: I don’t trust what TM’s great next thing is because he absolutely squandered all the potential he had going into season 8. So all these “amazing things” he has going forward I just don’t trust they’re going to happen or even be slightly interesting. Instead, I assume they’re going to be something that’s like an episode opening and then never mentioned again if they do happen.

I just don’t understand what is going on in his head other than ego right now and I’m just… I deal with too many egos in my life to deal with another one like this.

#didn't expect this to end up as long as it is but i guess i had a lot to say and honestly still have a lot to say but mentally need a break #but this has just made me want to get back into actually writing and maybe writing my own version of season 8 #one day I'll move on but it took me months to get over magicians and this is bringing those feelings back a bit #bucktommy #911 critical #911 season 8

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laylainalaska · 6 months ago

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MASH continues

I watched the episode with Charles and Martine last night (11x03) and first of all, I canNOT believe that the place where that episode leaves Charles in that subplot is CRYING ON THE BED. Did we do anything to deserve this? Talk about an episode that cried out for an upbeat/supportive tag scene with him and Hawkeye and BJ. (And you know they would! It's pretty clear that they're a) curious about what's going on with him and Martine, and b) generally supportive in similar situations in other episodes. He definitely wouldn't tell them exactly what happened, but like they're not going to get him drunk, commiserate a bit, and try to get the story out of him, c'mon.)

But I was also fully unprepared for the adorableness of crushing Charles. You know what else I was unprepared for? This little exchange with Hawkeye and Charles near the beginning when Hawkeye's telling him he doesn't have a chance with her.

THE HAND ON THE ARM, BOTH OF THEM, I CANNOT.

I think it's interesting how differently Hawkeye reacts to Martine's obvious interest in Charles than he did in the episode a couple of seasons earlier with the lady reporter who was interested in BJ (and not in Hawkeye). In that case he just would not let it alone, whereas here he takes it gracefully, steps aside, and doesn't bother them. I don't know if that's just because he relates to Charles differently than he does to BJ, or whether it's that he can tell Charles is genuinely into her and doesn't want to get in the way, whereas with BJ being married, it was a very different situation.

(Or a little of both.)

More thoughts below the readmore.

I kinda knew the broad strokes of the plot of this one, including what made them break up, and I was generally expecting Charles to be a lot more of a dick to her about it and I think it's interesting - in light of some of his past behavior - that what happens is a quiet, sad withdrawal instead. He does hurt her, but he's pretty clear about this being a him problem, not a her problem. He doesn't want her to change or try to be someone different for him, or even hide her past. He just doesn't think he can face up to it at home.

I think the really interesting thing this episode brought up is how he's compartmentalized his life here from his life back home. Everything that's been going on with him here, the friendships he's made and the much looser, more relaxed way he behaves, is a "here" thing, which isn't going to go back "there" (and I think he's really wrong about that).

The thing that fractures him and Martine isn't the idea of having a wartime romance with her here, it's the idea of having a future with her -- taking her home and introducing her to his family and having to support and defend her in Boston society. This obviously is very much a him problem, but I think it's interesting that he doesn't seem to consider, even for a moment, just having a no-strings-attached fling (which he clearly did do with Donna!). He doesn't even think about that as a solution; he's got to say goodbye to her now or he never will.

I think this kinda goes back to the thing I was talking about in the Dreams post a little bit, about Charles getting attached. He does get attached, we see that throughout the series - not all the time, or to everybody, but when he attaches, it's deep, and he can't just shake it off.

(Which also suggests how effectively he's going to completely lock away the last couple of years of his life - not very. He's going home different, and everyone's going to know it, and pretty soon he's going to know it; he may even know it by the last episode.)

But I'm also just very deeply affected by his goodbye to Martine. That whole scene where he's laying on the bed, clearly heartbroken ...! Okay, yeah, he was going to simply let her leave without saying goodbye, and that's self-protective as much as anything - and Charles standing her up for their last night's date was definitely ... choices were made! He just can't face her and his feelings for her. That scene on the bed, though. OW.

.... also unreasonably charmed by "your friend Hawkeye." Even apart from shipping - although I do ship it - I feel like part of the solution to his problem is right there. Hawkeye makes him laugh, and brings out a warmer, more playful side of his personality.

And it's not one-sided! For one thing, Hawkeye clearly enjoys spending time around him and pestering him. But also, Charles can steady him in some situations where nobody else can. I'm thinking actually, not "Sons & Bowlers", but the OR scene in "Follies of the Living, Concerns of the Dead," another one I watched fairly recently. That little "I must have run the bowel too fast, I missed something" and Charles's "Don't worry, I've got it." Hawkeye trusts him as a surgeon to an extent that he can just let go and know Charles has it in hand, and that's something I think he comes to lean on.

(Yes, I watched an episode in which Charles has a canonical romance and now I'm talking about Charles/Hawkeye, I can't help it.)

Anyway, though, I just think this episode is really interesting as a kind of benchmark of how things are going for him in the war. I think this might be the point where he actually realized not only that things are going to be different at home but that he might not want to be that person when he goes back.

#mash #charles emerson winchester iii #hawkeye pierce #meta #my stuff

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raiseupyourbat · 10 months ago

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G o d. All gekkos' outertale posting makes me wanna talk more in depth about the characterisation and plot issues in this game and why they bother me...

(readmore bc holy fuck this got long, it's probably like 5k words. It's also pretty much all salt, categorised by character)

Toriel

Why. Why is she like this. Kinda feels like the creator of the game hates her and if they don't, they have a weird way of showing it. She's treated as overdramatic and unjustified in her anger at asgore despite the fact that he DID declare war on humanity and he DID willingly let the people believe he was killing human children to harvest their souls. Even if he didn't do it for real in this game, she has every right to be angry and to not trust him, and it CERTAINLY doesn't make her undeserving to be a mother or whatever. Idk about you, but I don't think wanting kids to stay away from a man yelling about wanting to kill every child that crosses him makes you a bad parent, even if it turns out he didn't really hurt anyone y'know?

They also REALLY zoned in on 'mother' with her in a way that doesn't really make sense here. I could maybe see her feeling guilty for making a snap judgement but how would that call her motherhood into question?

Sans saying isolation messed with her makes no sense too!!!! The outerlands or whatever they called the ruins isn't sealed off in this game, other monsters seem way less intimidated by her in this game than in undertale (she has friends! She knows sans by name and goes to napstablook's shows and even has their phone number!), and we outright get told she takes the taxi to get her groceries... Meaning she headed off to the rest of the outpost and probably does that often enough.

All things considered, Toriel seems fairly well adjusted in outertale, at least by outertale standards. Kinda then makes it feel like everyone's just trying to convince her she's hysterical and that... Sucks.

Also the fact that they added an ending where you stay with her and framed it as a bad ending that doomed everyone is... Really mean? It sucked ass I'm sorry :/

Sans

... Why is he like this. This take on Sans is absolutely infuriating tbh. The only positive I really have here is that his puns are kinda good, I've seen fangames that fuck up this element massively and it was kinda fun to see his interactions in starton.

Okay, back to salt. His whole 'i became a sentry to help humans' thing is trash. He didn't care about that in ut! He didn't care about that at all! The only reason he looks out for frisk is because he made a promise to toriel, and he hates breaking promises. He didn't want to let down his friend.

...Huh. realising this is yet another case of Toriel disrespect somehow. Yet another thing they took from her, that they then just... Handed over to sans instead. :/

His lack of backstory. Look, I get wanting something silly, but they took almost everything that makes sans interesting away. Not hyperfocusing on sans like certain aus do is nice, but it feels like in a lot of situations in this game they overcompensated by a long shot.

No mysterious past/origins. We know he worked with alphys I guess but???? Honestly I have a LOT to rant about for that part so I'll leave it for twinkly's section. And yet despite all this, Sans inexplicably bleeds in tpe when not even undertale has that happen? Make up your mind!

His role in non Asriel chaotic also... Sucks ass. I'm in a pretty awesome corner of the fandom in terms of the people I follow and the takes I see as a result, so if I'm honest, when I saw all those posts about 2024 fanon sans being indifferent to his brother's murder, I kinda just figured they were vaguing about this game. You're telling me that sans of all people just shrugs off you killing everyone and complains a little bit before letting you pass?! He should know alphys already ran off. He should know the only person left to stop you is asgore, and that it's obvious he won't. Part of this could be connected to how frisk is written perhaps, and much like the twinkly situation, I'll have much more to say on that further down.

I understand the creator didn't wanna have a sans fight in their game - however, if that's the case... Maybe come up with a reason for him to NOT show up in the last corridor, then? Have him busy helping with evacuations or something, or already dead like in the first chaotic ending... This was just sloppy.

Papyrus

Honestly he wasn't... Terrible. The phonecalls were fun even if most were cheap references (though they can be fun in fangames sometimes so I'm not mad at this lol). Him being extremely talented at making spaghetti is just one symptom of one of this game's biggest flaws, however. I really don't like how nobody's really allowed to be bad at anything or have any real struggles in this game - especially when spaghetti in undertale is used to demonstrate his relationship with undyne and the similar wavelength they're on when humans aren't involved. She's the one who started teaching him to cook it, it's deeply intertwined with his desire to be a royal guard, and it's something they suck at together. Him just inexplicably being good at it is... Weird, and feels really disconnected from their friendship and her reluctance to let him in the guard yknow?

Also: his boss final phase. Having the dog NOT take his special attack away this time was really funny admittedly but... Idk? Not only is the fight really unfair for pacifist/neutral and those who aren't as good at the game (ut never gets this hard outside of geno), it feels way too on the nose in terms of insisting he's strong and has powerful attacks. Undertale didn't need to overcompensate to get across that papyrus is strong and disciplined and the way you have to infer that in undertale is way cooler. I might just be nitpicking with this point tbh but it's whatever. Letting myself be a hater for once.

And don't get me started on him getting together with Mettaton. It seemed to come out of absolutely nowhere, the idea that they were already friends in this was glossed over really quickly and no time was really put into developing the relationship save for papyrus commenting on finding him attractive every few minutes.

Gotta be honest, I've never been a fan of this ship nor understood its popularity. Papyrus very briefly mentions thinking he's attractive in undertale, but it doesn't really go anywhere and I'm not even sure mettaton knows he exists. It feels like it was just kinda added because it's a popular ship and that's it, not sure it really contributes much to either of their arcs. It was a light-hearted celebrity crush in canon and never really tried to be more.

Oh, oops. Had more to say here than I thought.

Undyne

Not much to say here... I think she was okay, there's nothing super bad with her. I do think the way gerson kinda downplays her/lacks faith in her in the chaotic route kinda sucks and I think choosing to make her non-undying chaotic bossfight harder sure was A Choice, but it's whatever. Undying was weirdly easy in a way that didn't do her much justice. Honestly they didn't do enough with her for me to have a wall of complaints and I can't tell if that's a good thing or not. Her relationship with alphys didn't really amount to much and her lack of understanding of human culture doesn't really hit as hard when she's just talking about random sci-fi things that we have no way of knowing are real or not in this game's idea of the 2600s ourselves, y'know? Her love of anime (that she mistakenly thinks is human history) is pretty absent here except to validate her relationship with alphys in a very shallow way.

The Ghost Family

Hoo boy... Was gonna make this the mettaton section, but I wanted to talk about napstablook at the same time, so I'm just gonna lump them all together.

What. What the hell was this plotline.

It feels like they tried to go for 'smalltime farmer chases passion for stardom after feeling unfulfilled at home' and as I've seen someone else say, 'shy business owner struggles to talk to their cousin outside of work'. This would've been fine tbh, but... There's a lot of things in the execution of this that kinda grossed me out if I'm honest. I don't think they were intentional, but I think it could've been thought through a lot better to avoid some unfortunate implications - or even lean into them in a respectful way.

Firstly, the ghost family intervention was pretty long, awkward, and didn't feel like it really added much - especially when most people playing would already know mettaton's backstory anyway (and his house is still accessible like in undertale!!!!! What was the point?)

Mettaton airing out his family issues on live TV feels very ooc - he keeps that stuff very close to his chest and I doubt he'd like it getting out. Him entertaining any of that out in the open seems... Weird.

Speaking of the intervention, his cousins' treatment of him was horrifying! Part of it seems intentional and it's nice that there's at least one part in the game where characters are allowed to have flaws and do bad things but... There's also elements that feel like you're meant to agree with them? Their insistence that mettaton just come home and everything they did in the past with constantly badgering him to come and help out on the farm were rightfully treated as something that hurt mettaton's feelings and that gave napstablook and the others pause. That's (mostly, we'll come back to it later) fine. He called them out for it and they reflected on it, cool. The way his ghost form was utilised makes me extremely uncomfortable, however.

Napstablook talks about hearing 'the real [mettaton]' in the recording, right to his face, 'the real mettaton' in this scenario alluding to his ghost form. Considering mettaton is a trans allegory, this feels... Kinda gross? In a similar vein, when passing mettaton's quiz barriers, one of the questions is 'what is mettaton's true identity' and you have the option to deadname him (using a name papyrus literally just made up in undertale rather than having any kind of creativity ofc) Alphys' reaction is simply to ask how you know that which... Doesn't feel great. The correct answer is 'mettaton' ofc thankfully, but everything around this particular plot point feels weird. Maybe don't do that w the most prevalent trans allegory character..?

And ofc, they keep insisting he just come home, go back to working on the farm, go back to his family... Idk, gives me vibes of someone abandoning their shitty transphobic family and then insisting they want to see 'the real [deadname] again' and for them to abandon their new life and just go back to the way things were before. Not good.

All of this would still be okay for the most part since the ghost family are painted as being unfair to mettaton... But in true pacifist, he goes back to helping out with the farm anyway and talks about how he thinks he was probably just being dramatic after all, and how 'blooky didn't do anything that bad'

... What?

It takes me right back to Toriel's treatment. Napstablook, Maddie and lurksalot gave no real thought to mettaton's feelings, made it all about them and showed pretty much no support for his transition nor his career! Fuck those guys! It's funny - mettaton is pretty consistently a pompous asshole (affectionate) in undertale but here, I think all his feelings towards his family were COMPLETELY valid. Mettaton outertale didn't do anything wrong.

Lurksalot didn't feel like they contributed much to the story either, save to be yet another character treating mettaton like shit with zero consequences nor narrative judgement. They just made every ghost family event even more drawn out.

And then ofc!!!! Mettaton and Alphys' friendship is so bland in this game! They're two people who kinda know each other and she says some nice things about him in a letter in chaotic but that's about it. Their friendship and the subsequent conflict frisk's arrival brings to it in undertale is the heart of hotland and the core, but here it's just replaced with unnecessary, hard to watch, boring family drama. The two of them have no issues to work out. She doesn't ask too much of him. There's no funny quips and barely any chemistry at all. God forbid either of them have any real flaws.

One last thing: I'm glad maddie gets her mew mew body, it's nice. Wish it was an on-screen moment or something alluded to more though. Some of that time dragging out the family drama could've been used on that instead, y'know? Especially with napstablook getting the mew mew doll... Genuinely thought they were gonna show it to her when they first got hold of it, rather than dragging Frisk into their intervention. She should've gotten to be more mad, too. Kinda a big part of her identity.

Oh, and mettaton's no-asriel chaotic fight was bullshit. It was a nice spamton reference and the first phase was cool, but the second was utter bullshit and dragged out the fight way too long. Attacking him after snapping all the wires should've killed him im sorry. It's even more of a shame bc I genuinely really liked this game's mettaton neo fight - it was fun and creative and felt possible.

Holding myself back from adding any more to this bc I could go on and on, ugh.

Alphys

Alphys. For a game that tries to make her the star of it, it's actually kinda impressive how much they managed to take away from her and just how uninteresting she is in this game.

At the surface level she's awesome, powerful, and the star of the show. In my first playthrough I was actually pretty happy to see her thriving like this! The more routes I played and the more I thought about it though they just kinda... Declawed her. Took away all her flaws. Made her 'perfect' in a way that I don't think works at all.

The amalgamates never happened. None of her experiments went wrong. She never hid away from her mistakes, or lied to anyone (save for keeping Asgore's secret, which she has no negative feelings about), nor did she over engineer any situations to make herself seem cooler. She doesn't argue with Mettaton! She's confident and assertive! She's Asgore's right hand woman and next in line for the throne! And ofc, the badass final boss! What's not to love?

...But none of this is Alphys, is it?

Her anxiety isnt just because of the determination experiments, it's pretty clear she's always been a pretty shy and nervous person. In fact, based on her entries they were one of the things she was more confident in before it all went wrong. People are hard, but she knows science, y'know?

She doesn't get to be flawed or interesting - despite her presence, she's just a generic cool scientist who's suave with the ladies, I guess..?

She isn't particularly dorky, shes overly confident, she has zero issues to work through. Her relationship with undyne is perfect (derogatory) and her infodumping about anime just before the archive feels very forced, like they remembered last minute that she does that and thought it should be included somehow.

Depicting what she'd be like in a scenario where the determination experiments never happened is a fun and interesting idea! But deltarune demonstrates how to do that well, and I think they completely missed the mark. The way she talks, her body language, the way she acts around others in general... These things are universal constants and yet in outertale, she's basically a different person entirely.

Outertale alphys isn't allowed to lie (save to cover for asgore Secretly Being A Good Person), she isn't allowed to miscalculate, she isn't allowed to mis-speak or make mistakes or do anything she'd regret. She feels like an alphys written by someone who hates her in canon and thinks all her flaws make her terrible and unlikable. I doubt this is the case since I don't think a person like that would've given her such prevalence, but that's the level of love and attention I feel was given to her writing here. It makes me sad.

And, of course... The DT experiments and her fight.

... Why did she have vials of determination if all the humans are alive? Did she take it from them? If so, was this before or after they went into stasis? We know she's not been the royal scientist for long in relation to how long humans have been falling, so did ROMAN take the determination? How much of this did she even DO?

Why did she and sans even DO anything with determination? It... Doesn't really make sense.

Speaking of determination, why did she melt at the end of her fight? I'd assume she's injected herself with determination as one of the vials in her lab is mentioned to be partially used, but I'm pretty sure it's also like this on pacifist. Was that overlooked? Are we just meant to assume it's MORE depleted? Does she just have natural determination now because She's So Cool And Badass? This isn't even really a complaint about the fight, more just how poorly that part of her lab is handled lmao

But getting into her fight... Idk, it didn't really feel like her. A lot of it was just random bullshit that was hard for the sake of being hard, that didn't really seem to be tied to her identity very well at all. People complain a lot about the Zenith Martlet fight in undertale yellow but that's done far better than this, imo. It clearly reflects martlet's character, personality and canonical bullet patterns (we see Alphys' in ut tpe!), there's a genuine feeling of progression in the fight and the act you're given to help with the fight feels more effective - you can still damage her on her turn, so taking a turn to heal act doesn't feel like a waste. The Asriel acts though... They just don't last long enough to feel that worth it? Sure they're okay, but in general, you get a lot less time to breathe. Martlet's fight lets you retry from phase 2 if you die. Sans' in undertale gives you as many turns as you need to heal while he's sparing you. Alphys' fight just feels like it's made to feel un-fun and painful throughout in a way that just isn't worth it, and doesn't really feel like it fits her personality either, y'know? The fight was just a slog and like many others, I had zero motivation to finish it legit. I don't think it helps that the undyne and mettaton fights in this route are fairly easy and simple in comparison.

Tldr: they took away everything that makes alphys endearing, fun and interesting. This isn't alphys at all.

Asgore

A huge chunk of this essay accidentally got deleted, including my first attempt at writing this section. In it, I mentioned that the Asgore apologism went way too far.

This time though, I don't think I'd even call it that. Reflecting on it, it feels less like an attempt to defend him and more like a way to hate on and spite Toriel.

Seriously. So much of his character basically just feels like someone going 'fuck you toriel. I'm giving EVERYTHING to asgore.'

It's... Really weird?

Asgore having a way out of killing humans is an interesting concept! Outertale takes place 500 years in the future compared to undertale, so the idea that they have the resources and technology to do that is kinda cool and in theory, exploring this idea sounds really fun. In practice though, it feels like it was mostly done to make Toriel out to be an asshole for no reason and to laugh at her for ever assuming he would've really killed anyone (despite... Y'know. Telling everyone that's what he was doing.)

He just. Completely moved on from Toriel without a second thought seemingly, and doesn't even look that affected by seeing her turn up again - meanwhile SHE'S got crumpled up tea recipes in the trash and all the Sad Divorced Energy - it doesn't really fit either of them! Toriel wasn't really given a reason to miss him like that, and I think even if he DID fully move on, he'd be way happier to see her than that.

All his leading statements on how she must feel in LV1 pacifist sucked ass also, especially with the way she kinda just agreed that yeah, she feels like shit for not trusting that he'd suddenly do a 180 and not hurt anyone (AGAIN. AFTER HE CONTINUED TO LET EVERYONE BELIEVE THIS) and that she must feel unworthy of being a mother. She hadn't even said half of this in front of him yet! He put words in her mouth! That in itself would be fine (social blunders are pretty normal for asgore after all) but it... Wasn't treated like that. It was handled as if this was a sweet and compassionate thing for him to say which... Yikes.

And ofc he gets to adopt frisk, and monster kid, and get to have Asriel live with him! His fatherhood is never called to question in undertale, but ofc Toriel's motherhood has to be here. Hell, despite their divorced status, if you talk to gerson in tpe it's highly implied frisk asks if asgore would start aging again if he became their dad! Idk, all of this part just reeked of Toriel hate and nothing more. Asgore is just yet another character to get sanded down and de-clawed and it sucks. So much of what makes him interesting is his mistakes and flaws and how they impact him, y'know?

Twinkly

I wanna start this by saying I don't think his writing is too bad. It's not amazing by any means but by outertale standards, he's one of the better written characters. That being said, Flowey is my favourite character of all time so I'm still gonna be critical.

So they did save the goat. Save the goat aus really aren't my thing nowadays - I feel like so often people act like he's a separate person to Flowey entirely and act like the alarm clock app dialogue doesn't exist. Asriel didn't end the story as a doomed tragedy fated to fade away! Flowey ended the story as someone who finally got closure on the loss of his best friend, and can finally learn to move on, even if it takes him a while to adjust. I don't think he needs to be a goat again for that.

That being said, I know these kinda aus are a big wish fulfilment thing for a lot of the fandom that aren't even necessarily something people want to be canon as much as they just wanna explore the idea and see him truly happy, so I won't judge that element too harshly. People are allowed to have fun, and I think save the goat can be fine if it respects him as flowey rather than separating them.

I really like that they allow Asriel to be fucked up and an asshole rather than him soft rebooting into some Sweet Perfect Little Prince once he returns to his old form, like so many other save the goat takes. Even in lv0's ending he struggles to bite back insults and mean comments aimed at Monster Kid which is... Admittedly kinda refreshing! There's definitely some flowey (or I guess in this case, twinkly) behaviour that still comes through here and I'm glad. This carried over to chaotic, too. While his characterisation wasn't perfect, this at least felt like twinkly obtaining a few form and continuing to play with the world, rather than your standard Asriel take. I also really liked that he remembers and acknowledges chaotic if done before pacifist, that was neat and adds to his character (as far as this game goes) I think.

However, onto the biggest, glaring issue I have with him.

Why. Why does he exist.

No, seriously.

In its attempt to make the world perfect, a world that blatantly only exists so the creator could make a save the goat ending, mind, there's no reason for the goat to need to be saved at all. Nor for him to exist after dying back when Chara lived with the dreemurrs.

Asgore isn't killing humans, so the souls don't need to be absorbed by anyone. Frisk can just enter the archive and lend their power to destroy the forcefield themselves, so there's no ultimatum like there is in undertale - there's no implied tradeoff of Frisk's life for the freedom of monsters without twinkly's intervention. In undertale, flowey's messing around opened up an ending that would've otherwise been impossible, something that worked for everyone.

Without him existing at all here, frisk could've broken the barrier just fine. All it really added to pacifist was a couple extra boss fights and asgore being dead for two minutes. And him being saved I guess but again, there's no real story justification for him being here EXCEPT to pat yourself on the back for saving him.

Why was he created? In undertale it's pretty clear - they wanted a vessel to hold all the souls in for now during the true lab experiments. He exists because Alphys selected the first flower to ever grow in the garden and injected it with determination that she extracted from the human souls.

... But all the humans are... Alive and well in outertale? They don't need a vessel to contain their souls. They don't need to extract any determination from anyone. Again, why do they HAVE vials of determination? And why did she inject one into a flower?

AND THAT'S THE OTHER BIG THING. It's established she and sans injected a starling flower for... Whatever reason. SO WHY THE HELL IS TWINKLY A CARTOON STAR?!

This point makes absolutely no sense at all. He looks absolutely nothing like a starling flower nor does he behave like a flower at all, which is confusing if that's what he started as. Honestly, I think it would've made more sense to just keep him as Flowey if they were gonna include him at all, and just have his appearance reflect a starling flower instead of a golden flower.

This applies to his fight too. Mechanically I think it's AWESOME, but the visuals are... Just very very boring. A huge part of why his fight in the original is so good it's the bizarre and chaotic nature of it, the horror elements, and the way so much of flowey's trauma in terms of how he was created and the things he finds scary was put on blast for all to see. The combination of mechanical and organic elements, all the plants and insects... Idk, just going 'hmm he's a star. Let's have him go through a star life cycle' is boring, there's no visual appeal.

If his creation is so vague and wishy washy, this would've been a great opportunity to flesh it out more. How was he created? What kinds of technology and machinery did alphys use to put all this together? How did she (or roman????? unclear) get the determination? What does twinkly remember?

That leads me onto a tangentially related topic - his trauma. I... Don't think this was shown very well. He talks a bit about BEING traumatised from the lab, but telling isn't the same as showing and canon flowey is terrible at hiding it, whereas I'd just as easily believe outertale Asriel made it up for sympathy points. He never really projects, he doesn't force anyone else to experience anything like he did, nothing like that. He's just a cocky asshole who likes killing, and who eventually decides to start being nice.

This game constantly seemed to be speedrunning ways to get him from being twinkly to being Asriel as quickly as possible in almost every single route which... Huh???? It's weird. Would've been nice to let him be a star more rather than just Asriel...

(final amendment bc I lost a huge chunk of this essay originally and had to rewrite it, and I'm realising I didn't manage to fit this in this time... How does a single monster soul let him get his Asriel form again? Sure he's still treated as if soulless and it doesn't make him a good person, but if he was 'so tired of being a star', why hadn't he tried doing this sooner? It makes no sense...)

For a game that exists to give him a good ending, it's so ironic how little he needs to exist at all in this world. Just goes to show what it looks like when you go too far with 'fixing' things or removing stuff you seem 'too problematic' for the sake of being wholesome or whatever.

Chara

Speaking of which... Look I'm just gonna say it. This version of Chara sucks so bad.

Chara is one of my favourite characters - they're really interesting, morally grey, and a fascinating way for undertale as a game to interface with us as players.

They're a child who likely saw the worst of humanity, then found themselves in a home with family who genuinely loved them once they fell down and met the monsters. Their intense saviour complex made them feel like the best way to help their family was to sacrifice their own life to get enough souls to break them free (and once they realised they had control, get payback against the humans while they were at it). They could be mean-spirited and a prankster. They valued efficiency HIGHLY. Their favourite number was nine because it's the limit, the absolute, a way to stop hurting and to stop others hurting.

And by doing geno, you can push this fixation on stats further. Max out all your stats. Gain power. Get stronger. Become invincible. Nobody can hurt any more if the world is gone. And ofc, they stand as the final arbiter of consequences for the player. Your punishment for killing everyone and for pushing them into believing it needs to be completed. Chara both IS is and is separate from us in a way that can't really be fully disentangled and it's really, really cool.

Anyway, enough gushing about undertale Chara. What's outertale Chara in comparison?

... Nothing.

They're nothing.

Outertale Chara narrates occasionally. They're a ghost that follows frisk around, but aren't confined to that, and have been actively wandering the underground since their death. They also still have a SOUL for some reason? This part doesn't really make sense at all.

Other than sacrificing themself and maybe wanting to take out a few humans after Asriel absorbs them, they don't do anything that could be considered bad ever. The most devious thing they ever do is snatch Asriel's diary to leave a silly comment in there when they first arrive at the outpost (sans does this with Toriel's phone in undertale tpe for comparison lmao). Despite what Asriel seems to believe, Chara is completely absent from the chaotic route - never getting corrupted, never caring about our stats, never wanting to hurt anyone, never even trying to make us face any consequences. They're just... Not here. For a character so prevalent in the murder based route of undertale this is fucking wild.

They all but vanish if you so much as say something slightly mean to someone, too! It's strange, makes no sense, and just like with sans, it feels like they overcompensated waaaaaaay too much for the people who insist they're evil. On top of that, if you do chaotic before lv0, they don't even remember chaotic happening! They'd may as well have just been a member of the ghost family who likes following Frisk around when they're especially nice. Like Asgore and alphys, they've been sanded down and de-clawed to be 'wholesome' and 'perfect', and it just results in a bland, boring character who loses anything that made them interesting, nuanced and fun.

'Chara wasn't the greatest person'... Why, though? They don't have enough substance in this game for that line to really have as much impact.

Frisk

I'm gonna be honest - I actually ADORED their frisk at first, and I think that's because I started with a neutral run and ended up drawing them a lot. They felt silly and mischievous and interesting, and this continued into chaotic. They seem pretty chill with what's going on but then take that even further by being hilariously affectionate with Asriel and still doing silly things like being up for picking up the electrodampening fluid or drinking directly out of the fountain. They felt like a funny little mini-kris (save for being okay with all the murder ofc).

Then uhhhhhhh... That's when I experienced the second chaotic ending, the one without Asriel, as well as lv0. I feel like they definitely DID try to lean on the Kris angle on purpose in terms of their feelings on being controlled and stuff but it???? Just doesn't work very well? There's no ambiguity to this version of frisk once you've seen all the routes. Just like EVERYONE ELSE, they're just a perfect little angel who would never do anything wrong and anything past lv0 is just the eeeeeevil player influence or whatever. Come on, we have deltarune for that kinda approach to control 😭 (though even then, Kris is a layered and interesting character who isn't goodness and innocence personalised, and that's why they're cool)

In undertale, we have no idea what frisk is like as a person. WOULD they spare everyone without our influence? Would they kill? Would they be a scared child lashing out in self defense? Would they run from everything, then give up and let themselves die permanently somewhere? We just don't know! We're not supposed to know! It feels like it went back to the very early fandom interpretation where frisk is Good And Sweet and Innocent while Chara is evil incarnate - except this time they're BOTH the former.

It's a contradiction too! Why in the Asriel chaotic route are they so down to follow him, and pet him, and hug him every chance they get if they don't like all the stuff we're making them so? The player has no influence over Twinkly. Every single thing he did, he chose to do, and yet even if the only time frisk has seen him was him destroying their mercy button and forcing them to kill for him, they seem to love him to pieces and go along with whatever he says happily. What.

I feel like they didn't know what to do with Frisk here at all and it shows.

Other characters

This has been ridiculously long, but to quickly go over non-major characters... They did very few things to make Roman seem interesting, the amount of stuff hes implied to have helped Asgore with just reduces even further any influence or impact alphys had, and (a smaller nitpick)... Why didn't he use times new roman as a font when we DID see him speak in the archive/on the signal stars? It's such a missed opportunity...

Burgerpants was fun... Kinda. Developing him like this feels like something that should've happened DURING the actual game rather than before it though because it made him feel like a whole other person entirely? The poisoned food was very funny though.

Why is Snowy now Stardrake when his dad hasn't changed at all and Crystal looks like any other snowdrake? That was bizarre.

I actually really liked the humans! Establishing them as actual characters was really fun, and I especially like justice. Justice, at least in my opinion, is probably the most interesting character in this whole game tbh - someone who tried to do good but ultimately caused more harm than good, while NOT downplaying it, showing the consequences directly, and showing them work to try to make things better. The way we don't grab their item like the others in the twinkly fight nor go through an area for them in the archive (and just talk to them instead) really adds to their intrigue - what are they like? Who did they know? Is there something they don't want us to see? How are they strong enough to not need us to grab their weapon at all to lend their help? I think it's get funny that the only character I'm fully praising is the clover-adjacent one. Justice outertale they could never make me hate you

(that being said... seeing the way this game is clearly just supposed to be a 'fix' for undertale does sour my thoughts on the humans a little. did they only do this bc they thought them NOT being full characters in ut was bad/a problem with it? 🥴 This applies to the additional monster kid story focus too).

Speaking of monster kid... Them being an orphan was clearly just a plot device to give asgore more kids and therefore feel like he won more than Toriel. Monster kid in undertale seems like they probably did have real and loving parents, and they have a sister too!!!! Would've been nice if they'd at least done something with their sister :(

This got... Way longer than I expected, so I'll stop here. But outertale definitely gave me an even bigger appreciation for other ut fangames. My gripes with deltatraveler section 3 feel much smaller in comparison now, if tsus misses the mark on Flowey later down the line they've at least already done most characters so much more justice, and it really puts into perspective all the heart and soul that went into kissy cutie, as well as its genuine love got the source material and characters.

Sorry outertale, you weren't for me. That being said, if anyone disagrees with any of this then that's fine! These are all just my opinions and feelings on it after going through all the routes and talking about it with friends. Media is always gonna resonate with different people in different ways and that's a good thing! If your perspective on any of this is different and if you had way more fun with it, I'm glad you did and I genuinely wish I could've felt the same. I feel like at the very least, making it has probably been a great learning experience for the devs and I really hope they carry on making games and improving their skills. Hope y'all are thriving and having fun regardless 💙

#xan plays outertale #I'm not tagging it w the actual game name. that wouldn't feel right #again: most of this is salt. it's also an opinion piece #it was just nice to get my thoughts out there yknow?#if anyone manages to read all this i respect your perseverance tbh lol #ps out hater hours

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kooki914 · 6 months ago

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Hi again kooki! Hope you're doing great!

I LOVE your characters analysis and theories and after the newsletter thing, I really wanted to ask about your opinion on the Berdly's alleged invitation for Kris to go to the festival together. One of the problems that bothers me is that, I don't know, I hope this isn't just me, but to me, it seems Toby is creating a love triangle between Kris, Ralsei and Berdly if Kris really goes with Berdly to the festival. Precisely because of the romantic implications between Kris and Ralsei in the tunnel of love and Kris's playful little flirtations with him. And i feel like i need to see more thoughts on it - i feel like the only one thinking of how this would work? :( Now I wonder how Kris choices would be in game, if they would answer yes or no genuinely, Although the choices don't matter lol Imo, I dare say I would love to see a kind of denial on Kris's part (if Noelle ask Susie to the festival first), since Susie's question about the festival, I feel like they want to go with HER, on top of everything, and I would love to see a kind of jealousy on their character.

Maybe it's just my favoritism, I also thought about Susie asking who Kris would take to the festival and the Ralsei choice + wanting to bring Ralsei and Lancer to the Light World, I feel like Ralsei might even feel a bit more excluded than he already is in the game if all his friends were always having fun in the world without him. And if that's the case... I don't know what I would do other than cry for my baby boy 😔💔

My ask ends here, I hope I didn't miss the point of my question 😅 from such a small dialogue you can get a lot of information and thoughts and I think that's what happened here haha, but anyway, that's it!! I wish you all the best and a happy new year for you!! ^^ ✨

Happy new year to you, too! And, if I caught it correctly, the point of the ask is my opinions on the implied Kris/Berdly as a legitimate pairing in the last newsletter? And general thoughts about how that feels exclusionary towards Ralsei? As your ask is already long, so I'll put my answer under a readmore-

In short, I didn't really pay much mind to that bit of dialogue that was revealed. As a general rule of thumb, I assume all content outside of the game (newsletters, sweepstakes, merch) doesn't actually carry weight for the overarching plot. Some could argue with me, but, as an example, the only thing in the trailer for chapter 1 were characters hanging out and a running gag of too many dogs blocking everything because of "spoilers", and everything that WAS shown wasn't any kind of impactful spoiler at all. Or, the trailer for chapter 2, which only featured the first cutscene of the chapter and nothing else, not even showing us Susie and Kris landing in Castletown. I believe the supplementary material we're getting right now fills the same purpose, teasers that show us snippets of comic relief or set-dressing that doesn't actually impact the deeper themes of the story, or the narrative beats of character arcs.

With this in mind, my thought for the Berdly dialogue was, originally, that it can only be triggered if you didn't break his arm in the Queen battle AND if you gave the present to Berdly in Cyber City rather than literally anyone else. It's something the game actively mocks as an action (adding the starwalker to your team on TOP of Berdly in some cases and them both just disappearing in the next room, since it's all just a gag), and if I remember correctly it was only added after a playtester told Toby Berdly had become their favourite character. (I might be misremembering that trivia though don't quote me on that!) I imagine this dialogue follows that thread? Where if Kris was nice to Berdly and included him, Berdly decides to also be nice to Kris and include them.

I don't think there's any kind of love triangle is being set up between Kris Berdly and Ralsei, and I'm not just saying that to ease your concearns. Don't let popular fanon fool you, Kris seems to harbour no positive feelings towards Berdly even by the end of ch2. I really don't see romance between them implied in the game, with or without that bit of dialogue from the newsletter. Krerdly as a ship SKYROCKETED after ch2 when it didn't really exist in ch1, and I think Toby might just be giving a little nod to that with that dialogue. Ralsei is excluded from his friends in a myriad of ways, but I really don't think BERDLY is a contributing factor. Again, fanon likes putting a spotlight on him because people grew fond of him, but narratively speaking Berdly is as ir/relevant right now as Catti and Jockington are.

Overall I understand the worry of a forced love triangle, god knows that's how I felt during most of Cyber City as I played with Kris and Noelle pining after Ralsei and Susie respectively, but I (tentatively) have faith in the game to not actually play a love triangle completely straight. (Even with everything in the snowgrave route, I wouldn't consider Noelle/Kris/Ralsei to be a love triangle, at least not one being used in a trope-y way, Ralsei/Kris and Susie/Noelle are just the two main pairings in the game and they aren't messed with all tat much.) It just seems cheap and unearned to shove Berdly into that dynamic, especially since he's acted like a bully towards Kris for possibly even longer than Susie has (as she moved in recently but Berdly's been boasting since he was a kid), and Kris at no point shows interest in Berdly other than to mock him. You CAN make a ship out of that but I don't think it's gonna be canon, nor that plausible if I'm being biased lmao

On the Ralsei side of things, if Kris ends up romantically involved with any of the lightners I think Ralsei's true and honest first instinct would be to just back away and sort of re-instate "his place" in the group dynamic, aka full doormat mode. I really, REALLY hope we see him have some self awareness of the fact that he's constantly being left out, but I don't think it's going to happen any time soon. His purpose IS to stay in the background, essentially a piece of the dark worlds rather than a fully realised person, but I'm hoping that, at some point, he's going to yearn for more. The town fair might be the perfect place to do it, too, as it's entirely in the light world and it, inevitably, leaves him out of it as he doesn't even (seem to) have an item he can turn into to be carried around. It'd be interesting to see him actually GRAPPLE with the fact that his friends are "more important" than he is, and maybe give him a sense of worth that doesn't entirely hinge on their attention and approval. Though, I don't want to get too optimistic, as there's some WEIRD shit going on around Ralsei and his autonomy.

Out of all the darkners he seems the most self-aware but also the most resigned to his fate, even more than Seam I'd argue. Where they waste the days away in unfulfilled monotony, Ralsei ACTIVELY SEEKS unfulfillment in order to lift up his friends, and as much as I WANT Ralsei to go crazy go stupid it's going to take a lot of convincing, and I don't know if that can happen through Susie and Kris as they ARE the people he's worshipping and putting himself down FOR. It's always just a whole bag of worms with this kid, and in the end if it's any consolation, Kris has two hands. Though I don't know if either Berdly or Ralsei can handle polyamory in a healthy way LMAO

All in all I consider that Kralsei must be canonized.

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javert · 18 days ago

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this is a very long post trying to dissect my current writing problems (which i am writing rather than writing anything productive, but you know, sometimes it's good to figure out a plan by talking through a problem)

anyway if you are interested in very nuts and bolts/how the sausage gets made of writing, you may find this post of interest. otherwise, the readmore is here to spare your dash

Here are my writing problems as I see them, not in any particular order, just in the order that they have occurred to me.

One: I have some genuine, non-trivial, flaws and weaknesses as a writer on the craft level. These weaknesses are mainly structural— I find it very very hard to “beat a story into shape.” This isn’t exactly a pacing problem, nor is it a story logic problem. It’s about… and this is very hard to even explain even though I know what the problem is— it’s about making sure that the emotional throughline of the novel and the events of the novel are working in lockstep.

This is why it’s not exactly a pacing issue— a novel like Lighting Out for the Territories actually has decent pacing-qua-pacing— major events are happening in almost every chapter— but people find that novel so unbearably tedious to read that they drop the entire series. Even a much better novel that readers like a lot more (pick almost any, but I’ll pick Servants of the Pharaoh as my mental reference frame) has this issue. The events happen, and have logical cause and effect, and there’s even an emotional thruline, but there’s something broken about it lol. I’m not doing a good job at explaining this. But it plagues— absolutely plagues— every novel that I have ever written.

Many of them limp along and are good enough at disguising this issue “in the weeds of the writing” — like the moment-to-moment, chapter-to-chapter beats are strong enough to keep a reader fully engaged, but even in the best cases, the story is not as good as it could be if I learned how to solve this issue. Like SOTP and SMST are “good books” (in fact, SMST might be the best thing I’ve ever written), but they fall apart when you zoom out.

like i guess the bluntest way of putting this issue is that the overall simplest narrative arc of the story-- emotional rising action, climax, and falling action-- often feel muted in comparison to whatever the moment-to-moment beat is. like I said i'd take SOTP as an example, because I LIKE that book, I think it's a good book, almost every reader enjoys it, etc. but let me break down what the plot looks like structurally

(this is going to be painful to look at actually lol, i'm preemptively bracing myself)

so there's a couple major plots in SOTP, in descending order of importance

Yang's career in the Imperial military / his desire to reform the goldenbaum dynasty into something less horrific / to keep the people he cares about safe

Yang's troubled romantic life

Kircheis and his life problems

now, on some level, all three of these plots "work together"-- they form the whole story, and each one interacts with the others on several levels-- factual, emotional, thematic. but here are the events that actually happen in the story (by chapter number). this is written in very broad terms so that even people who have no clue what this story is about can follow my train of logic here. those who have read this book will have to forgive me failing to elaborate on a lot of the intricacies that actually make the book fun to read

Yang is assigned to his first job out of school, working for someone his former teacher assigned him to. He's given responsibility above his station, and he copes with it as best he can, despite being an outsider.

Yang immediately runs into a major moral dilemma, and chooses to sacrifice himself to save a bunch of civilians. he's spared by the skin of his teeth due to the themes of the novel and the fact that's it's chapter two lol

Yang goes back home and tries to repair a bunch of relationships from the previous book, which are now all on weird ground due to him being in a different phase of life. there's romantic drama here + yang gets a new boss and starts a new post. this chapter is very theme driven

Yang meets one of his love interests in this book, a noblewoman named Magdalena, at a party, and she immediately traps him in drama that he doesn't enjoy. again this is mostly a theme chapter.

Yang, while working his new job, is forced to make professional connections and prove himself in society. in this chapter he provides information to another character that will prove very useful later (it's not really that important to the actual major plot of this book though lol)

a chapter that is almost entirely about romantic drama. yang's other love interest (a man named reuenthal, who is currently involved with another friend of yang's) arrives on the planet, and the three of them attend a party at magdalena's house. it is revealed that magdalena is romantically involved with a woman named ingrid who is engaged to the crown prince. this is because this book revolves around crazy gay drama lol.

ingrid, magdalena's situationship, gets married to the prince. magdalena and yang socialize at the wedding with all the royalty and have an overall terrible time

yang and co terrible romantic drama happens. it's revealed that the crown prince is treating ingrid horribly. yang concocts a plan to help her escape the planet. this involves him switching jobs once again.

the plan goes horrifyingly wrong when, due to fearing for her life, ingrid murders the crown prince. magdalena begs yang to help her cover up the murder. they manage to pin the murder on a bunch of anti-monarchist revolutionaries, and ingrid escapes/is exiled off planet with help of the (maybe not so gentle) hands of a religious organization that she belonged to, though not before giving birth to a son

tonal whiplash sudden POV switch. narrative changes to Kircheis POV as he and his boyfie Martin kinda sorta participate in anti-monarchist revolutionary activities; kircheis ends up getting arrested in Martin's place. in order to get kircheis free, his mother bribes a judge-- his sentence is to attend a military academy.

coincidentally, it's the military academy that yang is teaching at. yayyyy

to be completely honest i forget what happens in chapter 12. i think it's mostly yang and kircheis hanging out and kircheis angsting about his relationship with Martin (this is a recurring theme). oh right i think the information that i mentioned would be relevant earlier becomes relevant in this chapter. but it's ngl a bit of a nothingburger in the overall plot.

reuenthal and his current boyfriend mittermeyer break up because mittermeyer needs to get StraightMarried. this finally allows yang to hook up with reuenthal yayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

relatively lowkey kircheis and martin scenes in this chapter

mittermeyer gets married and everyone has a terrible terrible time

remember the dead crown prince? kircheis investigates that and comes to the conclusion that yang is lying about everything

STOP. PROCEED NO FURTHER. for some godforsaken reason i wrote a novella distinct from the actual book that slots in between 2 chapters of this book and is vital for understanding the plot. it's about reuenthal/yang/mittermeyer relationship drama. essentially reuenthal and mittermeyer get back together. anyway on to the actual chapter 17. actually i have no clue what happens in ch 17 and i'm not going to look. oh wait actually i think it's a kircheis chapter about how kircheis has multiple divided loyalties due to things that are happening in other books of the series.

drama that happens offscreen causes yang to get wrapped up in mittermeyer's problems and need to rescue him. this is a very long chapter with lots of moving parts, but at the end yang ends up working for a different guy who he hates

the end. that's the book.

now i cannot stress enough that the moment-to-moment experience of reading SOTP is really genuinely good. everybody likes this book! but can you point out like. what the arc is here? because i cannot lol. it's a structural disaster area even if all of the different beats are interacting well on both a logical (cause -> effect -> cause) and thematic/emotional level

this book is partially Like That because of the following factors

i was just sorta vibing and playing in the mental/thematic space without as much of an actual plan as i would like. i was lining up dominoes so that i could topple them down someday

it was 2020 and so i was a way worse writer back then (but i picked this novel as my example b/c in this arena i haven't improved THAT much)

i cannot stress enough that this book and its associated novella are combined 200k words and were written in 3 months (chapter 1 was posted April 27th, chapter 18 was posted August 8th)

i am a web serial author.......................

and it really is i think the last point that has screwed me over to an unbelievable degree lol. writing web serials encourages several extremely good writing skills to develop (write clean, engaging first drafts very quickly. have chapters that really Function on the chapter level-- you need to encourage people to want to click on their email notifications every time they get one) and some horrifyingly bad ones (never learn how to edit, never get the chance to consider the Book as a unit instead of either as part of the arc of the larger serial or just a series of chapters, the emphasis on satisfying chapters leads to a flattened experience of the course of a book, etc)

and like. man. several different thoughts happening here

obviously on a basic level, this is WHY people use shitty tools like save the cat, and they hammer their manuscripts so that EXACTLY 10% of the runtime is spent on "the fun and games section" in early act 2 or whatever. but i hate this, am opposed to it on principle, and furthermore i don't actually think i need it.

like, i'm aware of what my issue is and i'm aware of exactly how to solve it. i just don't let myself (?)

i can try to clarify

ok. here's the thing. the way i figure out how to write the events in any book, or chapter, i'm always starting with the question "At the end of this, what do I want the end state to be? what do I want to have accomplished? What do I want the reader to feel or understand?" and that's a good place to start-- and once you have a question, you can get the answer.

I want SOTP to end with Yang working for Duke Braunschweig, so that he's on a thematically interesting "side" of the Imperial Civil war when that breaks out

Why would Yang be working for him? Yang doesn't like him, and would prefer to stay out of it.

Yang has to work for him voluntarily, because he sees it as a way of sacrificing himself to solve a more important problem for one of his friends.

What's the problem? Whose problem is it?

etc etc etc. and ofc back in SOTP days, i hadn't really fleshed out this theory of how to write in as many words, and i was just operating on vibes, but subconsciously this was what I was doing. and it works great for constructing a logical thruline and a thematic thruline. but it fucking sucks for making a plot that has the right "arc energy". this way of brainstorming doesn't work the chain of events in any given "size"-- it makes a fairly naturalistic chain of events.

but. as one of the few good pieces of writing advice says-- the goal of writing dialogue is not to make your characters speak in a completely naturalistic way. that would suck ass to read lol. the goal is to write dialogue in a way that is "realer than real"-- it is a tool to communicate many things that are larger than the words that are actually being said. if you make your dialogue compelling, it becomes convincing despite not being entirely naturalistic. i think i'm pretty good at this-- my characters do not speak in natural ways at all, but people consistently cite my dialogue as feeling natural lol. i'm not trying to brag here lol-- i'm just expounding on the theory

and so like. it's pretty obvious that every other aspect of the story /should/ follow that same rule. i am-- as i've said before-- kinda a trad when it comes to the theory of fiction. that "realer than real, truer than true" aspect is not PoMo... :( they're gonna kick me out of the avant guarde... :(

sorry it is late and i am tired but i want to finish my thoughts here before i go to bed. anyway. structure should operate in the same way. the chain of events has to be logical, but it does not have to be naturalistic (and you can see what the effects of 'pure naturalism' are if you go read ie a quest thread where events are determined by dice roll). it should follow an arc, and through the way the arc itself carries meaning, that will make the events /feel/ natural to the reader, even if they're not exactly.

and. ok. i see the problem. i see the solution. what's my fucking issue?

well the issue is that i don't know how to edit lol. when i come up with a story through that above "backwards mapping" process, I get attached to it, for one thing, and I can't mentally picture breaking it apart and replacing the events with different ones. like as soon as i have answered one of these questions for myself, it FEELS like it must be the true answer, even if i could have (by random happenstance) thought of something different. i don't like the feeling of reintroducing possibility in places where things already feel solid

this is a personal problem, and i've allowed it to get so bad because i don't edit. and you can say "oh haven't you rewritten itsoh 1" and yeah, i have-- but the itsoh 1 rewrite is crucially bad in many of the same ways that the og was! i mean, i fixed some of the pacing jank (i cut like, idk, 100k words out? lol) but the course of events, which has one violent climax at around the 1/3 mark of the story, and the rest spirals out from there and is kinda boring ngl, remains exactly the same! lol! i was too attached to the sequence of events that "felt like the true story" as if the story wasn't just something i made up cause it sounded cool as a web serial plot point in 2018. like. i for real do not need to be married to this shit. and yet i am.

i think-- though i'm not entirely sure-- i could force myself to break all of these terrible habits by the simple act of doing the unthinkable: making actual structural edits to any given book. put myself through a developmental editing boot camp.

years ago, i did the equivalent with my godawful pacing nightmare, and i basically solved that problem. my pacing can still be a little jank (see this whole discussion), but my pacing issues are not bloat issues anymore, and they used to be primarily bloat problems. kinda a double edged sword in the end b/c by fixing my bloat issues i was like :) well that must mean my pacing is fine :) which is obviously not correct lol

anyway at the real heart of all this and all my current angst is that like, idk, i've been writing for 7 years now, like seriously fucking writing-- i'm approaching 3 million words of stories that anybody can go read. and like not to brag but i do genuinely think that i am a seriously good writer. like really good. and some of that's ego ofc but i also have straight up put in the hours (it's not a case of raw talent lol-- you can read the og itsoh and see what i was like before i put in the hours-- it's pretty bad 😅)

anyway this just results in me feeling like, i don't really know where i'm going from here or how to get there. to sum it up

clearly if i keep writing web serials (which i like to do!!! i love writing web serials!!!) i am not going to solve this structural issue. it's endemic to the web serial as a format because the only way to go in a draft is to start at page one and end when you finish. you can't edit except on a chapter level.

also, web serials are clearly not a path for me if i actually want people to read my books. i think the hypothetical "market segment" that i'm trying to capture-- readers of emotionally intense, serious, thematically heavy SFF-- is, and i'm sorry to admit it, not the typical web serial audience. i'd love to maybe capture robnost's audience, but i'm more grounded (ie less high concept) of a writer than robnost is. i'm less action heavy than wildbow is. idek who the other big names are in even approaching my genre are these days lol, i've kinda fallen off the web serial readership train sadly. but the point being is that i don't think i'm capable of getting people to read my work if i keep working on web serials. and getting people to read my writing is kinda the whole point

and i do, admittedly, have an ego. i want the official stamp of approval from the "authority" of tradpub. and i'm not gonna lie, i could use the money too lol. so i keep wanting that, even though i don't know how to get there. and the flop of whale novel really really hurt lmao. it wasn't so much the rejection that bothered me, but the strain of having a futile but inescapable hope hanging over you like a cloud for months and months is just just psychologically brutal in a way that sounds stupid until you experience it yourself.

and also... this is the worst one because it's the factor most under my own control. i simply always want to keep moving forward. i feel like i have such a limited amount of time in my life and so many things i want to do, it's kind of stupid to not just run forward as fast and as hard as i can. get it done. check it off my to-do list. if i'm spending months doing developmental edits to a book, that's months i'm not spending writing something new, something that could be good right out of the gate, because i've learned my lessons this time! i swear! i've learned them and the next project will be perfect! but the next project always finds some new way to twist and unveil a flaw-- if it's in the work or in myself, i don't know.

so.

that's the position i'm in.

and you can see very clearly how this all comes back to EHI, the project i'm working on now. I actually do think it has a bit better of an "arc" than most other projects i've written, but it's broken. i've got people telling me it needs to cut 50k words and double in length at the same time. the same person is saying those two contradictory things lol. and like, i get it. i understand what that means about this project

and i think these are fixable problems, if i finish this draft and then rip it back apart, and spend two months breaking it on the wheel. but those two months could be having me write a different project, a better project, a more marketable project, or a project that would make my existing audience happy, or a project that would knock something off my to-do list, etc

and also. like. it's gotta be admitted that i have some kind of subclinical bipolar disorder (well. everything in life is subclinical if you never go to the doctor lol), and right now i'm Up, and that is a state that has a time limit, and as they say, the master of the house does not know the hour when the thief is coming lol.

so. idk. do i finish this ehi draft? yeah probably. do i edit it? idk. do i try to go through the query trenches again with it? even more complicated of a question.

and the rest of my projects-- i feel like i could get stuck in an endless cycle of rewriting things if i don't just cut my losses at some point. that's a major web serial author failure mode, and i don't want to become a statistic there lol. but i also hate the feeling of knowing that i could do better now.

it's the same feeling i had when i was in undergrad. i'd bomb a test and feel like an idiot, but the next unit, when we had to use what we'd learned in the previous one, somehow it'd click, always just a little too late.

#natalie does textposts #natalie writes convoluted fanfiction #natalie writes a web serial

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zarvasace · 1 year ago

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Ugh tumblr is not cooperating with my readmores and art. Oh well we can do it this way. AU masterpost

Say hello to Shackle and Nothing, dark Wind and dark Time :D more art and long descriptions beneath the cut!

Shackle

Shackle is dark Wind.

To me, one of Wind’s core themes is freedom. He goes wherever he wants on his boat (and has fun), he frees a couple girls from the Helmaroc King, and when I think of him, I think of wild blue skies and an endless horizon. He loves life and is one of the most determined heroes.

Shackle, on the other hand, is a bit of a control freak. He doesn't mind not being in charge all the time (he does mind, but he doesn't like to be challenged, and knows that he'd lose any fight for the top place, so he pretends to not care) but he does mind when things don't go his way. If someone or something is annoying him or not listening to him, he will readily use one of the many chains he carries to threaten or restrain. He likes being in control of others, and he likes when people are afraid of him. He keeps fairies nearby, not so much in case of healing, but because he can shake their bottles and listen to them chime in fear.

Shackle is a rather skilled manipulator, and one of the few Darks that look pretty much human, so he's often the one to head excursions into town (Prince is more of a charismatic diplomat, but his powers don't work on whole crowds at a time.) Because of his strength and chains, he's often the one to be on Dire duty, something he doesn’t mind much. Shackle is also very fond of money and luxury. He’ll pinch rupees on anything that doesn't have to do with him, like someone else’s supplies, but he's happy to splurge on himself.

He doesn't have any mystical powers, but he does have enchanted chains that grow and shrink according to his needs. He eats food like any mortal. He's as young as Wind is but is more often successful at bluffing his way into bars and the like. He “jokes” often about earning a couple rupees from selling one of the others—usually Lost or Madness, or Nothing if he's being annoying (a normal occurrence.) Shackle’s ambition is to break free of the others and start a true pirate empire, and the way he wants to do that is by starting a slave trade. That way he can indulge his loves of intimidation and money at the same time.

In terms of design: Shackle is pale to Wind’s tan, a bit beefy to Wind’s young lankiness. He wears red instead of blue, leaning into the pirate aesthetic with sashes and belts and leather and eyeliner. He got a chain tattoo because he thought it was cool. He fears losing everything he has, and some of what he doesn't have.

The only thing that Shackle and Wind would agree on is that Aryll must be protected and lavished with gifts at every opportunity (even though Shackle hasn’t technically met her, yet.) He'd treat her like a princess—as long as she agreed with him about what a princess should be. He isn't a very good listener.

Nothing

Nothing is dark Time. He appears as a petulant child: sharp and angular and half-dead. He takes all of Time’s gremlin tendencies and turns them into cruel pranks and mean-spirited insults. Time is a leader, and Nothing intentionally holds the group back if he can get away with it. Nothing is resentful: he remembers fighting Time, though he, like Agony, is different now—he can think more clearly and has a purpose beyond just being something's guardian.

Nothing gets along best with Madness. He hates being given orders and actively goes the other way unless it was his idea. The group at large only barely puts up with him, but they keep him around for a good reason: he's kind of a genius. He knows dungeons, traps, and gimmicks like nobody’s business. He won't ever give advice on one of Depth’s plans if asked, but they've figured out that if they give Nothing an opening to dunk on someone and hurt one of the Heroes, he'll jump into it and put that genius to work. He's excellent at predicting what the heroes might do, which makes everything just that much more sinister.

On occasion, Nothing will fall into fugues. During these periods, he appears as an older teenager instead of a child, and he's virtually unresponsive. He'll move if prodded. He’ll fight—and fight very well—if told to, but he won't speak, the embodiment of his name. Pretty much everyone finds the contrast rather creepy. These periods don't last long, and soon enough, Nothing is back to his bratty younger self.

Most of all, Nothing wants everything Time has, but if given the option, he wouldn't take Time’s place. He innocently wishes he could be a hero, but he knows he can't be, so he's going to go as far the other direction as possible. He wants to build his own life. But the people around him wouldn't ever let that happen, so Nothing is bitter and lashes out, without any reason not to.

Nothing is designed very much after the Dark Link in Ocarina of Time’s Water Temple, with a few significant tweaks. He is based on young Link instead of the older one, and he is also covered in signs of decay. There are faint red and purple lines like veins on his skin, like corpses that began to decompose underwater, and his tunic and hat show signs of the same. When he appears as a teenager, the decay is even worse. His sword is patterned after the Master Sword, but is just a normal, nonmagical thing.

Nothing is the Hero of Nothing, a sad admittance of his own emptiness and a jab at Time’s forgotten timelines. He wouldn't even know how to seize the opportunity to be a hero of something if it showed up in front of him.

#my art #linked universe #lu z darks au #this is so. cringe.#but whatever #we'll be back to scifi times when i finish these #lu z darks shackle #lu z darks nothing

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yellow-faerie · 7 months ago

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@wormsontoast I do indeed have some thoughts about Archivist!Georgie (from the au vaguely outlined here) and since you showed a mild interest in it, I shall now tell you all about it here haha

So there are two things I kinda want to say before I keep going because this au has been changing and shifting in my head a lot and I want to get a bit more of it out into the world.

The first is that each archivist au is based off of as few changes as possible to the canon timeline, aiming (ideally) for only one change that causes ripples throughout the timeline. For example, in the Gertrude-causes-the-apocalypse au, the one change is that Agnes and Gertrude get bound when they are both much younger and the web manipulates things from there, yada yada that's not why we're here BUT you see the vision.

The other thing is that my initial intention was that most people would have a pair, forming some sort of couple or QPR, two people against the world kinda thing - one of them would be the Archivist and one of them would be their apocalypse + 1. This was mostly because (in my head at least) I saw one very eye-aligned character in each couple.

BUT I have recently been doing a re-listen and one thing that stands out to me is that so many of the main characters want to know things, that I think a lot of them could have ended up in the Archivist position in fact. Martin seems to actively encourage reading statements in S3, and Tim definitely has the motivation (when the circus gets involved at least) to be manipulated into the position - more curious though are Daisy and Georgie.

I'll leave a potential archivist!Daisy post for another day (because that's a wild au and a half haha) and talk instead about Georgie, who was meant to be the purpose of this post lol (I'll pop it under a readmore)

So, Georgie - the first thing is how does she become the Archivist? I think the point of divergence for this au would be that Georgie and Jon don't break up during Uni (or just after) and keep their relationship kinda going for a while, and when Jon mentions joining the Magnus Institute, Georgie goes with him.

The real question is why. Georgie in the podcast is fairly avidly against chasing the monsters, so I can see her as taking a job there as a way of keeping Jon safe - I think she sees him as quite naive for his scepticisim and knows that she will not talk him out of it, so she better just be there to stop him from going somewhere he shouldn't.

Jon and Georgie do break-up though, although fairly amicably. They keep living together because it's way cheaper than living alone in London and they are friends. Georgie also starts WTG but it's very much a side project to work (one that she keeps putting off making her full time job, even though she wants to, because the Institute's library is just too good for research).

She's also the one to push him towards the cute librarian with whom Jon has several cringefail attempts to woo before they start tentatively dating.

I reckon that during the course of being in research (with Jon and Tim and Sasha), Georgie gets marked by the web. They'd marked Jon but then Georgie had come, and so they saw an opportunity in her (or wanted a back-up just in case).

Either way, by the time that Gertrude dies, Georgie is the one that Elias chooses as the next Archivist (and I honestly think that Gertrude might have thought that Georgie would be the next Archivist too - Sasha is good but you can't beat actual fearlessness coupled with good sense).

She gets to take with her Jon and Sasha and Tim (Elias is like...let's make sure I have plenty of hostages to work with when the time is right) and that's the Archives team sorted. They're fairly competent, considering the fact that none of them have a library science degree.

Season 1 goes much the same but we meet Martin when he escapes Prentiss. Jon has been going to the library for Georgie, getting out books on archiving and the like and periodically finding references, mostly because he's the one who's closest to the library staff (well, one library staff member in particular).

But Jon mentions that Georgie assigned him the Vittery statement - something about facing his fears - and he hates it, so Martin suggests they go together after work, and he would deal with any remaining spiders for Jon. (Who is Martin, if not down bad for Jon?)

(That is, of course, a rhetorical question lol)

Something something, Martin gets trapped in his apartment for two weeks by the Worm Woman despite not actually being in the Archives. Then he comes straight to the Archives to give a statement, where Jon is working late and waiting for Georgie to finish so they can go home. Jon is the one that suggests Martin stay in the Archives, after he turned down the offer of staying on their sofa.

So Martin lives in document storage and continues working in the library with the rest of his coworkers none-the-wiser, and gets kinda absorbed into the Archives nonsense as Sasha meets Michael etc. etc. And Martin and Jon get really close, from late nights and evenings and weird little dates.

It goes from like...dating to being genuinely quite serious; they have been together for probably like 2 or 3 years by this point but this is a tipping point in their relationship. They keep talking about how they'll move in together after all this is over, so Georgie can finally have her home studio and Martin doesn't have to go back to his flat.

Anyway-

There's also Melanie. She comes in because Georgie was one of the people she contacted in her search for answers and Georgie was like...come and make a statement, maybe we can do something.

Melanie is slightly less derisive of the Magnus Institute (only slightly) mostly because she likes Georgie more lol

Martin is in the library when Prentiss attacks, and is the one that Sasha finds when she runs up from the Archives. Jon and Georgie and Tim are down in the archives, knocking in walls and fighting off worms, and Sasha and Martin go find the CO2 suppression system.

Sasha turns the right corner; Martin doesn't and ends up in Artefact Storage.

Tim finds Gertrude's body. The tide of worms split him off from Georgie and Jon who end up getting wormed in the archives before the fire suppression system gets set off.

They have a few weeks off. Not!Martin and Jon do move in together as had been planned, staying at Georgie's while sorting out a place together. Before everyone returns to the Institute (Martin got the time off too because he was deemed sufficiently traumatised by it all), Jon and Martin move in together, Sasha and Tim have another ill-advised hook-up and Georgie ends up...alone.

Queue the paranoia arc. Georgie might not be able to feel fear but I think that would make a paranoia arc even funnier, because she is convinced that she is seeing things Rationally only for her very much not doing that.

So the thoughts get a bit vague from here. I have some thoughts for each character though!

Martin is obviously taken by the Not!Them in this and so that really fucks Jon up. Jon is Georgie's oldest friend and very much her closest support net, often being the one to feel fear in her place (like she uses him to gauge how she should react to a situation, something that developed because there hasn't really been a time since Georgie returned to Uni where they haven't been in relatively close proximity).

So Jon goes off the deep-end after the revelation of Martin's death and the fact that he wasn't even living with the guy. He takes the responsibility of Martin's mother onto his shoulders, he literally ties up all of Martin's loose ends and then I think he just...stops caring.

It's a mix between Tim's complete S3 despair and Jon's S2 paranoia. He literally cannot trust anyone anymore, no matter how hard he tries, except maybe Georgie because of the whole Archivist thing. And so he goes to the circus with Georgie and Tim and Basira and Daisy.

And he is the one to press the button and die.

I don't usually like taking that away from Tim, because it is a decision so tightly linked to his backstory but I actually put him as ending up in the Coffin in this, shoved in there by a well-meaning Gerogie with her mind being twisted by the Unknowing.

I like the idea of Georgie having a bit of a superiority complex in this AU, where she is sure that she knows better than everyone else because she can't feel fear so she can see things Rationally and Correctly (she wildly underestimates how much other emotions can influence you).

Anyway, back to Tim. He wasn't as depressed during S3 because Georgie's own mini-paranoia arc involved a lot more of digging into statements because she is much more certain that the knowledge of who killed Gertrude is in there, and also Sasha is very much alive and well.

I mean, Jon's rancid vibes are definitely off-putting but like this is at the point where they realise they can't leave and the dread powers exist so the vibes aren't great anyway.

So Tim ends up in the Buried. How does he get out you ask?

Sasha.

I have been waiting for a potential AU in which to put Vast!Sasha and I have decided this is the one. No I don't know how yet but this is my decision - I love the idea of Buried!Tim and Vast!Sasha being something of a couple.

Beyond that for them though, it's mostly vibes.

I think Basira might actually choose to work with Peter Lukas in this one. I wouldn't have Georgie go into a coma post-Unknowing because she's already touched by the End and I don't think she would choose to wake up again, because she simply doesn't have the fear of death that influenced Jon, so she's around for the inter-season shenanigans that occurred.

So Basira doesn't trust her or Elias or Peter, but she decides that as she knows Elias and Georgie, and she's been offered this position by Peter, she'll take it.

(She's trying to ignore the pull of Daisy, hunting out there somewhere, lost after the circus - she never even got the chance to fight against it)

Melanie would be a very interesting one indeed, because part of what attracted her to Georgie in the first place (I think) is that Georgie knows about the entities and can understand her trauma, but is determined to not be a part of it, so they would be so much more messy than in canon.

I honestly couldn't say how her story would thus change. Melanie is a very fascinating character to me and I struggle to sort her out in my head without writing her (and so is Georgie - that's the problem with not writing them as much as some other characters :/) - that said, I do think she doesn't go full eye gouging because she does really love Georgie and doesn't want to leave her in hell alone.

(Hand in unlovable hand and all)

(I also think that Tim and Sasha might decide to do some eye-gouging with friends, as not-quite fully realised avatars of other powers, and try and settle down together somewhere, just in time for the apocalypse)

I'm not sure what all of Georgie's marks would be, or how she'd get them, and if you've got this far I am sure you understand my thoughts are vague and disjointed; but know it will be tragic and upsetting because I refuse to let myself write happy AUs lol

ANYWAY, thank you for showing an interest in this AU :)

#congratulations if you got to the bottom of this lol #I just...love other people as the archivist AUs #even if I love Jon a bit too much to not spend so much time focusing on him lol #ANYWAY #I do enjoy thinking about Georgie or Melanie or Basira or Daisy #Because of the main eight archives team they are the ones I don't write as much #so it's a good test of my knowledge of their characters haha #Georgie Barker #Melanie King #Jonathan Sims #Martin Blackwood #Sasha James #TMA #TMA AU #Timothy Stoker #Basira Hussain #All Ways Lead To Hilltop Road #Fae's Stuff

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ask-icancraft-it · 29 days ago

Text

Tiny Flame

(( Helloooo everybody! Firstly, thank you for your patience as I've taken a break from 'Love's Retribution' and recovering from writer's block in general. I've been able to start chipping away at that story once more, thanks to this fic that you are about to read, which does take place in the Western setting, but with Ralph/Felix instead! Very spicy/NSFW under the Readmore, I hope you enjoy!

Tagging some Pals: @shitpost-it-tristan @sgtcalhouns @bashfulgnome ))

---

Sitting on a stool by the furnace, Ralph struck a match. A tiny flame sparked to life, and he brought it close to the cigarette in his mouth, then paused.

Felix didn’t like the smell of cigarette smoke.

With a sigh, the large man shook the match out and placed the roll of tobacco back in his case. Closing the tin and stuffing it back into his jacket pocket, he glanced at the kid tucked into the straw bed behind him.

Quietly, he stood up and walked to a nearby window, moving a curtain to peek outside. Beyond the fortifying boards and heavy snowfall, Ralph could see the handyman’s home, still lit.

He chewed on his tongue a moment, then approached the sleeping girl. Tucking a loose strand of her raven hair behind her ear was enough to cause a stir.

“R-ralph?” Vanellope mumbled. “What is it?”

“Hey kid,” he replied softly. “I’m gonna check in on Felix, maybe chat for a while. Just wanted you to know in case you woke up and I’m not here.”

“Okay.”

“Remember to stay put till I’m back. You’ll get blown away if you go outside alone.”

Ralph made the girl giggle with a tickle to her stomach.

“I’m gonna stay r-right here where it's w-w-warm,” Vanellope snuggled back under her blanket. “Can you thank him again for letting us stay for me?”

“Sure, kid,” the giant smiled. “Sleep tight.” Ralph’s face instantly stung when he exited the workshop, the frigid wind pelting him with snow. With one hand on the clothing line tied between the handyman’s home and workshop, he slowly made his way to the other side. Stepping up on the small porch, he rapped his cold knuckles on the door, which opened soon after.

“Ralph!” Felix exclaimed as he saw the giant's silhouette in his doorframe. “Quick, get in.”

The handyman promptly closed the door after his friend, locking it back in place with a board.

“Land sakes, Ralph, what possessed you to go out in all that?” the small man huffed as he dusted snowflakes from his hair and clothes.

“You,” Ralph answered simply, only realizing how it sounded when the handyman stopped to stare. “I-I mean, I wanted to check on you. Storm hasn’t let up for a few days, so I wanted to ensure you were alright.”

“Oh, well, I appreciate that,” Felix said, genuinely touched. “And I’d be lyin’ if I said I wasn’t worried about you two either. Do you and Vanellope have everything you need over there?”

“We do, much thanks to you.”

The pair exchanged companionable smiles before the handyman gestured to a rack by the fireplace.

“Go on and place your wet clothes by the fire to dry. Would you like some tea?”

“Sure.”

Ralph knelt by the hearth, removing his soggy boots before hanging his coat on a peg. And while Felix busied himself at the stove, Ralph checked that his shirt was tucked in nicely, smoothing the wrinkles with his large hands. Approaching the kitchen table, he took the cup that had been poured for him.

“Thank you,” he said, sitting down alongside his gracious host.

“I sure hope this lets up soon,” Felix sighed as his home rattled when the wind hit it just right.

Ralph took in the handyman’s worried expression. “You think this and the workshop will hold?”

“They’ll hold,” Felix answered confidently. “I’m more concerned about the older homes along the outskirts of town…We’ll be mighty busy clearing snow off roofs soon, that’s for certain.”

Ralph nodded and sipped his tea, surprised by the unfamiliar yet almost wintergreen flavor.

“That’s good stuff,” he said, licking his lips. “What is it?”

“Birch,” Felix smiled. “Once winter starts to set in, I gather some twigs and let them steep in a jar.”

“Huh…ya learn somethin’ new every day,” Ralph chuckled. It seemed the handyman had many tricks up his sleeve like that, which made him all the more grateful for their current arrangement.

They continued their conversations well past when the tea was emptied from their cups, sharing knowledge and swapping stories. Ralph enjoyed making his companion laugh with the many misadventures he and Vanellope had together on the road.

“—So yeah, guess I’m still livin’ up to my nickname,” he chuckled, tying one last story in a bow.

“It seems you two have gotten yourselves in trouble just about everywhere,” Felix smiled, leaning on the table. A measure of admiration in his blue eyes made Ralph’s heart skip a beat.

“Yeah…” he replied, his face suddenly feeling warm. The conversation lulled, only adding to his nerves as he thought of the best way to bring up what he’d wanted to all evening.

“Hey, uh—Can I ask you a personal question?” he finally managed after clearing his throat.

The smaller man across from him shrugged. “Sure.”

“Have you ever been with a woman before?”

Felix’s eyebrows arched upward.

“As in—” he laced his fingers together symbolically, his face flushing when Ralph nodded. “Ah…No. No, I haven’t.”

“Then…I’m guessing you haven’t been with any men either.”

The handyman’s eyes grew wide. “That’s an option?” he said just above a whisper.

His genuine awe made Ralph chuckle. “For some, it is.”

Felix nodded, not seeming to realize why the giant was asking these questions in the first place. “Have you been with men?”

“I have,” Ralph swallowed. “Does…does that bother you?”

“Why would it?”

The giant smiled. And not wanting to taint the handyman’s virtue with an answer, he simply offered a shrug.

“Were you worried I would mind?” Felix asked softly.

Ralph's expression turned sheepish. “A little,” he admitted.

“Then…why tell me at all?”

“I don’t know. For honesty’s sake?” Ralph scratched behind his ear. “And well…I thought… maybe there was a chance you might have had the same inclination.”

“Oh. Ooh—” the handyman’s eyes widened again after the gears turned. “W-well, I don’t rightly know…”

“I-it’s alright,” Ralph shot up from his chair. “I apologize if I made you uncomfortable. I-I’ll see myself out.”

“Wait!” Felix followed, grasping his friend's arm. “I didn’t mean it like that. H-how would I know what I don’t know?”

Ralph blinked, looking into the handyman’s eyes.

“If I had the same inclination…how would I know?” he rephrased. His soft tone and serious expression gave Ralph all the indication that Felix was sincere in his curiosity. And perhaps deep down, he already knew the answer.

The room was silent as the two regarded each other, save for the soft crackle of the fireplace. Wordlessly, Ralph moved one of his large hands to the smaller man’s jaw, caressing and gently lifting it. Felix gulped but didn’t shy away at the touch, his breath hitching as the giant leaned down to capture his lips.

The connection lingered only briefly before Ralph pulled away to gauge reaction. He was amused by how the handyman’s eyes remained closed after, his small frame swooning ever so slightly.

“How’d that feel?” Felix’s eyes fluttered open at the question, as though he’d been dreaming.

“Warm,” he replied with a grin. “Like the sun. Did you feel that too?”

“I did,” Ralph chuckled.

“And my heart—” Felix took a deep breath. “Oh, my heart is racing! Could we do that again?”

Relieved, Ralph was happy to oblige, indulging in a few more seconds this time. Felix requested a couple more, the warm feeling growing hotter with each kiss. And by their fourth, want became need, causing an indescribable ache when they broke apart for air. “Ralph…” The handyman spoke softly, his voice trembling. “I think I’m inclined.”

The large man holding him laughed. “I gathered that much,” he said.

“But I…How do we—how does this work?” Felix knew the basic functions between a man and a woman, but something didn’t quite add up where two gentlemen were concerned.

“E-oh boy,” Ralph said, suddenly reminded that the handyman was completely and utterly new to this. “Maybe we should sit back down a moment.”

“Did I say something wrong?” Felix fidgeted as he dipped back into his seat.

“No, no… I just want to make sure that you really want to—” Ralph put his fingers together in that gestural way the handyman used earlier. “To be with me like that. Y’know, for your first time.”

Felix nodded in understanding, but the poor man soon looked on the verge of tears.

“I’m not a stranger to affection,” he explained. “I’ve had it placed upon my cheeks and lips by a few women through the years. But none of them have given me elation like yours has. I always thought maybe something was wrong with me. In a town full of people I care deeply for, I’ve always felt so lonely…I’m only just realizing why.”

Ralph placed a comforting hand on the smaller man’s knee, rubbing with his thumb. “It’s okay if you need time.”

“I want to know it,” Felix resolved after some quiet consideration. “If you are truly willing to share...I want to know what intimacy of that nature is like. It seemed right; I felt safe in your arms. Anything you would normally do, I want to try.”

Ralph was stunned by the handyman’s admission, his heart pounding in his chest.

“We can start slow,” he responded. “You…you’ve indulged yourself before?”

Felix nodded bashfully. “Good,” the giant smiled. “We can do things similar to that. But, um— to answer your question from earlier. There is a place down south which both men and women share.”

The handyman’s face was nearly priceless when the thought clicked.

“There?” he gaped.

“Mhm,” Ralph chuckled.

“And it feels…good?”

“When done right, very,” Ralph smirked as the handyman mulled things over. “We don’t have to. Just know you’d be in good hands.”

Felix couldn’t help the blush lighting up his face. “I’ll think about it,” he squeaked.

The giant's shoulders shook with a soft rumbling of laughter. And standing up, Ralph leaned over the smaller man’s frame and held out his hand.

Staring upwards, Felix accepted Ralph’s assistance, the glow on his cheeks deepening as they stood close. He tilted his chin upward as his companion bowed his head, welcoming the affection placed on his lips wholeheartedly.

Quicker than last time, things grew hot inside the handyman’s stomach. Breathing heavily, he allowed Ralph’s hands and lips to explore. And little by little, he relaxed in the giant’s arms, melting into each wonderful touch.

“Ah—!” Felix gasped when a large hand goosed his rear, laughing at his friend's mischievous smile from above.

With a satisfied hum, Ralph’s smile softened. His thick fingers traced the bottom edge of Felix’s belt, close to where he wanted to touch next. Receiving a nod, he cupped the front of the handyman’s jeans in his palm, rubbing gently.

Felix’s knees nearly gave out from the sensation, and he was thankful Ralph still had a good hold on him from behind should they fail him completely. As Ralph continued, Felix latched onto his broad shoulders, shuddering.

Every whimper, every suppressed moan, Ralph delighted in them all. Feeling the handyman grow hard under his careful fondling, he guided them towards the bed. The mattress was small, but he could make do.

Perching on its edge, Ralph turned Felix around and steered the smaller man by the hips to sit between his legs. With the handyman’s back leaning on his chest, Ralph continued stroking him from behind with one hand, while the other worked to undo his belt and fly. Felix took a shaky breath as Ralph paused to moisten his fingers with some spit, jumping at the following unobstructed contact.

“Am I going too fast?” the giant eased off.

Felix gulped. The way Ralph’s voice rumbled in his ear made him shiver. “I-It’s just all so…overwhelming.”

“Do you want to stop?”

“No,” Felix pleaded, gripping the larger man’s knee. “It’s the good kind of overwhelming.”

Ralph smiled; that’s all he needed to hear.

Reaching again below the handyman’s underdrawers, he toyed with his slickened fingers. And only when Felix had fully hardened under his touch did he push aside the cloth to reveal the erection in full.

“Look at you.”

Felix peered down along with the man straddling his hips, his face growing hot at the sight of his arousal in the giant’s gentle grip. Ralph placed a kiss on his temple, letting a few moments sink in before pumping.

“Oh—” Felix’s torso curled forward before returning to press against the giant's chest, and his hands reflexively grasped Ralph’s thighs beside him. “Oh my land…”

While Felix had indeed indulged himself before, it never felt quite like this. And receiving this kind of pleasure at the hands of someone else only added to the excitement buzzing in his chest.

Ralph adjusted their positions slightly, pulling the handyman more flush against his groin, and Felix could feel a bulge rubbing against his rear in tandem with the giant’s hand.

“Fuck,” the man behind him huffed, keeping his rhythm steady.

A searing heat took hold in Felix’s abdomen, and he closed his eyes, unable to stop the soft moans while he anticipated release. “Ralph!” he gasped as he was on the edge.

Hearing his name uttered that way brought the giant great satisfaction, and the way the handyman unravelled soon after was the cherry on top. When Felix finally went slack against his chest, Ralph kissed the top of his golden brown hair. Taking in the afterglow, Felix’s fingers grazed Ralph’s knees as he regulated his breathing.

“You good?” Ralph inquired, leaning to get a clearer view of his friend’s face.

Felix peered back at Ralph from the corners of his eyes. A smile broke across his cheeks as he laughed softly.

“Yes,” he said, much to the giant’s relief. “H-here, let me get you a rag.”

Felix stood up from the bed, leaving Ralph's lap empty. He timidly cleaned himself off, then handed a fresh cloth to his companion.

Ralph smirked, wiping the sticky mess from his hand. He couldn’t help but stare at the handyman, practically glowing in the firelight. Felix stared back, looking as if he wanted to say something, but was too shy.

“How was that for you?” Ralph broke the ice for him.

“It was good,” Felix blushed. “Real good.”

“Good,” the giant smiled, trying to quell the ache for Felix to be right back where he was between his thighs. It would appear that his companion was apprehensive about continuing...

“Ralph,” The petite man tangled his fingers. “Could I—can we kiss again?”

“Absolutely,” Ralph beamed. “As much as you want.”

Felix approached the bedside, gently holding either side of the giant's face. Standing, he looked deep into Ralph's amber eyes before closing the remaining gap.

When they parted, the handyman looked again, taking in every bit of the face he held so amorously.

“You’re a handsome man, ‘Wreck-It’ Ralph.”

A blush formed on the giant’s cheeks, and a part of him felt like a sap for doing so. But something in the way Felix said them made him hang on every word. It wasn’t often that people appreciated his physicality, let alone expressed it in such a kindhearted way.

Ralph was all the more eager to seize the handyman’s lips a second time, his large hands reeling Felix in by the hips. Panting between passionate kisses, Felix knelt on the mattress to straddle Ralph’s lap.

“Ah—” Ralph was quick to maximize their contact, far more desperate for the handyman than he imagined. His right hand cupping Felix’s rear, his central fingers curled downward to add a pleasurable pressure that made the man on top of him sigh.

“You like that?” Ralph inquired, smirking when the handyman nodded. “Well…do you want to know what it feels like when I’m inside you?”

Felix gulped, his face red all over. “You’ve done this before?” he asked.

“A bunch.”

“And the fellows you’ve done it with; they’ve liked it?”

“Every single one,” Ralph kept rubbing with his fingers, making the handyman groan.

“...D-does it hurt at all?”

Ralph paused, gingerly touching his friend’s timid face.

“There may be times where it can feel uncomfortable since it’d be your first,” he answered truthfully. “The trick is to take our ease, and if you don’t like it, we’ll stop. I don’t want to hurt you, Felix.”

As he considered things, the handyman draped his arms around Ralph's wide shoulders. Closing his eyes, he soaked in the gentle way the giant held him, how tenderly and honestly he spoke. Again, Felix felt nothing but safe.

“Okay,” he nodded. “W-what do we need to do?”

Ralph chuckled at the handyman’s pragmatic approach. “Well, for starters, we could take off these clothes,” he suggested.

Felix blushed, his arms retracting to begin unbuttoning his blue top. Ralph helped him shuck it away, caressing his bare torso with admiration. The handyman then began to undo Ralph’s red flannel, marveling at how much hair covered the brawny chest underneath.

“Go on,” the giant laughed, as if reading his friend's mind.

Shyly, Felix placed his hands just below Ralph’s collarbone, his fingers tangling in the soft brown hairs. His eyes and hands slowly drifted downward, following the trail to Ralph’s belt. And despite his nerves, Felix uncoiled the piece of leather from its silver buckle.

Ralph sighed, the tightness in his jeans finally relieved. He watched the handyman undoing his button and fly, wondering how far he would go.

“Oh goodness—” Felix shied away after a brief feel, his face burning. How would that even begin to fit?

It took all Ralph had in him not to laugh—Felix was an excitable little thing.

Gathering back up his courage, the handyman reached down again, moving the band of Ralph’s underdrawers out of the way. Gently, unsurely, Felix moved his palm along the length of his friend’s member.

Ralph groaned, bucking his hips for more contact. “You are driving me crazy,” he thought aloud.

“S-sorry!” Felix panicked.

“No, it’s okay,” Ralph was quick to reassure. “I just need to keep reminding myself you’re new. Please, keep doing what you’re doing. Just know you can be a lot firmer.”

Felix’s mouth opened with a silent ‘oh,’ and he pressed his palm harder against Ralph’s shaft while continuing the up and down motion. And before long, the man underneath him was a sweaty mess, grunting like a bear.

“Fuck,” Ralph’s grip on the handyman’s hips tightened as his pleasure quickly rose. “Just like that.”

Felix watched the giant’s face with awe, pure bliss forcing his amber eyes closed with brows knitted together.

Holding his breath, Ralph assisted with a few more desperate movements before letting it all out with a deep guttural sound. Felix felt the giant shudder, and warm spurts of cum covered his hand.

Ralph laughed between breaths when he saw the handyman’s look of astonishment. “Thank you,” he sighed after riding out his pleasure.

“It was that good?” Felix queried, unsure what to do with his dirtied hand. “I feel like I barely did anything.”

“As I said, you were driving me crazy,” Ralph grinned. Standing, he placed the handyman on his feet, and grabbing the rag from earlier, he held it out.

“I think I’m going to use the wash for this,” Felix tittered. Stepping to the cabinet, he poured water into the basin and cleaned his hands with soap.

While the handyman scrubbed away, Ralph shrugged, wiping himself off with the cloth before peeling off his jeans and underdrawers. Sitting back on the mattress, he waited patiently, taking the moment to admire Felix’s backside. And as the smaller man dried his hands, a thought came to mind.

“Could you bring that over here?” Ralph asked, pulling a stool by the fireplace near the bedside.

“Sure,” the handyman picked up the basin and brought it to the spot as requested.

Ralph took the cloth that Felix had used and placed it on the lip of the basin before reaching for the top hem of the handyman’s jeans.

“May I?”

Felix nodded softly, gulping as Ralph unclothed him completely. Kicking the fabric from his feet, the handyman blushed. Compared to his companion’s muscular physique, he felt the view he provided was nothing much.

“Beautiful,” Ralph said after drinking him in, which darkened the red hue on Felix’s face. Wetting the rag in the soapy basin, the giant wrung it out before coaxing the handyman to turn.

“What are you doing?” Felix flinched slightly when the cold, wet cloth touched his rear.

“Makin’ sure you’re nice and clean,” Ralph answered, wiping carefully. “Thought you might like that.”

Felix indeed appreciated the gesture, allowing his friend to continue with a nod. Once done, Ralph wrung out the cloth and set it aside.

“Here, lie down,” the giant said, patting the mattress. And as Felix lay on his back, Ralph walked to his jacket by the fireplace and pulled the special gun oil he kept for occasions like this from its pocket.

Returning to the bedside, he put the natural oil on his fingers. “I’m going to start with my hands,” Ralph explained. With a small gulp, Felix acknowledged.

Kneeling on the mattress, Ralph used his un-oiled hand to place light erotic touches on the handyman, starting from the neck and down to his pelvis. He could feel Felix tense underneath him as he ventured even lower.

“Try to relax,” Ralph murmured, kissing the handyman’s quivering knee.

Closing his eyes, Felix drew in a breath and slowly let it out of his nose, trying to focus on the present moment rather than the anticipation. Smiling, Ralph continued, caressing the handyman’s flacid cock.

Felix hummed, enjoying the familiar strokes before Ralph introduced the newer sensation. The handyman felt that strange yet pleasurable pressure as Ralph teased with the pad of his finger.

“Unh—” Felix flinched as the digit penetrated slightly. Ralph retracted, continuing the soft teasing until he received a soft nod. Pushing in again, he went slightly further, waiting some time before retracting again.

Taking pauses to apply more gun oil, the pair slowly made progress. And as they went on, Felix knew more about what to expect, allowing him to relax more easily.

With a proud smile, Ralph pressed in a final time, his finger extended inside the handyman’s rectum. Leaning forward, he placed a kiss upon Felix’s lips. “How do you feel?” he asked.

“Full,” the handyman answered after another mindful breath.

Ralph leaned further, propping on his elbow at Felix’s side. Slowly, he pulled his finger out most of the way before pushing back in, repeating the steady motion until a soft moan met his ears. That sound— it was like the sweetest music. Craving more, Ralph pressed in halfway and curled his finger upward.

Felix gasped, his back arching reflexively, and when the giant made the same motion, he choked back another moan.

“There’s a howlin’ storm outside. The only person who’s gonna hear you is me,” Ralph mumbled, curling his digit again to rub that sweet spot. “I wanna hear you…”

His pleasure rising with each press, Felix could hardly contain his voice even if he wanted to. He let out a loud whimper as an electric wave shot through him.

“That’s it,” the giant chuckled, quickening his pace.

The handyman squirmed beneath him, panting. “R-ralph!” he cried out with elation. Soon after, an overwhelming pleasure made him lose his senses, a sharp cry escaping his throat as intense waves crashed against him over and over...

His breath ragged, Felix felt like he was slowly returning to his body, unsure of where he had gone. Blinking away the spots in his eyes, he stared into the face of the man beside him.

“Well Goddamn,” Ralph seemed about as surprised as he was. Impressed even.

All Felix could do was laugh. Starting soft and raspy, they grew until genuine tears filled his eyes.

“Lands…I didn’t know,” the handyman sniffed. “I didn’t know a person could feel like that.”

“You’re gonna have to tell me,” Ralph grinned. “'Cause I haven’t seen a reaction quite that strong.”

“Really?”

“You were screaming, sweetheart.”

“I was?” Felix felt like he was burning.

“Oh yeah,” Ralph chuckled, pecking the handyman’s mortified face. “Now, don’t go and be embarrassed; I loved it— asked for it.”

The giant continued placing his affections, effectively reducing Felix’s embarrassment.

“It felt like—” the handyman paused to think about it. “Gosh, I don’t even know where to begin…You haven’t felt it before?”

“Not in a long while. I like givin’ too much,” Ralph grinned. “Seeing you like that—enjoying yourself— that’s what makes me feel good.”

Felix gave a bashful smile, his fingers coming together again to fidget. “I did enjoy myself,” he said.

“Well…I’ve a lot more to give if you want it.”

“Yes,” the handyman uttered with a nod.

His heart fluttering, Ralph captured the handyman’s lips. With one arm wrapped around Felix’s back, he moved them so that he could stand at the edge of the bedside between the smaller man’s legs. It was a beautiful sight to behold as Ralph looked down at Felix’s naked, aroused body.

“Start nice and slow, like before,” the small man requested.

“I will,” Ralph leaned down for one more kiss before lubricating himself with the gun oil.

Primed and ready, the giant lightly bent his knees to align himself with Felix’s entrance, teasing with his head before pushing forward. Ralph had gotten just the tip in before the handyman quickly pressed a hand to his abdomen.

“Did that hurt?” the giant asked after slowly pulling out.

Felix had to think for a moment. While Ralph’s finger was thick, his penis was moreso, and the stretching the handyman felt was more intense than he’d anticipated.

Shaking his head, Felix removed his hand from Ralph's torso.

“I started feeling pressure and got scared that it was going to hurt,” he explained. “You’re just so…big.”

Ralph nodded, moving a hand along the smaller man’s thigh in a soothing motion.

“What can I do to help you stay calm?”

Felix reached out his arms, and Ralph took the hint. Propping one knee on the mattress, he engulfed the handyman’s tiny frame.

“Kiss me,” Felix sighed, his arms wrapping around the giant’s shoulders. Ralph obliged, introducing some tongue.

“I’m going to try again, okay?” he said after some proper necking.

Felix nodded, closing his eyes and melting into the large hand that caressed his face. After another tender kiss, the handyman felt that same pressure from before, making him clutch the giant’s shoulders. Ralph stopped, staying where he was until Felix’s fingers relaxed.

Comforted by Ralph’s closeness, Felix was able to keep his breath steady and his nerves relatively at bay. And before long, he could feel the giant’s pelvis become flush with the back of his thighs.

“You alright?” Ralph checked in, remaining still so the handyman could acclimate.

“Mhm,” Felix nodded after another breath.

“Hardest parts over,” Ralph pecked his cheek. “You did so well.”

The handyman blushed at the praise, soaking in Ralph’s size before he pulled out slowly. Felix pouted inwardly at how empty he felt once his partner withdrew completely. He must have made a face, given how the giant chuckled with a soft “Hang on,” as he reapplied lubricant.

Lining himself up again, Ralph felt the handyman’s muscles welcome him in, allowing him to slide up to the hilt with ease. Letting out a soft groan, he voiced his pleasure.

“God, you feel incredible.”

The giant slowly began to move his hips back and forth as he stood off the side of the bed, keeping a close eye on his partner’s reactions.

His mouth slightly agape, Felix’s eyes had visibly darkened since Ralph had begun his shallow movements. And after a minute of slow and steady thrusting, he clutched at the sheets with a soft whimper. This encouraged the giant to keep going, gradually building his pace. But getting lost in his bliss, Ralph skipped a beat, unconsciously making up for it with a quicker and deeper lunge.

“Shit, sorry,” He halted altogether when he heard the man below him gasp. “Did I hurt you?”

Felix’s face was hard to read, but he appeared stunned as he stared back up at the giant.

“Do that again.”

Those words took Ralph aback for a moment, but he fulfilled the request. He got the same reaction as before, but could now see the sparkle in his friend’s eyes.

“Keep doing that,” the handyman instructed, much to Ralph’s pleasant surprise. It seemed Felix wasn’t quite as fragile as he looked.

Holding his tiny waist firmly in his hands, Ralph thrusted into Felix with more power behind them. The adjustment had an immediate effect, making the handyman moan louder, with a rosy hue breaking out on his chest.

Each time the giant drove into him, Felix felt that same overwhelming pleasure he’d gotten when Ralph used his finger. It began in his core and radiated outward, making his skin tingle. It was as if he was being touched all over in the best possible ways at once, and he needed more.

“Harder,” he panted.

Ralph was amazed. Most of the men he’d had sex with were sturdily built like he was, yet none were quite so willing to take a pounding. Somehow, this tiny man was able to handle all of him so effortlessly, giving Ralph the confidence to let loose completely.

Grunting, the giant gladly did what was asked, the bedframe banging against the adjacent wall in sync with the rocking of his hips. Sensing his climax coming, Ralph slowed to a halt, breathing heavily. Peering down, he marveled at the hot mess of a man below him. Felix's skin was glistening in a soft wash of pink, with thin fingers mussing his golden-brown hair.

“You’re like a dream,” the giant huffed, clasping a hand to Felix’s rear with a hearty ‘smack.’ The handyman flinched, but let out a ragged moan after. “I wanna fill you up, give you all I have…”

Ralph emphasized his point with a sharp thrust, enjoying the pure bliss on Felix's face as he took it.

“Please,” the handyman begged.

“You want that?”

“Yes!” Felix gasped as Ralph slammed into him again.

Grinning, the giant wrapped one hand around the handyman’s erection, while the other stayed clamped to his backside. Beginning to thrust again, Ralph pumped his fist in tandem, making the smaller man writhe.

Felix could feel the proverbial coil tightening in his stomach, quickly followed by a burst of euphoric energy as he saw stars.

Ralph basked in Felix’s sounds of exhilaration, watching the small man tremble as he rode out his pleasure. And with a few more primal thrusts, the giant achieved his release, filling the handyman with his warmth. Groaning, Ralph kept up his deep pelvic movements until he was finally emptied.

With a satisfied sigh, Ralph leaned down to press his lips to Felix’s forehead and envelop him in a comforting presence. The handyman lazily wrapped his arms around his thick neck in return, curiously not making a peep as Ralph continued his doting.

“Falling asleep?” the giant chuckled.

“Nh-hn,” Felix shook his head softly. “Just peaceful…Did I scream again?”

“You did,” the handyman let out a defeated sigh at his answer. “Hey, you were incredible.”

Ralph pecked the small man’s lips, eliciting a smile.

“So were you. Thank you.”

“My pleasure,” Ralph smiled, pushing himself upwards. “This next bit might feel odd.”

Scootching Felix’s lower half a bit further off the mattress, the giant gently pulled out. Following Ralph’s length, the handyman felt cum dripping from his hole, giving him goosebumps.

Ralph reached toward the basin at the bedside and wetted the rag resting on its lip. Starting with the cute little spurts dotting his partner’s chest and stomach, he worked his way down. Rinsing the cloth a few times, he made sure to get all the excess oil and mess off of themselves.

“More might come out later,” the giant warned with one last wipe along Felix’s rear. “It’s normal.”

The handyman nodded, sitting up on the mattress as Ralph began to redress. With some hesitation, he picked up his garments as well.

Buttoning his jeans, Ralph did a double-take at his friend's dejected face. “Hey…” he said, lifting the handyman’s chin with a finger.

“I know you gotta get back to your girl,” Felix’s eyes glistened in the firelight. “But…what does tomorrow mean? Do we just pretend like all this didn’t happen?”

“No…Well,” Ralph's heart sank with the reality. “I would like to keep it discreet, for our sakes and the kid’s. But I certainly don’t want to act like all this was nothing; that would be cruel, and not at all how I feel.”

Felix looked into Ralph’s eyes, uncertainty etched on his face.

“It's just that—” Ralph gulped. “—most times it's me and another fellow fulfilling needs or just having some fun before I leave town and find the next job.”

Felix nodded, eyes downcast. He understood Ralph was simply willing to slake his curiosity; that they both had things to gain from their experience. It was unfair of him to pine for anything more, yet he couldn’t help the soft pang in his heart, knowing it was over.

“Let me finish,” Ralph lifted the handyman's chin again, a doleful smile on his lips. “The truth is…you’re the first guy I’ve caught feelings for in some time, and I don’t know what to do. Any way I slice it, it’s going to sting when the inevitable happens.

“Whether it's as soon as the ground thaws, or I bungle myself out of another opportunity soon after. All I know how to do is run…You don’t want to get yourself tangled with a guy like me.”

Felix felt he was seeing a brand new side of the giant. Despite having a temper, Ralph tended to present himself as calm and collected. It was endearing to see him stumble over his words as he messily displayed his innermost feelings.

“And I was trying to play it casual ‘cause I thought it’d prevent you from getting hurt, but I already fucked that up—”

“Ralph…”

“—and that’s all I do; I ruin things. Every time, no matter how hard I try, and…I feel like I’m rambling, am I rambling?”

“Yes,” Felix tittered, his hands reaching up to hold either side of the giant’s face. Ralph gulped, his heart beating loudly in his chest as he stared down at the handyman.

“W-well, I guess long answer short…I care for you, and I’m sorry if I made you feel like I didn’t. Especially after all that wholesomeness we just shared. I’m just…afraid.”

“It’s alright, Ralph,” Felix grinned, having heard what he needed many words ago. “I care for you too…We can take this one day at a time.”

One day at a time, Ralph liked the sound of that. A soft smile on his lips, he pressed his palm against one of the hands Felix held against his jaw.

“I can stay longer,” he offered.

“Nah,” Felix chuckled. “I’ll be fine. You should get back to Vanellope. Storm willin’, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow,” Ralph confirmed with a gentle peck on the handyman’s lips.

Both men finished dressing, and Ralph turned with his back to the door once he’d slipped on his coat. And exchanging gentle goodbyes, Ralph braved the weather once again to return to the workshop.

Vanellope had slept through him coming in, and continued her slumber even as the giant tucked another strand of her hair behind her ear.

Ralph then sat on the stool beside the forge and pulled a cigarette from his case, placing it in his mouth. Once again, his thoughts were captivated by the man residing next door, now with new, beautiful images to recall in his mind.

Smiling, Ralph struck a match, a tiny flame sparking to life.

#Happy Pride Month #Sledgehammer #wreck it ralph #fix it felix #Western AU #crafty writes #spicy

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