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physicalturian · 4 years

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[18+] Words of pleasure - Law x F!Reader - Part 8

[No spoilers] [Modern AU - College AU] [She/her pronouns used for the reader, no physical description; Everyone +18] Words : 6967 Archive of our own

Warning : Power play / Dom/sub Dynamics / Control / Stranger / Flirting / Fluff / Awkwardness / Making out / Anxiety / Oral sex / Exhibtionism… If you feel like I should add more warnings, send me a dm or and ask

– Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 - Part 6 - Part 7

Halfway through my action, I had to stop. Still on Law’s lap, I looked at him to make sure this was happening. Nodding, he helped me off his lap, tucking his undershirt and shirt back in his pants and putting his belt back on. Part of me was disappointed to only have been able to slide my hands under his shirt and nothing more, but I was a grown woman, and I was not going to be childish about it and pout.

As a grown woman, I was also ready to admit I got a little caught up in the moment, I shouldn’t have rushed it, I was not sure I regretted it fully, but I had this feeling in the pit of my stomach, of slight shame. Turning around, I threw a quick glance to the man who had stepped inside the room in a hurry before looking around. I had seen the huge smile on his face when he looked at Law, then at me, but I was not going to say anything about it. The lesser was said, the lesser I had to be embarrassed about it.

“There’s a meeting, apparently they need the approval of the staff for something, and we have to be there, they said it can’t wait.” Have to, being the key word here. Dusting myself off, I tried to get the wrinkles off my clothes, I hadn’t realized his hands had slid under my shirt at some point but saw how it was slightly risen. “I’ll be there in five minutes.” Law sighed in exasperation, closing his laptop and standing up from his chair, a look of annoyance on his face.

Before the blond man could leave, Law called him, “Cora- get that stupid smile off your face.” He said it in a somewhat threatening way, but I could see the small smile on his lips. Rosinante’s smile only broadened. “Oh no, I’m going to be talking about this for a long time,” He paused in his steps and pointed at the both of us, “This? Amazing, go get some,” he almost tripped on his way out, catching himself before anything regrettable could happen.

When we heard the mute sound of the glass door closing, I moved to grab my bag from the floor but was stopped by a hand holding my forearm. “This wasn’t supposed to happen-“ Law started,

“I know, I know, I just- you looked very attractive like that and I couldn’t help, I’m sorry-“ I was interrupted by the short laugh that escaped his lips while he let go of my arm.

“I mean, the interruption.” He stated, making me open my mouth in understanding as a stupid smile made its way to my lips.

“Oh, right, right… That, yeah, I still got a bit out of hand though…“ I said hesitantly, tightening my grip on the strap of my bag. Law grinned, charmingly if I may say so, and leaned on his desk, arms crossed. “And I did not mind. I was going to stop you at some point, this is my workplace after all,” He seemed to be pondering for a moment, running a hand through his hair. “I don’t know when I’ll be done, so you have two options. First one is, you stay here, you behave, and you wait until I’m done,” I widened my eyes at how he worded it, feeling a certain thrill from it. “I could still order some food, if you choose option one, since we don’t have time to go out,”

I was still hung up on the way the word ‘behave’ rolled of his tongue, I hated myself for liking it this much and tried to get myself back on track as he talked about the second choice. “Second one might still involve some waiting, since it’d be you call Nami and see if she can come pick you up,” I was about to tell him I could just walk back to campus and take the next bus, but he told me there’s no way he’d let me walk out of here without being able to make sure I’m safe.

Then he scoffed, “That’s a lie, you’re a grown woman, you could do just that: walk out and get back home. But, maybe I am trying to have you pick option one. I don’t like to leave a work unfinished,” his eyes traveled up and down my body, Law did not even try to hide his leering. Looking down at his desk where his beeper was, he checked it before hanging it at his waist. He pushed himself off the desk and made his way up to me, gently grabbing my chin to make me look up at him.

“What do you say?” As usual, I pushed his hand away from my chin, before doing as he did and grabbing his and have him look at me. “As much as I’d love to stay here, I feel like it’s not legal because there is all your paperwork and shit, and you don’t know what I could do with all that info,” Letting go of him, I shrugged, leaning against the wall, I didn’t say anything more. Perhaps waiting for him to say I was right, I should go, but I think I was more tempted in him telling me that it didn’t matter.

“You’re right,” He hummed before turning around and moving to his desk, I watch him as he cleaned everything up quickly. Putting them in the adequate files before closing his desk drawer and locking it up, making sure his storage cabinets were also locked. “Now, you’re good. As long as you’re behaved, there won’t be any problem. I’m taking a chance here, by letting you stay. Show me I wasn’t wrong leaving you here, if you change your mind and go, send me a text.” He gestured to the seats by the window, with the low table in front of them.

I shuffled to the spot, “Oh no, I had planned on being nosy and rummaging through your stuff, what a shame you locked everything,” I said sarcastically while pulling my laptop out of my bag, along my headset. I heard Law laugh lowly before telling me to have fun, I called out his name quickly once he was by the door, “I’m holding onto that promise of takeout, don’t let me starve doc!” I grinned and gave him a thumbs up, he shook his head in response, a small smile adorning his features.

Once he was out, and I was sure he wasn’t anywhere nearby, I let out a relived sigh and took my phone out to call Nami and tell her everything. While I was acting kind of composed until he had left, I was still feeling warm from being caught making out with him, by his colleague, nonetheless. If it had been Luffy or Nami, I wouldn’t have cared as much, but his colleague? And what was up with me being that desperate? Was I really that into his white coat? Or was it the contrast of his job with how he looked?

Maybe that waiting had me more riled up than I thought. I felt a pull to the man, that I couldn’t explain, perhaps it was his charisma? All he did was flirt with you, bring you food, and be hot, I thought, but then again, what more could I ask for, for a simple one-night stand…. That, sure, was taking too long to happen. While I did say he was whipped, I think I was trying to convince myself. But then again, he did not say he wasn’t, and he cared a lot- before I could overthink any more than I already did, Nami picked up.

“Did he fuck up? Do you need me to pick you up? I’m done, I can come-“ I had to interrupt her, I was expecting her to be ready to throw hands but I couldn’t help but laugh at how ready she was for it. Reassuring her, I told her that nothing bad had happened, it calmed her only slightly. She huffed, then I heard the jingle of keys being dropped on a wooden surface. “You were genuinely about to drive all the way here?” I asked with a huge smile on my face as I plugged in my headset.

“Well yes, I know where he lives, he should be afraid of the power I have with that information by the way,” Laughing, I informed her I wasn’t actually at his place right now but, she asked me if I was still downtown, and I felt a bit shy for a second when I told her I was at the hospital. I did not realize how it sounded when she asked me what had happened. Confused for a moment, I asked her what she meant by that question, then the penny dropped. “Oh god no, no, nothing bad happened! I had finished my classes earlier, so I came by his work to wait. Turns out, I’ll have to wait a bit longer,” I told her.

When she mumbled in understanding, I continued and slowly brought the topic of what had happened earlier. Her reaction was mixt, she seemed thrilled that it was going well, but still was not fond of the man, her excitement won when she asked me if he was a good kisser. “Nams, I think the important info to remember is that we got interrupted-“ she clicked her tongue against her teeth, saying it wasn’t important, “You’re still there, right? You’ll get railed, don’t worry, the interruption only adds some action to all of this!” She said enthusiastically.

Rolling my eyes, I scoffed jokingly, “Well, I don’t want action, I want to fuck and maybe see if I like him, I don’t need drama. Just, casual sex,” Nami told me to shut up that I was just spurring bullshit, “Casual, casual, what you’re doing is everything but casual babe. You’d have to be blind to not see there’s something between the two of you. And it’s weird, right? Because you’ve known each other for…” She started counting under her breath before saying, “Not long,” Chuckling at that, I hummed thoughtfully.

“You’re right, it’s rushed, should I just come back and tell him we should take things slow?” I asked, a bit lost, I don’t know why it was happening so fast. I appreciated him, I knew things about him, yet I felt like there was an invisible wall separating us. I did not mind, after all we started all this just to have sex, maybe that wall was a blessing, and it’ll help me not get caught up in… whatever this was.

“Oh no girl, you’re getting laid, and only once you’ve gotten laid will I be accepting you back in the apartment!” In the back I heard Robin say that it didn’t work like that, that if I came knocking during the night while Nami was asleep, she’d let me in. Nami tried to argue back, it was all in good fun and in the end, I know that my ginger friend did not mind letting me back in if things didn’t go as planned.

We kept talking a bit longer, she hyped me to keep doing what I was doing. One of her arguments being that he had money and he was always going to pay the food, which was only an added bonus to how attractive he was. I deviated the conversation to her and Vivi, which made her softer and cooled her curiosity about my situation.

After a while, we hang up and I focused on my work. I had to use the hospital’s guest wi-fi, which was a bit too slow and limited my use for my research, but I managed to do things anyway. Feeling out of place in this room, I tried my best to not spread my stuff around. I had my bag closed right next to me, with a book opened on the low table and my laptop on my lap. I felt too aware of each of my action, thinking that anyone could come in the room and kick me out, or just give me a weird look when they’d see that Law wasn’t here.

I kept my back as straight as possible; it was hard because every now and then, I’d want to sit in a more comfortable position; There were no pillows to support my back, and the seat was pretty uncomfortable, it took all the restraint in the world for me to not sit tailor-style and finally be comfortable. Time went by without me being aware of it, it’s only when I was startled by a light being turned on above my head that I noticed it was pitch dark outside.

Sliding the headset off my head, having it now resting around my neck, I turned my head towards the door and let out a short breath in surprise. With a small smile, I thanked Law as he stepped inside his office, “You shouldn’t work in the dark, you’ll fuck your eyes up like that.” He said with a smile as he shrugged off his coat and hung it on the hook by the door before rolling his sleeves up. I had to force myself to look away, fixing my gaze back on my screen.

“I hadn’t realized it was this late,” Putting a hand on my stomach, I made a pondering face, “Although it explains why my stomach’s empty, I did eat a few snacks while working but it’s clearly not enough,” I said out loud as I saved my file and turned off my computer, putting it back in my bag, carefully placing it so that nothing would hit it too roughly. Scoffing, I saw Law grab something from his desk before going to the bathroom and coming out of it with his earrings dangling from his lobes.

Pursing my lips, I tried not to laugh but he saw it and asked me what was wrong with me. “Nothing it’s just,” understanding he was getting ready to go, I stood up and threw my bag over my shoulder, “It’s cute how, even though we’re going back to your place, you’re putting on your earrings. It’s just- the trip there isn’t that long, no one is going to see it,” Quirking a brow, he didn’t answer right away and first put on his black coat. He shoved his hands in his pockets to check for the keys and wallet, his eyes never leaving mine.

“It’s not for the people that I’m wearing them, I just like the earrings. They were a gift, it feels off when I’m not wearing them, is that a good answer?” He said with a strained smile, I felt my cheeks warm up. I felt stupid for assuming anything and felt slightly bad for having had him tell me the story behind it, sure it wasn’t much, but I could have kept my mouth shut and he wouldn’t have given me that… awkward smile. “I didn’t mean to pry, but it suits you, that’s for sure.” I said with a nudge, lifting up the mood. I wasn’t sure it had even gone sour, but I made sure we were on the same page.

Opening the door of his office, Law grabbed the cap from the coat-hanger, he was only going to put it on once he was outside. “Well, you are biased, but I’ll take the compliment,” He grinned, gesturing me with his head to go to the elevator. Following him, I scoffed, “How am I biased? Visually, it looks good, you know? With some perspective and all that,” Pulling me towards him when I was about to bump into someone, he kept me close by when we were in the elevator.

We were stacked inside such a tight space it felt stuffed. I shoved my free hand in my pocket and put on a fake smile when my eyes could meet those of the other people in the elevator. I tensed when I felt Law’s breath behind my ear, he was standing right behind me and was keeping me close, a hand on my hip. “Biased because you find me attractive,” I shook my head, and looked at him over my shoulder, whispering back, “I do, you are handsome, that doesn’t mean the earrings don’t suit you. It only makes you look even more cute,” I felt bolder from not facing him straight on, but I could still see the slight blush on his cheeks.

He leaned back, his back hitting the wall of the elevator, his hand on my hip only tightened I didn’t say anything, but found it entertaining to know he reacted as such when given genuine compliments. “Doctor Law! I didn’t know you had a girlfriend- oh and what a cute couple you two are, you know, I was talking about it with my husband earlier that we never saw you with anyone by your side, he’ll be glad to know you’re not as hopeless as he thought you were! He was dead set on setting you up with his friend’s grand-daughter-“ The old man that had started a one-sided conversation with Law got interrupted by the nurse next to him who gave us a short smile.

She told him that he shouldn’t bother Law since clearly he had finished his shift and was on his way to leave; Law laughed politely, “You can tell Eliott that I’m fine, he shouldn’t worry about me. I can only hope to be as lucky as you are to be with him,” He said, that same polite smile adorning his features.

The old man gave me a look, almost asking me to speak, so I threaded carefully. When I saw the door open, I slid my hand inside Law’s and grinned at the old man in the wheelchair, “Well, we have to get going, any time I spend with this guy is gold- yup, and I’m, a gold digger?” I kept the weird face I wanted to make, to myself and instead followed Law’s footsteps out of the elevator, bidding goodbye to the confused old man.

When we were out, we made our way in silence to the car, Law let go of me and looked at me confused, “What did that even mean?” His voice wasn’t angry, nor was it happy, I didn’t know what he was thinking. He had the faintest frown on his face, which gave me the impression that he was mad but did not let it get to me.

“I don’t know, I panicked! I’m bad at improvising, I wanted to be all poetic you know? Like, you have little free time, so it’s rare, like gold and- it came out so, so bad, I am truly sorry about that.” I confessed while struggling to put on my seatbelt. My hands were shaking from the feeling of being put on the spot when the old man had talked to us. It felt like stage fright, but there was no show, and I was no actress. Perhaps I could try my best to be one, and act like I did not care of what the man had said but there was pride swelling inside me as I recalled he had said we made a great couple.

The black-haired man stared at me for a moment before bursting out laughing, he helped me with my seatbelt, leaning in close, “Well, you’ve embarrassed yourself by saying you’re a gold digger. At least I know what Mr. Coldwater will be talking about with his husband for the next few days.” When my seatbelt was fastened, Law did not lean back on his seat. Instead, he looked at me a little longer, his eyes darting to my lips before smirking.

I thought he was going to pull away like he did when he had coffee together and was surprised when he placed a hand on my cheek and brought my lips to his. I don’t think either of us cared that this was getting hot so fast, it was slow and deep kisses, his hand that previously was holding the wheel tightly, moved to cradle my face closer. At this moment I realized how touch starved we both were, craving that intimacy we hadn’t had in too long. I pulled him closer by his tie only to be tutted in a reprimanding way as he broke the kiss.

“You really want to take my clothes off, I’m getting worried you only want me for the sex,” he said jokingly, removing my hand from his tie and straightening it back in place as he fastened his seatbelt, giving me a side glance. “No, you’re right, I am also using you for the free food, I should have made that clearer,” I matched his attitude, giving him my best smirk, which only made him roll his eyes as he started the car.

“You are truly living that gold digger life, or is it more the sugar baby life? I can hardly tell the difference,” A strained laugh escaped my lips when I heard his words, looking at him, astonished, there was still the beginning of a smile on my face.

“Hey, come on, you’re the one offering and I never refuse great offers. I’m quite the opportunist, doc,” Humming, I felt my body flush with warmth and opened the window to get some fresh air. I looked outside, watching the flash colors of the city passing by as we drove on the highway. I was about to get lost in my thoughts when Law spoke loudly, so that I could hear above the sound of the wind.

I faced him when he started talking, “Then I shall find an offer you can’t refuse, how about,” he trailed off, making me think he was pondering what to say next but from the smug smile on his face, he knew already what he wanted to say. “I get to enjoy some too, you’ve been enjoying free food for a while now, it’s only fair I get a taste,” His eyes left the road for half a second, looking at me up and down. My brows furrowed as I tried to understand what he meant; I was coming to a conclusion but the silence from my side must have been too long when he explained himself.

“You’re the food, and I want to eat you out.”

An audible “Ah,” left my mouth, I stared at him for a moment, the radio playing at a very low volume was all we could hear along the loud wind in the background. Sliding the window shut, I nodded to myself, Law couldn’t see it for he was focused on the road. “Well, as I said… I can’t refuse a great offer, it sounds great to me, yep…” I smacked my lips, not expecting that at all and yet I was unable to ignore the excitement that started to build inside me.

“Perfect, until then, how about we order Chinese?” He then proceeded to tell me about the restaurant that wasn’t far from his place, and we then spent time trying to find what we wanted on the app. I had to read out loud most of the plates there was on the menu since Law couldn’t look at them himself. When we had chosen what we wanted, I called the place and told them our order. They said it would take about an hour since it was rush hour and they had a lot of customers right now.

The rest of the drive we chatted as if he had not just plainly told me he wanted to eat me out. I appreciated it, a deal was a deal, no need to mention it again until the right moment. While we did not mention it again, it was still very present in the back of my mind and I couldn’t wait until we were at his place to get things going. I felt like this was the longest I had to wait to get laid, but from what he keeps telling me, he’s good, and it’ll be worth it.

I brought up the topic of his clumsy blond friend, and it made him smile a little albeit the rolling of his eyes. “He’s… a family friend, helped raise me, he’s great but don’t tell him I said that. He needs to get the love toned down,” He said softly, his fingers drumming on the steering wheel. We were driving straight ahead, so it was pretty quiet. Even more so at this time of the day.

“Not to be that person, but are we there yet?” I asked him a bit shyly, I did feel like a child who had been promised a nice treat. But I was no child, and the treat was entirely different than what a child would expect. “We are, can you hold on five more minutes? Or do you really want to jump me that bad?” I laughed loudly in response, resting my elbow against the car door and leaning my head on my fist. “Oh babe, I can wait, I was curious because, thanks to you, I haven’t eaten and I’m getting car sick alright?” I huffed, focusing on the horizon with a frown.

His humorous attitude turned into concern when he asked me if I was okay, I told him that as long as I get to have a bite of something, anything really, when we got to his place, I’d survive. “I should have gotten us something to snack on before leaving, it was stupid of me,” he sighed. I turned around and looked at him in confusion, putting a hand on his shoulder, “I was kidding when I said it was because of you. I should have prepared something don’t worry, you’re good, I’m good and alive too, I just hope you have bread at your place,” I finished with a smile, sitting back properly on my seat, hoping he’d stop blaming himself.

Something in the back of my head sensed a certain familiarity in the way he was acting; Kind of like the man who made sure I’d eat and drink after… Shaking my head, I looked back at the road, making sure to ignore my thought. We weren’t on the highway anymore; we were driving through a fairly rich neighbor. Not the richest, but the housing did look very good. A lot of white houses and grey/white buildings too, “I do have food, yes, I also have to eat you know? I am human after all,” He said with a smug smile. I rolled my eyes, “Damn I thought you sparkled under the sun, here lies my hopes and dreams.” I sighed in faux-despair, I then met his eyes, “The more you know, right?” I added.

His smug smile disappeared to let an exhausted playful one adorn his face, he did not say anything else. After a while, we arrived, and he parked his car in the underground parking lot of the building before leading us to the elevator. His place was on the eleventh floor, which made the ride there only more painful. “I think we spent too much time on elevators today,” I stated. Law huffed, giving me a weird look, “And I think we’re lucky to be alone in this one, or would you prefer to be pressed against me in a crowded one?” I bit the inside of my cheek and threw him a glance, considering his suggestion.

The unsaid suggestion being: ‘shall we make out in the empty elevator?’, I think. “If you want me so bad, maybe you should come closer, see what happens? I promise I don’t bite.” I told him with a smirk, he was at the opposite of me, his arms crossed on his chest with his cap still covering his head. Grinning, he shook his head. “It’s cute, you’re trying to take control. Trying, being the key word. But you see, if I give you a taste right now, you won’t be able to behave until I fucked you properly.” He said dryly, only giving me a side glance before continuing, “We don’t want that, do we?” He smiled, approaching slowly, his arms falling to his side.

He gently placed a hand on my cheek, I had a hard time keeping my reactions to myself. There was an unspoken battle of who would break first, and I had shown the first cracks by getting on his lap and initiating a making out session. Fortunately, I was brought back to reality when we got interrupted but with how he looked at me right now, I don’t think I could hold back a lot longer. “We wouldn’t want that, no,” I mirrored his smile, my hand sliding to his pants and pulling him closer by the belt. A surprised huff escaped his lips, turning his smirk into a strained expression.

We stared at one another, daring the other to make another move. It was like playing Jenga but without the wooden blocks, without the support of the table, without the joyful laugh and angry screams of stress, but the tension was somewhat the same. Taking from the other to add more and more, trying to make each other tip. Trying our hardest to win by having the other succumb first, their composure crumbling like the wooden tower. If you showed one ounce of weakness, trembling hands, shivers, short breath, you’d be done for. And I knew full well I had lost long ago, yet we still entertained the idea.

Our staring contest was cut short by the ‘ding’ the elevator made when we arrived on the eleventh floor. “Looks like it’s our stop,” I grinned, pushing him away gently as I pushed myself off the wall and gripped my bag tight. “I was going to lead the way, but I don’t know which one is yours so,” I stepped to the side and let him walk in front of me, “Guide me,”

He chuckled and pulled the keys from his pockets, his pace fast in front of me. He stopped in front of a door and unlocked it, I followed and did as he did, removed my shoes at the entrance. When I was about to follow him further inside the place, I was stopped, “Wait here, I need to check something first,” with that he was gone, and I was left standing in the middle of the hall. I put my bag on the cabinet by the door and did not move. I still tried to look around, the place was open. To my left was the kitchen, it looked big enough for… creative activities.

On the right there was the living room, with the dining room close by. No walls separated anything, which made the room very vast. Law had entered a room right ahead from the entrance, he closed it behind and stayed there a few minutes before coming out with a pair of sweatpants and a long-sleeved black shirt he had rolled the sleeves of. He seemed a lot more comfortable than he had been in his slack pants, tight belt, tie and dress shirt. Looking at me, he grinned and approached me close.

“By ‘wait here’ I meant, not follow me. But you stayed right…” He dragged the word, his eyes trailing on my form, “…there, you did not move an inch. You are obedient after all,” I looked at him with wide eyes, my cheeks warming up by the second. I don’t know what he meant by that, but I took his words as a permission for me to move. I walked past him and made my way to the kitchen, “I’m hungry above anything else,” I heard him say that I should make myself at home, so I did. I started making myself a sandwich while still talking, “And you said I should wait, so I waited, it’s not my place so I wasn’t going to take a look around, no matter how tempting it is.”

I explained before taking a bite and groaning at how great it felt to finally eat after a long day. I did not miss Law when he joined me in the kitchen and handed me a glass a water, saying that if I was going to eat so fast, I might as well not choke. I thanked him, then kept eating in silence until he spoke up, “You said no matter how tempting it is, do tell me what you’re curious about. I’ll give you a tour, not that we weren’t going to do that anyway,” I quirked a brow, asking him if he really meant to give me a tour in the first place.

“Well, not in those circumstances. I’d have had you on all the furniture, moaning, but by the end we’d have done it in all the rooms.” He did not falter once while delivering that line, his back resting against the countertop, his head only half-turned towards me as his eyes were looking at nothing. He was imagining it, a smile on his face. My mouth too dry when I swallowed, I started choking and quickly took a sip of water. Law looked at me with a look that said, ‘I told you so’, so I scoffed. “It’s your fault if I’m choking, don’t give me that look doc.”

He shook his head, “That’s not how I choke, but you can blame me for having you so flustered you lost the use of your mouth,” I sighed loudly at his words, but the smile on my face betrayed the fake-annoyance I put up. If he kept that up, my tower of restrain would collapse, he was too good with words. I tried to taunt him, tease him perhaps, in the elevator but utterly failed. And here he was, simply standing next to me, but having me hot and bothered by the snap of his fingers.

“If you don’t answer, I’ll think you’ve really choked, maybe I should help you out,” He drawled, his hand grabbing my wrist gently as he pulled me towards him. He placed himself behind me, my back against his chest. I let him move me as he pleased, curious of what he’d do, and did not say anything. You know what they said, if you don’t have anything sexy to say, don’t say anything, or something like that.

I felt his other hand slowly travel the length of my body, from the side of my thigh to my hip, to my sides to finally rest on my shoulder. His hand delicately moved to rest under my chin, lifting it from under, barely holding my neck. “Tell me to stop and I’ll stop,” he whispered into my ear before letting go of my hand to rest a hand on my stomach, just under my chest. I breathed out, ‘Keep going,’ but could barely hear it myself. I felt him huff a laugh as his finger gently graze against my throat.

“Something’s keeping you from talking, so I should help, right?” He continued, his hand leaving my neck to join his other one on my stomach. His lips moved to where his hand was on my neck and ghosted my skin as he spoke. “The trick is to put the thumb right here,” He clicked his tongue against his teeth and chuckled, “We can’t really see much like that, can we? Here,” he raised my shirt, and to not have to hold it he told me to keep the hem between my teeth. I tried to lean my head back on his shoulder, but he said I should watch and learn.

“You put your fist right there, the other hand above it and you pull it up,” Instead of pulling up, he moved both of his hands right under my breasts, tracing oh so slowly. His mouth soon joined as he pressed kisses on the back of my neck, I laughed lightly at the tickling sensation of his hair on my skin. “Don’t move or I’ll stop,” he said in a low tone. His hands had started traveling down my body, but I stopped him and pulled away from him, “Stop what? You’ve barely done anything, we could stop everything right now and it wouldn’t change a thing-“ With an annoyed sigh, he pulled me closer once more, this time he did not lose time and took my shirt off.

I raised my arm to help him, if he initiated it like that, I could still claim to not have lost. He had caved in first, and I had barely done anything for it to happen. “You talk too much, and moan so little. I’d like to change that,” he was about to help me on the countertop when I smirked and pushed him away once more. “Not here to fight you, but if you plan of fucking me properly, I’d like for it to happen in a proper bed too.” With another annoyed huff, he led me to his room but did not bother closing the door. Instead, he made me wrap my hands around his shoulders, his were resting on my hips as he guided me to the bed.

I fell my back first on it as he let go of me and looked down at me with a wide grin. “Hopefully you didn’t forget my offer,” he asked rhetorically before leaning over the bed and helping me out of my clothes slowly, the excitement coursing through my body made my hands tremble a little as I tried to help me out, but he told me, “Keep your hands to yourself or I might have to tie you up,” while I knew he said it jokingly, I couldn’t help but found some thrill into it. I did not tell him I’d be into it, just like I did not tell him I dreamt of him in the most sinful ways.

Instead, I scoffed, I don’t know where I found the attitude. I felt completely exposed while he was still fully dressed, I could however see the growing bulge in his pants and grinned before meeting his gaze. “My hands could be helping you too, you know,” His lips pulled into a smirk, he grabbed my ankles and put my legs over his shoulders as he knelt on the bed, between my legs. “I think they’ll fit better here,” he let go of my legs and placed both my hands in his hair.

Without any warning, he dipped his head between my legs and starting working, my breath hitched in my throat as I let my head fall back. He started slow, painfully so, his tongue feeling strange at first but slowly growing into a pleasing sensation. It was enjoyable but not yet a bliss, I had yet to be gripping his hair in pleasure and must have noticed and stopped for a moment. His hands slithered from knees to the higher spot on my thighs, “Do you want to make this a bit more fun?” He asked, after having wiped his chin on my thigh.

I nodded, he told me to try again, I furrowed my brows a moment then cleared my dry throat, “Yes, what do you have in mind?” I asked, he then instructed for me to grab the headboard tightly and not let go. If I did, he’d stop. If I wanted to stop, I’d have to hit his back with my heel. I liked that, it was kind of like… discipline… When I agreed, he went back to work, except this time, he used his hands too. While one finger was playing with my clit, his mouth was licking, sucking, his tongue lapping at my lower lips, another one was thrusting inside and out of me.

At some point, he looked up at me and grinned widely, his eyes darted to where my hands were gripping the headboard with all my strength. I was panting, high pitched moans escaping my lips without any shame. He grazed his teeth against my skin and met my gaze as if to ask if he could go one, I told him he could go ahead and then felt a stinging pain of his teeth sinking in my skin enough to feel some pain but not to spill some blood. I tried to keep my mouth shut to muffle the louder moan that was going to escape but was only reprimanded in return. “Where’s the fun in covering up those pretty sounds?” He stopped everything and leaned over me, a hand on my chin to open my mouth.

“See, if it can open like that, why not use it to let me enjoy those moans of yours, hm?” A lazy smile on my lips, I wanted to do what he did to me: grab his chin back and maybe slap his hand away but I felt like I had to keep holding the headboard. “I’ll make a note of that, so keep going if you want to hear more of it, hm?” I mimicked his tone, only to be met with a taunting smile.

“It’s cute, you’re still following the game of not letting go of the bed, but you’re talking back. Guess we’ll have to make you scream louder, hopefully you won’t mind,” I could feel my whole body warming up, upon hearing his words. He then gripped the hem of his shirt with both his hands before removing it, I suddenly felt a shiver ran down my body and looked up at him.

“Oh god you’re-“

[Part 9]

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nerdythebard · 3 years

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#8: Adrian 'Alucard' Tepes [Castlevania]

Surprise!

Told you I can do any fictional character. Feel free to send me your suggestions!

By the time I'm writing this, season 4 of Netflix's Castlevania shall hit our screens in two days. Because of that, I decided to do something special and build the main trio in D&D. We'll start with everybody's bundle of daddy issues - Adrian Fahrenheit Tepes aka Alucard. This half-vampire swordsman uses his charm and nimbleness to overpower his foes.

Next Time: Never tell this woman beer is better than sex with her, my man... see what happens.

Now, let's see what we need to bring Alucard into our D&D game.

Errr... besides that.

Half-Blood Prince: Alucard is a half-vampire son of Dracula. He's quite an accomplished scholar, orator, and all-around high-class fella. His strength, speed, and intelligence are obviously above that of any mortal, but I'm afraid this is D&D, not anime. We have to balance it out.

Floaty Sword: Alucard's weapon of choice is a longsword he controls telekinetically. We don't see him doing much in terms of magic and spellcasting (besides occasional quick stride akin to teleportation), so we shall focus on this one weapon.

Tough: I mean... my dude fights either shirtless or in a trenchcoat and he still can take more Punchables™ than Mama said. What I mean is, we need some good AC on him.

---

The issue of Alucard's race is pretty much non-existing; he's a half-vampire, there is a half-vampire option in D&D that is about to become official with the upcoming release of Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft.

Alucard is a Dhampir. We get to pick a +2 and +1 to two different stats of our choice, let's get +2 Dexterity and +1 Constitution. We get both walking AND climbing speed of 35 feet, 60 feet of Darkvision, and we get to speak Common and one other language of our choice. Most importantly, we get Vampiric Bite, which lets us use our teeth as natural weapons. We can add our Constitution modifier to both attack and damage rolls of our fangs, and the bite deals 1d4 piercing damage. If we're below 50% health, we have an advantage on the attack roll. We're not ourselves when we're hungry. If the creature we bite is not a construct or an undead, we can choose one of the following benefits:

regain Hit Points equal to the damage of our bite;

gain a bonus to the next ability check or attack roll we make (bonus equals the damage of our bite)

We can use those bite benefits the number of times equal to our proficiency bonus, and we regain all bites after finishing a long rest.

For Alucard's background, I feel like going with Noble is most fitting. We get proficiency with History and Persuasion, proficiency in one gaming set, we learn one language of our choice, and we gain the Position of Privilege feature; much like Shelter of the Faithful or Military Rank from previous builds, this one grants us ability to secure an audience with a noble, or use our status to gain entrance to more secured locations. Nobody tells the son of Dracula what he can or can't do!

ABILITY SCORES

If you ever seen Alucard, you know he's scoring 18 in every single thing right away. That makes him almost anime protagonist-level of awesome. However, once again, this is D&D. We must be fair and adhere to the rules:

We start with Constitution, as we're pretty difficult to hurt (our only weakness seems to be attractive Japanese hunters). Dexterity is next, it is our primary fighting ability, and we need it to be able to go shirtless into battle. We follow that up with Strength, we are nimble but we can still punch a full-on vampire in the face hard enough to make him feel it.

Intelligence is next, we've had Dracula's entire library to kill time, and we're pretty educated. Wisdom is a bit lower than we need it to be, but we did get outsmarted by two Belmont wannabes. We'll work on that. Unfortunately, we have to dump Charisma.

H-hey! For my defence, he's been described as a teenager in an adult's body! He is educated and eloquent, but apart from that, his charm comes from how inept and awkward he is... err... it doesn't work, eh?

YOU'LL NEVER TAKE ME ALIVE!

CLASS

Level 1 - Fighter: No big surprise there, we're not a caster or a tank, this is a damage-dealer build. As a Fighter, we get a d10 for our Hit Dice, [10 + Constitution modifier] starting Hit Points, proficiency with light armour, medium armour, heavy armour, shields, simple weapons, and martial weapons. We don't need armour for this build (we've seen Alucard using a shield in S4 trailer), and I think his sword is long and thin enough to count as a rapier. Our saving throws are Strength and Constitution, and we get to pick two class skills: Athletics and Acrobatics seems stereotypical, but they're really useful in this build.

Fighters at 1st level get to pick their Fighting Style, and if you remember Alucard's fight with Trevor, you know we're going with Duelling. This gives us a +2 to damage rolls with our weapon, as long as it's the only one we have in our hands, so we're dropping the shield. We also get Second Wind, letting us heal [1d10 + our Fighter level] once per short or long rest.

Level 2 - Fighter: At this level we get Action Surge, which lets us take one additional Action once per short or long rest.

Level 3 - Fighter: This is the level where we get to pick our subclass, our Martial Archetype. Now, if this build was done earlier, I would've picked Eldritch Knight (as Weapon Bond is especially tempting feature), but thanks once again to Tasha's Cauldron of Everything we have something that fits Alucard much better.

Alucard is a Psi Warrior. He uses much less magic than Sypha, and his main tactic is to use his sword telekinetically. This subclass has everything we need. We start with Psionic Power, which gives us a [our proficiency bonus x2]d6 of Psionic Energy Dice, which can be used to perform special effects. We regain all Psionic Dice after finishing a long rest, but once per short or long rest we can also regain one dice as a bonus action, which is useful in a pinch. We begin with the following psychic effects:

Protective Field: when a creature within 30 feet of us takes damage, we can spend 1 Psionic Die as a reaction to reduce the damage by [the result + our Intelligence modifier].

Psionic Strike: Once on our turn, when we successfully deal damage to a target within 30 feet of us, we can spend 1 Psionic Die to add extra [the result + our Intelligence modifier] force damage.

Telekinetic Movement: As an action, we can select a loose object that is Large or smaller (or one willing creature other than ourselves), and move it up to 30 feet into an unoccupied space. Alternatively, we can summon a Tiny object directly to or from our hand. Our rapier is definitely not Tiny, but moving it as close as 1 foot and using a free action to pick it up is absolutely possible. Once we use this effect, we have to wait a short or long rest, or use a Psionic Die to use it again.

Level 4 - Fighter: It's time for our first Ability Score Improvement! Instead, however, we will pick a feat. Mobile feat along with a Dexterity-based character is truly a DM's bane. Our walking (and climbing) speed increases by 10 feet; when we use the Dash action, we are not affected by difficult terrain; when we make a melee attack against a creature, we do not provoke attacks of opportunity for the rest of the turn, regardless if we hit our target or not.

Level 5 - Fighter: At this level we get Extra Attack. During our turn, as we take our Action, we can now attack twice instead of once. Combining that with Action Surge lets us attack four times on our turn.

It is also here that our Psionic Dice increases from d6 into d8.

Level 6 - Fighter: We get another ASI. Let's raise our Wisdom by 2 points. We need it to multiclass later.

Level 7 - Fighter: Our subclass gets upgraded with Telekinetic Adept. We now get two additional effects to pick for our Psionic Dice:

Psi-Powered Leap: As a bonus action, we gain flying speed of [our walking speed x2] feet until the end of our current turn. Once we take this effect, we cannot do it again until we finish a short or long rest, or spend a Psionic Die to do it again.

Telekinetic Thrust: When we use our Psionic Strike, we can force a Strength saving throw on our target (DC: 8 + our proficiency bonus + our Intelligence modifier). On a failed save, we can either knock the target prone, or move them 10 feet in any horizontal direction.

Level 8 - Fighter: Time for another ASI. Once again, we need to raise our Wisdom, but this time only by a single point. We'll put the other point into Strength, and let's get ready to multiclass into...

Level 9 - Monk: We shall now address Alucard's questionable choice of body protection... and by that I mean lack thereof. As a 1st-level Monk, we get Unarmoured Defence; when we're not wearing any armour, our AC equals [10 + our Dexterity modifier + our Wisdom modifier].

We also get our hand-to-hand combat upgraded with Martial Arts, which is going to be useful if we're somehow separated from our sword. While we're unarmed (or wielding monk weapons) and unarmoured (and with no shield), we gain the following benefits:

We can use Dexterity instead of Strength for attack and damage rolls of our unarmed strikes and monk weapons;

We can now roll a d4 for attack and damage rolls of our unarmed strikes (instead of our Strength or Dexterity modifier) and monk weapons;

When we Attack using unarmed strikes or monk weapons, we can spend a bonus action to do additional unarmed strike.

Level 10 - Monk: Halfway through the build, and we're getting access to the Monk's most important resource, the Ki energy. We start with 2 Ki Points, which we can spend to fuel some extra Monk abilities. Right from the start, we know three of those:

Flurry of Blows: Immediately after we Attack, we can spend 1 Ki Point to deal two extra unarmed strikes.

Patient Defence: We can burn 1 Ki Point to take a Dodge action as a bonus action.

Step of the Wind: For 1 Ki Point, we can take a Dash or Disengage action as a bonus action. Our jump distance also doubles for the turn.

We also get extra speedy here with Unarmoured Movement. While not wearing armour or a shield, our walking speed increases by 10 feet.

Level 11 - Monk: At this level, we shall learn how to Deflect Missiles. Whenever we're hit by a ranged projectile, we can use our reaction to reduce the damage dealt by [1d10 + our Dexterity modifier + our Monk level]. If we manage to reduce the damage to 0, we can catch the projectile with a free hand and, using the same reaction, make a ranged attack (20/60) with the same projectile.

This is also the time to pick our second subclass, our Monastic Tradition. Now, originally I wanted to do Way of the Shadow to get some more of that vampiric sneak, but then I realize it's not exactly what Alucard does. Instead, we'll go Way of the Open Hand, to enhance our unarmed combat. With the Open Hand Technique feature, we gain a boost to our Flurry of Blows. Every time on of our Flurry strikes hits, we can apply one of the following effects:

Target must make a Dexterity saving throw or be knocked prone;

Target must make a Strength saving throw or be pushed up to 15 feet;

Target cannot take reactions until the end of our next turn.

We also get Wholeness of Body to double-down on our vampiric regeneration. Once per long rest, we can use an action to regain Hit Points equal to [our Monk level x3].

It is also at this level that our Psionic Dice get upgraded to a d10.

Level 12 - Fighter: We return to our Jedi Psi Warrior, just in time to get the Indomitable feature. Once per long rest, we can reroll a saving throw we fail, but we must use the new result.

Level 13 - Fighter: Our subclass gets upgraded with Guarded Mind. We are now resistant to psychic damage. Additionally, we can spend a Psionic Die to shake off the charmed or frightened effects if we start our turn under influence of those.

Level 14 - Fighter: Here, our Extra Attack gets improved; now, we can attack three times when taking the Attack action.

Level 15 - Fighter: We get another ASI. Let's raise our Charisma by 2 point, to get rid of the negative modifier.

Level 16 - Fighter: We now get an improvement to our Indomitable feature. We can use it twice per long rest.

Level 17 - Fighter: For another ASI, we shall raise our Dexterity by 2 points.

Level 18 - Fighter: We get the final upgrade for our subclass in this build. By using Bulwark of Force, we can protect ourselves and others. As a bonus action, we can choose a number of creatures within 30 feet that we can see (ourselves included), equal to our Intelligence modifier. The chosen creatures gain the benefit of half-cover for 1 minute, or until we're incapacitated. Once again, we can use it once per long rest, unless we spend a Psionic Die to use it again.

Level 19 - Fighter: For our final ASI we shall raise our Wisdom and Intelligence.

Level 20 - Fighter: Our capstone is Fighter 17. We get three uses of Indomitable per long rest, and two uses of Action Surge, which effectively gives us ability to perform nine attacks on a single target.

---

And that is my take on Alucard from Castlevania. Let's see how he presents himself:

First of all, we're a very speedy boi, with basic speed of 55 feet, with Step of the Wind giving us ability to double that movement. We also have a solid Hit Point base, 181 on average. We can make multiple attacks with Action Surge and Extra Attack, and even if we get disarmed, we can handle ourselves with bare hands.

On the other hand, our Charisma makes those particular saving throws a bit difficult. Same thing with our Intelligence, which modifier fuels some of our subclass abilities. We also have a relatively low AC (16 unarmoured), but we do have several skills attributing to avoiding getting hit (the Mobile feat, Patient Defence, etc.)

---

Anyhoo, that's it for Alucard. Next time, it's everybody's favourite tomboy wizard!

- Nerdy out!

#dnd #d&d 5e #dungeons and dragons #castlevania #netflix #netflix castlevania #castlevania season 4 #alucard #adrian tepes #fighter #psi warrior #monk #way of the open hand

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ru08us · 3 years

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My concept of an Azulaang Fic

I have wanted to write an idea for a very long fic about this two characters. I figured out that for them to be together with their original characterization I literally have to change all the structure if the show, so here it is. I hope you like it.

“Water. Earth. Fire. Air. When I was a child I remember seeing how the Four Nations lived in Harmony. Air Nomads living in peace in our high temples, the Water Tribes striving with beautiful cities, the Earth Kingdom growing in peace and tradition, and the Fire Nation, living the biggest prosperity age the world had ever seen. But everything changed when these last one attacked. Only the Avatar mastered all four elements. Only he could stop the ruthless firebenders. But he failed, three times. A hundred years have passed and the Fire Nation is nearing victory in the War. Two years ago, I woke up from an iceberg and discovered that the world I had been born in was gone. Some people say the Avatar is out there, hiding in the Earth Kingdom, or that the avatar cicle is broken. But I believe they are wrong. The new Avatar must have been born in the Fire Nation, and I’m going to find him. Deep in my heart, I know he is going to come back and save the world”

4 Main changes for the story

Azula is the Avatar, Aang is an airbender who got frost for 98 years, Ozai is more calculating and cold and Zuko’s arc changes completely

Book 1: Air

So I will start describing Character arcs and relationship developments

Azula and Aang

First 2 chapters: The Fire Nation is making it’s annual examination to find if the Avatar is in their country. Every 14 year old is put into this process. Azula is discovered as the Avatar and Ozai congratulates her, only to chi send her into a cell. She is rescued by another 14 years old guy, Aang, and they escape together. She uses the Avatar State for the first time while escaping.

They manage to sneak into the Earth Kingdom riding Appa and then Azula starts figuring out her situation properly. She questions Aang on his motives and he tells her he is an air nomad who has been looking for the avatar for 2 years after being frozen.

Chapter 3 and 4: This first part is basically Azula figuring out going along with the flow would be better for the time being and starting to relate to Aang. She tries several times to intimidate him and get him into a Ty Lee situation. But Aang is too cheerful and fails… until she starts asking about the nomads and his motives. They have one adventure where they save a town from destruction and in a happy moment Aang tells her he ran away. Azula starts taunting him with this, and she demands going to the southern air temple. She is figuring out what to do: go back to the Fire Nation or become a spiritual overlord as the Avatar?

Chapter 5 and 6: When they arrive Azula starts making cold comments about the Air Nation and its army, Aang tells her they didn’t have a formal military and after a while Azula says he is right, that they were so weak they didn’t. Aang starts getting mad at her and she calls him a coward for running. Aang then revelas they thought he was the Avatar, but they were wrong. Azula has bargain and thinks she knows how to manipulate Aang, consoling him. Zuko meets Azula and Aang and asks for the Avatar, believing it’s Aang, and Azula taunts him and humilliates him. They get attacked by Zuko and some Fire Nation soldiers then, but they escape (mostly to stop the temples from destruction).

Chapter 7 and 8: Aang and Azula start traveling back to the Earth Kingdom and discuss their countries and cultures. Aang tells Azula about Gyatso and how he was like his father. Azula makes a parallel saying how Ozai wanted to send her away too. The point was to make Aang more dependent, but he gets mad at her. Aang tells them that monks were a peaceful culture unlike the Fire Nation and Azula tells him that the Fire Nation is powerful, smart and wealthy, unlike the Air Nomads. Aang tells her she cannot think that if she wants to learn airbending (she has been training for some weeks with Aang by now and she is doing pretty bad, she attributes this failure to Aang and the situation she is in). They both decide to go to the eastern Air Temple, Aang to show her how good his culture is and Azula to show the opposite. Azula makes fun of Aang during the road, telling him he could be a great Fire Nation Citizen if he tried, cause he is too close. Aang starts thinking about this and tells her he can have an open mind. They arrive and Azula sees that the Air Nomads were actually competent and smart, while Aang relives the fear of Gyatso “wanting” to send him to the Eastern Air Temple. But he learns other things, going in close rooms. He sees some deathly techniques and learns Air Nomads abandoned babies without airbending to non bending families all around the world. Aang is kind of broken and Azula feels confused. In a moment she tells Aang she feels ready to learn airbening and Aang is almost crying for the last part. Azula comforts him tells him that Fire Nation culture can have some bad aspects, like some spicy food and stuff. Aang laughs and they start becoming friends.

Chapter 9: Aang teaches Azula the principle of liberty and games. He tells her they has been very stressed for a while and need to have some rest. Azula mocks Aang for this, but agrees to release some tension. They have fun for a while in some earthbending place, and they talk about trivial stuff. Then they got into training and a routine (slow chapter, mostly for giving Azula time to rest and release pressure). Azula reveals the plans and Sozin’s comet to Aang, mostly to add urgency and play less, but Aang says that distractions are necessary for airbending. Aang questions Azula about firebending and asks if some moves can be used in air, due to azula combining them in training.

Chapter 10 and 11: Zuko and Iroh found Azula and Aang in a several days, while they travel figuring out what to do. Aang and Azula beat Zuko pretty bad (together and separated) and then Azula discovers (by manipulating Zuko) Zhao’s plan toward the North and Aang and Azula decide to go there, cause maybe they won’t find a waterbender master by the time. They are very south of the Earth Kingdom by now.

Chapter 12, 13, 14, 15:Azula and Aang have adventures in the Earth Kingdom and deepen the bond. Aang is more open now and Azula is weirdly nice. They get to Omashu and Aang meets with Bumi in a different way and the White Lotus is the focus, Azula starts acting nice (for her standards). They run into Jet (Azula doesn’t trust him and dismantle the operation easily) and finally they get chased by Zhao but he is easily beaten by both of them, with the Yuyan Archers. Then the fortune teller, not similar to the show (Aang doesn’t have such a strong crush with Azula, if any; and azula dismisses the things). Aang basically cools a volcano and Azula is for the first time surprised on how powerful he is. They talk about him being a prodigy and they bond.

Chapter 16,17: Extended Northern Air temple, but instead of a minister is Ozai himself. Azula rans into a bit of a panic, and for the first time Aang calms her. Aang find a letter from Gyatso to a friend, telling him that he is taking Aang out of the Southern Air Temple to run away with him. Aang tells this to Azula and she acts comforting. She has started to grow close to him and thinks that: “I don’t need fear with him, I can work with he worshipping me as the Avatar”. Both of them start developing feeling from now on. They escape with the village (but not the Mechanist). By this time Azula has advanced enough in Airbending

18-20: Siege of the North. They meet Katara and Sokka. Katara’s illusions of the Avatar shatter and they don’t get along. Azula tries to manipulate Sokka but plays too much into his insecurities. Both sibling dislike her and she just asks Pakku to train her in waterbending. But before anything happens the siege occurs, the spirit dies and she almost does when all the ships who didn’t die at the attack (commanded by Zuko) start firing at her core, but she is saved by the siblings and Aang. The end is she waking up with Aang and the siblings at her side, being told she is needed in the Earth Kingdom and Katara will be her master and her with Aang having a private moment and a hug. Azula starts thinking of Aang as her first true friend.

We completed the main Arc of both of them in Book 1. I will finish their arcs for the rest of the books and then write Zuko’s, Katara’s, Ozai’s, etc. I won’t write. a fic about this, but if you are interested contact me by dm.

Please write comments so I feel this is not going so bad heheh

#azulaang #princess azula #avatar the last airbender #fanfic #avatar azula #au #aang rarepair week #aang

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stormcrow-whispers · 7 years

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Father’s Day

The sun was just barely peeking up over the rooftops of Holden as Kallista weaved through back alleys and side streets. Typically when she was out on her own she walked at a clipped pace, but given the big box of scones and the small bag she was holding in her arms, she was going much slower than usual. She was glad she'd snuck out so early, otherwise this totally wouldn't have worked.

She was really excited. She couldn't wait to surprise him.

Once she got home, Kallista did her best to quietly tip toe through the front door and around the kitchen. It proved a bit difficult with all the things she was carrying, but she managed to place everything on the kitchen table without much incident. After plucking a plate and mug from one of the cabinets, she set about arranging the things she’d bought with great care at the head of the table. Once she was satisfied, she pulled a small sheet of paper from her bag and placed it next to the spread.

Good. It all looked good. Maybe a little more crude than she’d envisioned it, and with much smaller gifts than she’d wanted, but still good nonetheless. She really hoped he liked it.

With a small nod, she moved towards the stove to get the tea kettle. She was a bit nervous of dropping it, but she needed it to finish the surprise. The thing was old, metal, and felt like it weighed a ton, at least to a small child like her. Ever so carefully, she tried to pick the thing up to put it over the fire. It went well at first, but after a few steps her arms began to wobble from the weight, and it slipped from her grasp, landing with a loud clang on the ground.

Kallista panicked, looking back towards the hall to see if he’d woken up, then turned back frantically to try and pick it up again. She was about to lift it when a voice made her jump.

“What exactly are you doing?”

Kallista froze. He sounded annoyed and tired. The exact opposite of what she wanted today of all days. After standing in silence with her back to him for several moments, she turned around to face him, wringing her hands together nervously as she did so.

“Why are you out of bed so early?” he pressed her, his voice still thick with sleep but his eyes bright and alert and trained on her.

Kallista stared down at the floor, shrugging her shoulders and swishing her tail around her legs in discomfort. “It’s just...today’s Father’s Day and I...I wanted to...I know you’re not...I just…” she trailed off with a big sigh, a sad tone overtaking her voice. “I just wanted to do something nice for you and I ruined the surprise.” she pointed towards the spread on the table as she spoke.

Ronan frowned at her for a moment before turning his gaze towards the table. When he spotted what she was talking about, his mouth hung open ever so slightly in surprise. Arranged before his spot at the table were three freshly baked scones, a small tin of tea with a bow wrapped around it, and a drawing. She must’ve gotten up extra early to run into the Marble District to buy the scones judging by how warm they still were, and the tin of tea happened to be one of his favorites. The thing that struck him about the tea wasn’t that she’d known it was his favorite, but that the tea was quite expensive, especially for a child. She must’ve used up quite a bit of her savings to buy it for him. Finally, he inspected the drawing. It featured him and her standing on rooftop, in their gear, with the little Kallista throwing what looked like confetti. At the top she’d written “Happy Father’s Day” in big red letters. It was a bit messier than some of her other drawings, but it was still rather nice.

“I..um...I know it’s not much...but I saved up for a while and this is all I could get...I really hope you like it…” Kallista said shyly, shuffling closer to his side so she could see his reaction.

Ronan was taken aback. He hadn’t expected her to do anything for him, in fact he’d forgotten about the holiday entirely. The fact that she cared enough to go through all this trouble was…he wasn’t entirely sure how to feel. But he wouldn’t deny the small squeeze he felt in his chest at the sight of it all.

He glanced over to find her staring up at him timidly, a hopeful look gleaming in her red eyes. He watched her in silence for a few seconds before reaching down and ruffling her short hair, mumbling a soft thank you to her under his breath. Judging by the way her face lit up, she definitely heard him. And when he thanked her again after eating the scones and drinking some of the delicious tea, she was practically over the moon.

As the warm light of the early morning sun filtered through the windows, Ronan lounged across his couch, still half asleep, a warm mug of tea in hand. Despite having nothing to do today, after decades of getting up with sun he’d lost the ability to sleep in. So instead he relaxed, drank his tea, and prepared his woodcarving tools to begin a new project.

A loud knock on the door broke Ronan from his peaceful respite. He frowned curiously at the door, but made no move to answer it. He wasn’t expecting any company, in fact he’d made sure no one would bother him today on his day off. He had absolutely no plans to be social, and whoever it was at the door could just leave a note. He turned back to his tea, taking a long sip and settling back into the couch. He had just about gotten comfortable again when they knocked once more, this time louder and more insistent. On the third set of knocks, he cursed under his breath, setting his mug down on the table and getting up to see who the hell was pestering him at such an early hour.

He cracked the door open ever so slightly, and when he peered through it he found Kallista standing before him, a hand on her hip and a toothy grin on her face. Of course it was her. No one else in their right mind would show up this early to be a nuisance.

“Hey old man, you busy?”

He grimaced at her in response as he opened the door all the way, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Well I was busy enjoying doing absolutely nothing, but I guess you’ve come to remedy that.”

She snorted, “I take it you forgot what the date is then. Old age certainly isn’t doing you any favors.”

Ronan narrowed his eyes at her, “What are you…”

Oh. It was Father’s Day wasn’t it.

He groaned when he came to the realization, putting his head in his hands. He heard her snicker at him in response, and he glared at her. “It’s my day off, you know.”

“Oh yes. Because I cleared your schedule with the hire ups a month ago.”

“You did what?”

“I have so many fun things planned for today, and I wasn’t about to let work get in the way of it all.” She clapped her hands together with a big smile. He rolled his eyes at her and grumbled in annoyance, which only made her smile grow.

“And what if I don’t want to do anything?”

Kallista said nothing, just folded her hands behind her back and watched him expectantly, an amused glint in her eye.

He let out a disgruntled sigh, covering his face with his hand. “You aren’t going to leave me alone until I come with you, are you?’

“Nope!”

He shot her a withering look, but after realizing he wasn’t going to win this argument, he finally stepped aside so she could come in. “Fine. I guess I’ll come. Not that I really have a choice.”

Kallista beamed at him and pranced in happily, her jewelry clinking together softly with each step she took. Ronan watched as she busied herself about the kitchen, looking through the cabinets for her mug and some tea leaves. His lips twitched up at the corners ever so slightly as he recalled her doing the same as a small child, only now she was tall enough to not need to clamber onto chairs or the countertop to try and reach everything. He arched an eyebrow at her as he finally noticed her outfit, or rather, the ridiculous amount of jewelry she was wearing today. It looked like she was wearing practically everything she owned, but all things considered, coupled with the sleek black dress and breeches she was wearing, the ensemble suited her, even if it was ostentatious as hell. He’d never understand how she found that much jewelry even remotely comfortable to wear.

“I take it we aren’t going to be doing anything dangerous if you’re dressed like that.”

She grinned, waving a hand in the air at him dismissively. “Oh no no no, today is super low key. Nothing exciting.”

“From the way you’re talking this sounds like it’s going to be an all day affair.” he said tiredly, leaning against the kitchen table.

“Oh absolutely, I’ve got every part of the day planned.” she replied as she finished mixing some honey into her tea. She turned on her heel to face them, mug held up close to her face. She looked him up and down with a comically disgusted look, gesturing at his loungewear with her mug. “Please tell me you’re not going to try and leave looking like that.”

He scoffed in annoyance but otherwise said nothing, trudging to his room to change. Kallista pulled out a chair and sat down to enjoy her tea while she waited, watching Baskerville scurry around the kitchen in search of crumbs.

After several minutes Ronan came back, clad in a casual but refined looking all black outfit consisting of a sweater, breeches, a scarf, and leather boots. Kallista clapped mockingly at him with a huge smirk. “Much much better! Now I can actually be seen with you in public!”

Ronan rolled his eyes. “I really don’t get why you’re insisting with this. It’s just a made up holiday.”

“Oh hush, just accept it and enjoy not having to pay for anything.”

“To be fair, there’s quite a lot of things I don’t pay for already so...”

Kallista shushed him and herded him towards the door before he could stall their departure any longer, scooping Baskerville up from the floor as she did so. After locking the door behind them, they joined the early morning hustle and bustle.

Ronan followed close by her side as she weaved through the crowded streets, shaking his head a bit at her determined stride. “You know I really don’t understand why you’re going through all this trouble. You could’ve just given me a card or something.”

Kallista scoffed. “I’m not a kid anymore, dad. I have a job and the means to actually do nice shit for you. Besides, you deserve way more than a silly card. And I’m certainly not letting you stay holed up at home on Father’s Day of all days.” she patted him on the back, leading him down another side street with a soft smile. “Trust me, it’ll be worth leaving the house, ok?”

Ronan sighed. He wasn’t really sure why she was being so insistent, but from the looks of things doing this meant a lot to her, so he followed her willingly.

She hadn’t been kidding when she’d said she’d planned out the whole day. They started out having brunch at their usual place, same as any other weekend. She got them an over abundant spread of eggs, breakfast meats, pastries, and tea. Definitely more food than their usual fair, but he wasn’t about to complain.

Next she took him to the Marble District. She’d booked them a multi hour spa package at one of the nicest bathhouses in town. They tried out all the fancy baths, even the one with the weird electric shocks they’d heard so much about. Afterwards they got massages done by some friends of the Gash (one could never be too careful, Kallista had said), as well as a slew of other things he completely lost track of. He was too relaxed or dozing off to remember half of it, but he definitely left in a better mood and with a pep to his step now that most of the kinks in his back were gone. Kallista sung praises to whoever it was that worked on her for being able to work so well with her strange legs, which made him chuckle and shake his head.

For lunch she took him to a posh tea house for sandwiches and afternoon tea. The place sold a plethora of rare teas from all over the continent, as well as a few from Iclas. He was able to drink his favorite for the first time in many years, and it brought a small smile to his face as he drank it. Before they left he made sure to buy a tin of it for later, as well as a couple of other kinds he’d liked. Or at least, he tried to buy them, considering Kallista insisted on paying for absolutely everything. A nice change of pace for once, but also a bit weird.

After tea they went to a wine tasting, which they were nearly thrown out of for ‘unacceptable behavior’. The nobles weren’t entirely fond of their unorthodox wine drinking habits or the snide comments and mocking faces the two made at them behind their backs. Baskerville scurrying out of her bag and onto her shoulder was the final straw for the patrons and management, and they were confronted by one of the waiters about it. Kallista charmed their way out of trouble easily, and they left without incident, but not before swiping a bottle of one of the better wines on offer as a souvenir.

For dinner they went to a small steakhouse tucked away in one of the side streets. It must’ve been fairly new, since he’d never eaten there before, but it was away from the large crowds, served drinks, and from the looks of it had very good food. The bison steak he ended up having was incredible, and from the way Kallista devoured her food he assumed hers was good too.

At the end of the night, they found themselves sitting on their usual rooftop haunt, passing the stolen bottle of wine back and forth between them. After a particularly large swig, he glanced over at her, a wry smile crossing his face. “Alright, I’ll admit, that was a pretty good day you planned out.”

She shot him a toothy grin, “See, I told you you’d have fun! And here you doubted me.” she snatched the bottle from him, taking a sip as she kicked her legs back and forth in the air where they dangled over the edge of the roof.

Ronan gave her a long look before turning away and staring out into the dark night sky, his expression turning solemn. He really appreciated her doing all of this for him, even if he complained sarcastically every step of the way. He'd softened up significantly to the whole thing during tea time, although he wouldn't admit it aloud, and he really had genuinely enjoyed himself. But a part of him felt like he didn’t deserve any of it. He had a lot of regrets about how he’d raised her, about how he’d treated her when she was younger, about bringing her into the Gash at such a young age, about bringing her into the Gash at all. He wished he’d done so much differently, but at the time he really hadn’t known what to do. It ate away at him, especially at times like this when she essentially sung praises about him and how great of a dad he was. He wasn’t sure he agreed with her in any capacity, but it was nice to know she cared enough to do all this for him. There really wasn’t anyone else in his life he could say that about.

The sound of Kallista’s voice broke him from his thoughts with a bit of a start. “Oh! I almost forgot! I got you something!”

Ronan turned to face her once more, lilac eyes falling on the small package she held in her outstretched hands. He frowned slightly at the sight of the new gift. After everything she did for him today, after everything she planned, she still got him a gift? He shuddered to think how much she’d spent on him. He examined the box critically for a moment before taking it.

Kallista leaned back as she watched him unwrap it, gesturing at it with the wine bottle in her hand. “I figured I’ve given you enough handmade sweaters, scarves, blankets, and shit like that to last a lifetime, so I thought I’d go with something a little more practical this year.”

Inside the box he found a beautiful silver knife with a black leather grip. The blade itself was decorated with elegant floral engravings done all in black, and a blood red gemstone was embedded in the pommel. He took it from the box and spun it around expertly in his fingers a bit, watching the way the moonlight played across the blade. When he glanced back into the box he noticed a small handwritten note from Kallista nestled in the wrapping.

Happy Father’s Day!

Be glad I didn’t knit you another sweater, because I was so so close to making you one that said “World’s Crankiest Dad” on it.

I hope you like the knife, I had it specially made and enchanted for you. Figured you could replace some of your old carving knives with it since some of them are starting to look rough.

Thanks so much for everything you do. You’re seriously the best. I hope you had as much fun today as I had planning it all for you.

Lots of Love,

Kallista

Ronan stared at the knife and the note for a long moment. He was flattered by the gift, especially considering how pricey and rare magic items could be in Holden, but it was all so much. He really didn’t deserve all this, the gift, the outing, the praise. He was at a loss.

“Why did you do all this for me?” he asked quietly, a serious look crossing his face.

“You mean besides the fact that you’re my dad?”

Ronan nodded, his eyes trained on her face as he waited for her answer.

Kallista set the bottle of wine down on the ledge next to her, looking out into the city below them. She said nothing at first, but after a while she spoke. “You’ve done so much for me over the years. You’ve taught me so much, given me so much. You were there for me when no one else was, even if I was a royal pain in your ass and still am half the time. You could’ve easily dumped me on someone else, but instead you let me worm my way into your life and you became my family. You mean a whole damn lot to me, you’re like my best friend, and I’m not sure if I’d still be around if you hadn’t come along. We may not have the most normal relationship or life, but honestly I wouldn’t trade it for the world. I’ve never really had the means to show my gratitude other than by making you shit, but now that I do? I just figured I’d try and show my thanks by planning you a day fit for a king.” She trailed off for a few moments, a far away look in her eyes, before she turned back to face him, a sad smile tugging at her lips. “I’ll probably never be able to repay you or show just how thankful I am, but I guess this is a start at least.”

He was somewhat taken aback by her response. It always took him by surprise when she was this sincere, even now. Despite all the shit she went through growing up and all the terrible things she’d seen and done with the Gash, she was still the same sweet and stubborn girl she’d always been. A small smile broke across Ronan’s face and he chuckled softly. She really was something else.

“I wouldn’t say I’m as good as all that, and I hardly think I deserve all this. But thank you.”

She didn’t say anything to that. Instead she shuffled a bit closer to his side, bringing the bottle of wine with her. She leaned her head against his shoulder and closed her eyes with a warm smile. “Happy Father’s Day, dad.”

Ronan wrapped his arm around her and pulled her close, leaning his head down against the top of hers. He thanked her again softly, his smile growing ever so slightly as they stared out into the dark night.

#hey look i wrote a happy but somewhat sad thing #@dms i put he at around 7 or 8 during the first bit and her 20s for the second #kallista is very go big or go home when it comes to doing things or getting gifts for ronan if you couldn't tell #she loves her cranky dad a whole dang lot #writings #pre-campaign #kallista #ronan

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destielfanfic · 4 years

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Group Ask #183

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Ask #1 ( @canismajor3 ): there’s this fic…#1

hiya, hope ur doing okay in lockdown! ive looked everywhere and cannot find this fic, it’s an au and begins with dean fairly isolated (i think it’s a farm?) but he lives on his own and he finds cas out in a storm, he’s very sick and dean nurses him back to health, somewhere along this line cas begins to look after a lamb that deans gives him, it was really good and fairly long defo above 5000 words, thank you for ur help, i created this account just to ask :D

Ask #2 ( @casuallyfangirling31): there’s this fic…#2

Hey, I'm looking for a specific Destiel fic. It's set during season 6. It's about Dean praying to Cas, and just letting the emotions out after watching a documentary about the civil war, which in the fic is a secret interest of his. After that, Cas comes down and Dean helps to dress his wounds, and tells him a bit about the documentary he saw. The documentary mentioned something about soldiers writing letters that weren't exactly PG back home to their wives. Idk the name or the author. Help?

Relevant tags from our Tags Page - #season 6

Ask #3 ( @givemethebooks): there’s this fic…#3

I'm trying to find a story that centers around either Sam and Gabriel's wedding, or Sam and Eileen's. I can't remember which pair is getting married. But since Dean and Cas, who are in a relationship, are always leaving gatherings early, all their friends say that they won't be able to make it through the entire wedding and reception. Various bets are placed as to when during the reception they'll leave, and they end up teaming with Jess to try and rig the betting.

Ask #4 ( @melon-balls17): there’s this fic…#4

Hi I'm looking for a fic, I've read it before but can't remember the name. It's where Dean is a prince/knight. He goes up the mountain to defeat the beast or something and the wind carries him up most of the way. Castiel lives at the top of the mountain in a bungalow like house and is a god or something, his mother is the goddess of beauty, at the end dean defeats her and becomes the god of beauty, and Castiel's mother is cursed to live as a hag on earth until she dies. Any help would be great!!

Found by @educatedinyellow and @fluffysnarkyalpaca!

Lovers in the Dark by jhoom [NC-17, 42,300 word count] Prince Dean is the most beautiful omega anyone’s laid eyes on. Flowers bloom for the chance to see him, animals climb into his room simply to be in his presence, and not a person in the kingdom can say enough for his beauty. He is universally praised for his lovely green eyes, his freckles, his plush lips and the subtly strong lines of his cheekbones. His family hopes to use that to find a good match and secure an alliance for their kingdom.The gods have other plans. Naomi, goddess of beauty, hears more and more tales of the young omega’s beauty and she hates him for it. The fact that mortals and nature alike would hold anyone’s beauty above her own is intolerable. So she sends her son Castiel, god of love, to infect Dean with an undying love for a monstrous person as punishment for his hubris. Fate has plans of its own…[A retelling of the Classical myth “Cupid and Psyche.” Castiel is cast as Cupid, Dean as Psyche, and Naomi as Venus.]

Ask #5 ( @mattiecat ): there’s this fic…#5

Before I joined AO3, I began this fic: it starts as a human AU, where Dean finds a nude raped Cas in his backyard. Cas has amnesia. However, it takes a twist when Crowley shows up. It was WIP then.

Ask #6 ( @browngirlwithdimples): there’s this fic…#6

Hi do you know a destiel fanfic where cas was a new kid at highschool and Dean was a popular rugby player? Cas is a footballer in the fic

Relevant tags from our Tags Page - #High School, #athlete!cas, #athlete!dean

Ask #7 ( @atarnishedcompass ): there’s this fic…#7

Hi! I love your page, and I was hoping if you could help me find a fix that I’ve scored AO3 and Google for. It’s one where Castiel and Dean are college roommates, Castiel is asexual but while studying sees Dean putting a pen in his mouth and realizes he wants him. Then he has a crisis of identity with Charlie who tells him it’s okay that’s demisexual and that labels change. I think Kevin is also ace but I could be wrong. I think rimming is involved, with Cas trying it for the first time

Relevant tags from our Tags Page - #College

Found by @theactualpiemaker!

For Science by shiphitsthefan [NC-17, 6,000 word count] “Think of it like an experiment," says Dean. "You’re testing a hypothesis as to whether or not a desirable response can be achieved through the stimulation of the anus via the application of a willing volunteer’s muscular hydrostat.”Cas raises an eyebrow. “Are you actually trying to use the scientific method to talk me into letting you lick my asshole?”

Ask #8 ( @justjennyj ): there’s this fic…#8

I'm looking for a story in which Jessica is Dean and Cas's surrogate, but a bad accident causes Cas, Jess, and the baby's death. Dean takes off, leaving Sam to deal alone. When he returns, he has a daughter with someone else and eventually has son that he names Castiel. I've spent a lot of time looking for this fic. Please help. Thanks.

Relevant tags from our Tags Page - #tragedy (fics with MCD)

Important Note - these are all lost fic asks we currently have in our Inbox. If you don’t see your ask here or on previous Group Asks, and if you haven’t received private answer from us, please resend the ask! Recently we discovered that if we include links in our answer, there’s a good chance that it will not reach the OP. A lot of our answers have gone missing and we were only able to find it out thanks to contacting our followers directly via DM.

#Group asks #asks #there's this fic #there's this fic...#hey guys #past couple of days have been devastating #we live in uncertain times #stay safe folks

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cinnamonaddictsanonymous · 5 years

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Musings - 3/21/2020

Oh god I feel so nauseated right now.

This weekend with E has been quite different from the rest.

Most notably we took molly together. I was really nervous, given how last time I did it with RJ I said “I love you” a lot! And talked so much - mostly about how excited I was about E and seeing him again when I get back to IN.

But this was different.

We worked on a puzzle most of the afternoon, took our first 1/2 around 7:30. I didn’t feel different until 8:30 - suddenly focusing on a puzzle was too much. We cleaned up and went upstairs to cuddle and lay in bed.

E seemed the same, but said he was feeling something. We took another 1/4 but 10 minutes later I was coming up. Cue rolling and moaning, similar to my experience with RJ. We had sex but barely felt anything. E said I was mostly giggling and moaning and saying 1-2 words in between that didn’t make sense.

I wanted to hug and hold him, and he reciprocated. Once we hit that peak and stayed there we talked. I mostly talked about fears, family/gratitude, and what I liked about him.

Some big topics:

How afraid I was to say the L-word and why (fear of future pain, can’t take it back, how it may be the only thing in a relationship (similar to with A).

He said that he definitely did Love me (wow scary to hear that, three times!) but in a caring, friend-ish way. That he had hang-ups due to his trust issues from past relationships gone bad. He asked me some questions about relationship stuff and said that based on how I answered it cleared up a lot of his apprehension; but he may just need more time to work through things or take a leap of faith? I felt happy but still wanted more, idk. I don’t like saying it first.

Ugh. nausea rn. Need to eat?

Things in my past that I was ashamed of. Cheating on A, and then how I opened the relationship like that with A. It was terrible and I felt terrible, but it was such a relief to share it with him. He said he’d gleaned from prior comments that I had probably done something like that, but that he was comforted by the fact that I felt guilty and recognized it was wrong and selfish.

He told me about Marky and his relationship with her. How he had created a character based of her in his 3DX chat game, and the subsequent fall-out from their DnD group where she was the DM. I get how that was invasive, a breach of trust, but also I felt terrible for him and how that must’ve felt.

We talked some more about other topics - finances, stress, future plans, etc.

Lots of cuddles and kisses. And visuals! I was vibrating (whole body), and my vision was vibrating. I loved the cuddles and kisses. At some point during the comedown he could not stop kissing me. Like a straight hour or so kissing me while I talked and spooned with him. It was maddening but also adorable.

We became much closer I think. At least after sharing so much we were both afraid of bringing up.

Oh, and discussion on monogamy/poly. How I am actually leaning towards monogamy, or at least to put poly away for awhile. That I don’t want to share him, and he was happy to hear that. We did the whole “you’re mine” thing for a bit.

Explaining my whole history with exes, from D to A. Like *a whole timeline of breakups and hookups and allllll the relationships I have*. And even my weird current relationship with N. And poly partners, and C from SF. It was interesting.

Also - I gave out so many compliments. How handsome he was, how great in bed he was (was also a discussion topic, he’s apprehensive of how much experience I have vs. how little he has, and where he stands in terms of my prior partners). I said he was *very honestly* the best partner I’ve had. Compliments on his emotional intelligence, his actual intelligence (and how I sometimes feel a bit nervous about how I measure up to it), how the sleep problem bothers both of us, and etc. How perfect he was. How he’s “Everything”; I still believe all of that. How happy I am to have met him, and how happy he is to have met me.

We did *not* sleep at all. Both took another 1/2 tab around midnight? then E convinced us to take another 1/2 tab around 3-4am. Comedown was terrible... bad nausea, no appetite, no energy. Digestive issues. The third 1/2 tab did almost nothing, except ease the comedown and nausea. Only a slight bump in euphoria and visuals. I bit my right cheek so many times I bled... gum turned red. We went through a *lot* of gum.

The next day 3/22 I had lots of feelings. I mean I’ve been feeling different the past week or two - like I *cannot* wait to see him! And I miss him! A lot!! I always want to be around him and touch him. Not even sexually, just touch him.

We talked about how he felt the relationship has progressed/deepened since Valentine’s when we became official.

I was so close all day to saying I love you, but held back. It didn’t make sense to do it in such a weird comedown situation. But he was so kissy and I loved it all :)

He makes me so happy, and I really do envision a future with him. This is scary!

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obsoletesystem · 5 years

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D&D Ask Meme

@wisdom-fangs asked me to do all the questions of this D&D ask post. So I did. 1. A favorite character you have played. I really like playing monstrous characters. Currently in Adventurers League, I play Frattek Venvaris, bugbear rogue/barbarian, who is a delightfully goofy character. But I also miss playing Bajur Mashoir, a very charismatic lizardfolk "voodoo" shaman, whose catchphrase was: "As you can see, I am an alligator, sir..." spoken in a thick southern brawl. 2. Your favorite character that someone else has played. During a one shot the guy that played an evil halfling warlock sacrificed himself to blow up the big bad with a block of dynamite. The true MVP. 3. Your favorite side quest. Idk. 4. Your current campaign. I DM a homebrew campaign, in which the party is stuck between sides in a war between the local Jarl and a fey duchess who has taken over a part of the woods. I also participate as a player in a slight homebrewed Salt Marsh campaign, in which I play a tiefling cleric of Pelor. She's got a Sad Backstory. 5. Favorite NPC. The Loathesome Gribble, an NPC in the game I DM, who is a very small tiefling sorcerer with an immense knife collection and a four-armed aasimar monk girlfriend. He is found in the most of unlikely places and his signature spell is "Gribble's Hand of Sand", which may or may be not magical, as it blinds a creature with sand, but the material component is just a handfull of coarse sand. 6. Favorite death (monster, player character, NPC, etc). The druid in our home game charged into giant stag form at a huge burning construct (The Burning Man from Burning Man, but moving), missed his attack, upon which the Burning Man rolled nat 20's on BOTH ITS ATTACKS. No advantage, no nothing, just two straight 20's. He grabbed the stag by its antlers, turned its head 360 degrees, and dropped a flaming, mutilated dwarf to the ground. 7. Your favorite downtime activity. I always like to do something that tells a little bit about the culture of the creature I play. When I was on haitus because of school, I described how Frattek had spend some time with his little bugbear niece, and had just returned from a fun little war (seeing as bugbears love to fight). 8. Your favorite fight/encounter. We had to fight a vampire spawn in a dank, dark basement, but it was light outside, and Frattek is incredibly good at grappling creatures, so we dragged the vampire out from his basement into the sunlit street, and then made a run for it as we had broken into a house. 9. Your favorite thing about D&D. Coming together with friends and not drinking (a lot) or smoking weed. I like doing those things too, but it is also fun to just hang out and play games where heavy drinking is not really handy. 10. Your favorite enemy and the enemy you hate the most. Dragons are the best, spellcasters are the worst. Spellcasting Dragons are the bees knees. My players, however, are going to hate a certain spellcaster very much. Once they find out... 11. How often do you play and how often would you ideally like to play? Usually once a week, but I'd love to be able to balance twice a week. One day as player, one day as DM. 12. Your in game inside jokes/memes/catchphrases and where they came from. "Name and occupation, please" comes from when we played Pathfinder, and one of the characters died, but I didn't want to get rid of him yet or he was set up to be reincarnated or some shit idk. Anyway, his soul arrives in purgatory, which turns out to be this bureaucratic office, where he has to stand in line for a long, long time, before arriving at a booth/desk type situation, in which an Ophanim angel (one of them burning wheels full of eyes) floats that asks with a bored sigh "Name and occupation, please". The player answered, and was set up for reincarnation, which involved shooting his soul from a cannon/drop tube into the unborn baby of a local woman. The child grows up unnaturally quickly, and because it has the soul of a mature orc barbarian, it is more than a little trouble. Nephertheless, the "Name and occupation, please" gag remained forever. 13. Introduce your current party. My Homeboys, the Lords of Okab Volal, are Nazreen, a wood elf ranger who missed her wolf, played by @tabula-wasa, Tophr Thanestone, the previously mentioned dwarf druid who was murdered by a giant flaming effigy and subsequently reincarnated/put into the body of a frost elf woman (something he hasn't come to terms with) played by our bearded friend Glenn, and Adelon Vrena, half-elf bard/cleric/divine soul sorcerer a.k.a. Healer Supreme, who is really righteous but not above torturing a captive githyanki, and played by Arnaud. The Schadestenen (meaning "Damage Stones", as in dice), which is the OG Adventurers League group in the Spellenhoorn in Hoorn, consist of Aiden Rainbowscale (Albino orphan wood-elf monk/barbarian), Fjorgyn (dwarven cleric of Moradin, who died last week and still suffered from the Death Curse. RIP.), Frattek Venvaris (Bugbear barbarian/arcane trickster and gladiator/luchador, played by me), Gideon Thornton (cowardly Half-Orc Hexblade), Grommash Hellscream (Stereotypical Half-Orc Barbarian. Great guy.), Ruldra (disgraced Hobgoblin undead-hunting Ranger), Cadence (Powerful but stupid Half-elf Grave Cleric/Divine Soul Sorcerer who never learned how to read), Ullr (Arnaud's Gloom Stalker and Human Machine Gun), and Darin (half-elf ranger and Master Of Backflip). The Peeps from Salt Marsh, DMed by the guy that plays Darin, in which Arnaud plays William Wisenose, The Awfully Lucky Halfling Build (halfling wizard/bard/whatever), Cadence's player plays Sylver Ravenstar (half-elf bard/hexblade/run away princess), her friend plays Samm Enoch (Aasimar Bard and Very Handsome Man), Aiden's player plays Ankis (Aasimar Celestial Warlock and very secretive about both these facts because Back Story), and his friend plays Vena Malum (Human Bloodhunter, who is really buff and does that swirly thing with her falchions, and oh my...), Grommash's player plays Morgain of Astora (human paladin of Pelor, and companion/boyfriend/substitute son to my character), and I play Paytsarra Avèry (winged tiefling cleric of Pelor). Praise the sun. 14. Introduce any other parties you have played in or DM-ed. We had one party consisting of a drider, a very evil dwarf, a fire genasi, a gnome psychic, and a kenku ninja at one point. When the evil dwarf died, and I introduced the guy's new drow "medic", I knew I lost all cohesion of the group. 15. Do you have snacks during game times? My players do. I don't like snacks that much. 16. Do you play online or in person? Which do you prefer? In person. I tried playing online, and I think I would do again, but only if I'd have a really good headset. 17. What are some house rules that your group has? In the Salt Marsh campaign you double the value of the dice on a crit, which I think is disappointing. I just wanna roll a lot of dice :( 18. Does your party keep any pets? @tabula-wasa's ranger has a dire wolf...somewhere...

19. Do you or your party have any dice superstitions? Not that I know of. I do know some of my dice seem to roll better than others. 20. How did you get into D&D? How long have you been playing? I found a d&d character creation app on the web ages ago, and that sparked my interest. Later I joined a warhammer fantasy role play group with a friend I had been rp-ing online with a lot, but this was the real deal, at Arnaud's house. He dmed number of campaigns for us, and later he joined my pathfinder group which turned into a D&D 5th edition group. 21. Have you ever regretted something your character has done? Yeah. Frattek decided to be a hero and tried to assassinate an ogre torturer. He failed his shot. We had to fucking run. 22. What color was your first dragon? The first dragon I fought as a character was a young Red Dragon. Even at 5th level, we whooped its ass. He found himself in a cave, surrounded by fools, and we beat him to pulp. The first dragon I put in front of my players was a young White Dragon. It kicked their asses. 23. Do you use premade modules or original campaigns? I usually homebrew my own campaigns, but I have dmed some AL sessions. 24. How much planning/preparation do you do for a game? Not an incredible amount, but for my home game I prepare ideas months, even years, in advance. For DMs 25. What have your players done that you never could have planned for? A lot. The most notable was casting Dispel Magic on the demiplane-item the cultists were in... and then opening the demiplane underwater. 26. What was your favorite scene to write and show your characters. I had these zombies that always repeated the last thing they said before they died, which was cool and creepy. But the thing I really wrote out was the description of how an Astral Ship warps space around itself, and what that looks like from the people on the deck of the ship. 27. Do you allow homebrew content? If it's well written, absolutely, but there is a lot of shit out there. 28. How often do you use NPCs in a party? When it makes sense, but I try not to do that too often. 29. Do you prefer RP heavy sessions or combat sessions? I prefer RP sessions, but I am leaning more toward combat. On the other hand, I don't think it completely excludes each other nor should it. I am of the opinion that 30. Are your players diplomatic or murder hobos? Rather diplomatic, but they can definitely kick ass. For Players 31. What is your favorite class? Favorite race? I like casters, and I will always have an affinity for wizards, but arcane tricksters and eldritch knights are cool too. I like elves, and I like monstrous races; goblins, hobgoblins, bugbears. I like things that are pretty and scary, or creepy and goofy. 32. What role do you like to play the most? (Tank/healer/etc?) I usually mix a bit of tank and dps. I don't like being very frail, but I do enjoy doing a lot of damage in one shot. 33. How do you write your backstory, or do you even write a backstory? I tend to write a character from a concept, and then build out the backstory. How did this person become the person they are today? Even if you have something of a bugbear, or a hobgoblin, or a yuan-ti. They have had a childhood, they have role models, they have culture. But what is that? What defines a character? What makes them they way they are? I don't like playing monstrous races that have been adopted by a "better, nobler race" like humans and elves and dwarves. I get the appeal, but I also think it is a little trite, and a little condenscending, almost. I think a lot about what defines a monstrous identity, and being a Cultural Anthropologist, I think a lot about the way culture shapes the values and morality and thus also behaviour of a creature. Do hobgoblins tell their children bedtime stories? What are they about? How will a bugbear struggle in regular humanoid society, where his violent urges -natural to him- are equally, or even more excessively violently repressed and punished? Is this just for bugbears? Will they then look for each other, and find each other in their shared cultural/natural tendencies? Are there goblinoid lawyers or activist groups, that seek to protect other goblinoids from unjust treatment under laws that aren't theirs? How will your life be if you are a second or third or even fourth generation inhuman creature in a human society? Do they dream of returning to a society that is 'theirs'? And is there even such a thing? And if there is, will they actually fit in, or forever be an outcast, neither hob nor man? I tend to poke at such questions with my character backstories. 34. Do you tend pick weapons/spells for being useful or for flavor? Everything is useful, since everything is always situational. If you plan only for situations in which you are going to kill every living thing, then you shouldn't pick something like Rope Trick, or Magic Circle. But you do you. I very much dislike decoupling "flavour" from functionality. This is a game of make-belief, so everything you do is flavour. The mechanics are an abstraction of a fantastic reality, and though inherently important to the working of the game (without rules, it would merely be improvisation, which is also a kind of game, but schwa), it is all flavour. People that brag about how much average damage they can do with this or that specific build tire me. 35. How much roleplay do you like to do? All of the roleplay! But please let me punt goblins into the garbage sometimes!

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seleniftie · 6 years

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Meeting Taylor.

It’s Sunday evening, I’m on the plane taking me back to Berlin. I’ve cried three times today. The pressure is off, the adrenaline is gone, and it hit me suddenly this morning: I met Taylor Swift.

I’ve been a fan of Taylor since 2009 and never got to see her live until this era. Each tour was a mix of happiness and sadness because I couldn’t make it. So when the UK tour dates of the Reputation tour were released and my friend Morgen bought us tickets without even knowing if I could make it, I couldn’t believe it. It was finally gonna happen, I was gonna see her.

When the tour kicked off, I was mind-blown. The positive energy radiating around Tumblr was incredible. With each tour date, I watched all of my friends getting picked to meet her and it couldn’t be more exciting cause they deserved it so much. I got lots of messages telling me it would happen for me too, especially since Taylor has been following my blog for three years and regularly likes my posts but I didn’t think anything of it — like everyone else on this website, I reblogged my tour posts in case she would see them but I was just rejoicing over the fact that I was finally going to see her.

But then something happened. On a Monday, June 18 at 8:25PM, I went on Tumblr and a DM notification almost immediately popped up on the app. I stopped breathing. It was Taylor Nation. What?! I clicked on the notification and there right under my eyes was a confidential message from Taylor’s team, telling me they’ve got an exciting opportunity they’d like to tell me about and asking me for my information and the best times to reach me. I fucking lost it. I was shaking and hyperventilating and couldn’t believe it it was ME who got that DM. I called my parents absolutely in shock before DMing them back. Then came the paranoia: when are they going to call me? what are they gonna say? I’d seen that they’d usually call people on the Thursday so I decided to keep on living normally and didn’t cancel any of my plans which I told Taylor Nation about. My week was so full!! On Tuesday evening my supervisor and I were invited to see an opera ballet one hour away from Berlin — so fancy. I was honestly so happy to be there. At some point during the concert though, I decided to check my phone and suddenly froze. I had a missed call from an American number 7 minutes ago. You guys, I flipped my shit. I left the room in a hurry and tried to call Taylor Nation back. No answer. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. I was panicking. What if I’d lost the opportunity of a lifetime? I tried to call them back a few times but nothing. A few minutes later though, my phone rang. It was them again!! But then the nightmare went on — I was lost in the countryside and had NO signal. The woman on the phone began to talk but I heard her pretty badly and suddenly the line cut off. She called me back again and I only had the time to explain my situation before it cut off again. We both were trying to call each other but it was a complete failure, and I was left stressed out. I immediately messaged TN to ask them to call me later or the next day.

The next day, I couldn’t calm down. I was bringing my phone with me everywhere I was going. You guys I was feeling so unwell, literally thinking « what if they don’t call me back? ». During the evening I went to another concert for work. God, it was amazing but I barely was listening. Try to picture it: a pianist and a cellist inspired by God playing Debussy and me in the background, phone in hands, stress at its highest level. At one point, my phone lights up: IT’S THEM! And dumbass Camille freaks out so much she declines the call. I swear I thought they would be sooo done with me at this moment, I was hating myself so much for being so clumsy. Thirty minutes later though, they called me back again and my Leaving-A-Fancy-Concert-Event-Thing-With-High-Heels number occurred once again. « Hello? Hi? Are you here ? » — it was the same person who called me the day before. A woman sounding very American. She asked me if she was talking to Camille, told me it was Taylor Nation and that they’d learned I was going to the show on Saturday and that they had a special opportunity for me. She asked me for my info and told me I’ll have to pick up something for me at the box office on the day of the show between 4 and 5, and that they’ll confirm it to me. I was so excited. I had read similar stories before and was almost sure of what it meant: I was going to meet Taylor Swift.

On Thursday I left for London. I there joined my baby Morgen in a hotel in the very lost south of the city, and we had the time of our lives. Friday was even more incredible. We made it to the stadium and there I met my best internet friends. Holly, Jenny, Bessie, Katy, Clément, Aurélie, Marion, Clémence, Ghada, Maya, this is for you. I’m so so so so excited I got to meet you guys!!! We had the best time. Once we entered the stadium, I got so emotional — after nine years, I was finally going to see the person who had inspired me so much for all these years. When she went up onstage I…. lost it. I was crying so much and I had the best time. The concert was obviously fabulous and something incredible happened: Morgen and I were right next to the barriers between the two B-Stages and throughout the night Charli XCX winked at us and touched my hand, then Camila did…. then… Taylor did. There she was, looking like a doll so close to me, grabbing my hand. I couldn’t think straight and came back home absolutely enchanted.

I wake up and it’s Saturday. I go on Tumblr and see Taylor Nation sent me a DM to tell I was confirmed. OH GOD I WAS SO EXCITED. Yet somehow, still couldn’t believe it…. I had so much to do on that day but started it off by making sure I would look my best for the moment I had been waiting for for years. When we were finally ready, we left for the train… but there was no train. Panic attack. I had to be at the stadium in two hours, was currently in the lost countryside of London and there was no train taking us to the stadium, to Taylor. After checking on the internet we found another way to get there but thank god Morgen stayed calm cause I felt so panicked and anxious and kept on saying « I can’t miss it I can’t miss the opportunity». Long story short, we made it there early (and we even had the time to stop at the Waterloo station for me to put on a bit of perfume).

4pm came faster than I thought it would. I started walking nervously to the box office and that’s where I first saw @thefirstdayswift and @9tay8tay9 and @ifoundtaylor13 and @imsoproudoftaylor . YOU GIRLS!!! I then walked up to the counter and told the person behind it I have to pick up something at my name. « On which guest list are you? ». Dude. I HAVE NO IDEA. He then handed me an envelope with my name on it and the following: « Meet & Greet ». It was getting so real I started to be really emotional. I then proceeded to open the letter (you can watch the video here) and my friends came and gave me the biggest hugs, we were all there sobbing and jumping around of excitement. It was 4 and we had to be at the section 144 at 5:45. LET ME TELL YOU IT WAS THE LONGEST WAIT EVER. We bought merch and ate our dinner and Morgen finished our outfits and then it was time. IT WAS TIME SHGDLFJGNSKLJN. I was so excited yet so stressed out. I asked a security guy how I could access the section 144 though I had tickets for the block 551 and he told me not to worry, that I just had to go to my gate and then once I was in, walk around the stadium… Oh how I wish it was that easy. Once we entered the gate we had to take an escalator that directly led us to our block. Realizing that I couldn’t access the section where we had to meet Taylor Nation, I walked up to another security guy and told him everything and let me tell you he was my lifesaver and I wouldn’t have made it without him. He looked at me dead in the eye and said « follow me, okay? ». Morgen looked at me and said « oh my god, it’s time already??? Have the best time and DO NOT FREEZE LIKE I DID » and he hugged me so tight. Then the security agent walked me around the stadium, asking all of his colleagues along the way and guys literally no one working there had any idea of what was up with our blue papers. He was so sweet and reassuring telling me we still had time and asked me how I was feeling and we took secret lifts and passed the security and to anyone asking him what was up he said « she’s got a meet and greet and she’s with me ». At this point I realized I had found my guardian angel and I’m so bummed I didn’t ask for his name but shoutout to you superman cause you saved my life.

At 5:45, we arrived at the section 144 and I saw other girls with the blue paper. My Superhero made sure I was at the right place then wished me lots of fun. I started talking with everyone and that’s when I got to have a proper talk with Helena and let me tell you she’s the sweetest bean! Her mom was with us and was very friendly. They then opened the doors of the stadium and we found ourselves out right next to other blocks and bleachers (we could see the stage). We were asked to walk down the stairs. There were lots of Swifties on the other side of the barriers cheering us on and it was the sweetest thing ever! Once we were downstairs there was this massive entrance and we waited there for about 15 minutes. I got to talk with the twins Pauline and Florine as well while waiting and I started feeling very, very good. Just… very good. This guy from Taylor Nation came up to us and checked our names and gave us the renowned « Reputation Meet & Greet » wristband. I said remember this moment in the back of my mind. A few minutes later and we’re taken inside of the stadium, backstage. We walk into a big lounge with lots of food and couches and there is Scott Swift on our left, greeting us. It was weird seeing him in real life but I enthusiastically said « HI SCOTT! » and he was like « hey girls how are you doing! ». He seemed so happy to be there. From the lounge we could see the Rep Room and we freaked out. We were taken right in front of it and were asked to leave our things on a table and to enter the Rep Room. I’ll never forget this moment cause I held the twins and Helena and we walked in there hugging. The Rep Room was gorgeous, way more beautiful than in pictures. There was music playing, a TV with the Delicate music video on it, drinks on the left and cooked and baked food in the back with the throne. They told us to form a queue and the M&G almost immediately started.

Florine, Pauline and I looked at each other and said « Wait. We’re in the Rep Room and we don’t have the right to walk around it? FUCK IT. ». We walked to the cocktail bar and there were several drinks we could choose from, each being indicated with a Taylor Swift lyric sign. That’s when I saw the « I knew it from the first OLD-FASHIONED we were cursed ». Should I drink alcohol right before meeting Taylor Swift? HELL YEAH. So there we were, drinking an old-fashioned in the rep room and it was so iconic. Then the woman in the back of the room close to the M&G asked us to get in line so we just left our drinks and went back in the queue. That’s when GODDESS TREE PAINE stops at the entrance of the Rep Room and greets us. Most people didn’t see her but I got to talk to her with a few friends and we mentioned the Proud Signs Project we had organized the night before. She said she saw it come to life and it was beautiful and she was being very friendly and she waved back at me when she left.

I started focusing on the moment. The twins looked at me and said «Camille, SHE IS THERE. » I paid attention and suddenly heard TAYLOR FRICKING SWIFT LAUGHING AND TALKING AND I COULDN’T BELIEVE IT WAS ACTUALLY HAPPENING?????? I was the third last person and the twins were right before me. As the line got smaller and smaller I noticed the food and went through the same mental process of should I eat right before meeting Taylor Swift but there was a cookie and honestly isn’t it goals to eat a cookie in the rep room so I quickly left the line to get one and ate it. But then I realized that the twins were next and then it was my turn… so I just left a half-eaten cookie on the furniture, sorry @taylorswift and @taylornation for the inconvenience, it was delicious do not worry.

As the girls went into the room to meet Taylor, I was alone with Ghada and Morgan right behind me. I focused and told myself one last time what I wanted to tell Taylor (had also written them on my wrist just in case). It was happening. It was my moment and it was happening. The woman with the list (who I believe was Erika) asked me for my name and gave me the little card with which I could have access to my photo with Taylor. I could see Taylor. She was wearing this black t-shirt and had this kaki jacket wrapped around her waist (that turned out to be a fake-shirt skirt thanks @taylorswiftstyle ) and she had those killer heels high knee velvet black boots. Her hair was so pretty and she was telling the twins about how she had seen their tour post six months ago.

Then fate happened. I swear it did. One of my favorite songs of all time, Want You Back by Haim, started playing. I just love it so much!! I started dancing. Then the woman told me « okay it’s your turn » and I walk inside the room while dancing and I say « oh helloooothereeee »…

« Oh hi there buddy! » — a magical fairy princess walks up to me in all haste and hugs me. I’m in Taylor Swift’s arms and decide to introduce myself cause I wasn’t sure if she recognized me or not so while my head is in her hair I softly say « Hey, I’m Cee, seleniftie ». The magical fairy princess steps back and looks at me and her face lits up and I don’t know how I survived cause it was genuine but she looks at me deep in the eyes and shouts « OH MY GOD I LOVE YOUR BLOG SO MUCH YOU’RE SO AMAZING ». I look at her and say thank you I can’t believe you know my blog and she tells me how I’m always so positive and sweet which I reply to by saying that I try my best to send off positive vibes and she was like « that’s so nice, like honestly your posts always make me feel better ». You know how serious Taylor can get when she makes a speech or says something she genuinely means? That’s how she sounded and looked like. The room was silent but I couldn’t hear the music anymore, and still now I can clearly hear her say those words to me. But I played it cool, I have no idea how. So I then tell her how it’s been 3 years already since she followed me and I thank her for liking all those posts and she’s like « oh thank you! » and I tell her it’s so nice to meet her. I also thank her for wanting to meet me and she goes off like « oh I saw your post months ago and sent it my team as soon as possible, and like especially with the London shows I knew it would be hectic (that word really struck me) so I wanted to make sure I’d meet you » and in my mind a monkey jumps from tree to tree while playing cymbals but at this moment, I swear to you guys, I was being myself 100% and had no stress or whatsoever. Our conversation was so natural and she looked genuinely happy to see me. She then looks at me and says « oh my god you’re SO beautiful » which I reply to by saying « thanks you too! » and there I saw The Necklace™, it was really standing out since she was wearing this black t shirt so I just point at it and touch it and say « and look at that! oooooh » while doing the shimmy shoulders and she laughed and did the shimmy shoulders too and I was just out there backstage at the Wembley Stadium doing shimmy shoulders with Taylor Swift over the necklace that inspired my favorite song of hers like it’s a thing that happened.

We were just looking at each other so happily and there was this 0,2 seconds long blank and I suddenly reconnected to reality and heard Want You Back was still playing. I know she loves it a lot too and she liked my post about seeing HAIM two weeks ago so I start talking about them but she starts talking at the same time saying « so/do you… » and I was so unsettled cause TAYLOR SWIFT WAS TALKING TO ME that I mumbled something that apparently made no sense cause she looked at me all focused and serious and said « HUH? ». So there I go again telling « I love the music playing in the background, it’s Haim I love them » and she’s like « OH YEAHHH they’re amazing » and I tell her how I saw them in concert and she’s like « oh yeah you saw them in London? » and I said « no I saw them in Berlin » and it’s hitting me now that she actually remembered my post cause HAIM was playing in London a week before and I saw them two weeks before so she wasn’t exactly sure of the timeline but she remembered okay bye

(Also did I mention all this time she was looking at me in the eyes ??? we’re both very animatic people so I remember me doing gestures and her moving around and just feeling very at ease but she did! not! break! the! eye! contact! ever!) (and I have no actual memory of this but when I went out of the rep room I recorded my story on my phone and apparently she told me « you’re such a sweet person, you’re so nice » right after we talked about HAIM what what what)

This small talk helped me recollect my thoughts and I remembered my time was limited so I tell her « okay there’s one thing I really want you to know », and I tell her that I play music and I make covers and her face lits up again and she steps back and shouts « OMIGOD I DID NOT KNOW THAT OMIGOD » and I tell her how I’ve done a cover of Babe (reaction to that: « OHHHH THAT’S AMAZING OH MY GOD ») and pretty much all her songs and how they’re on my Tumblr and she can check them out and she told me « OMIGOD that’s so cool I need to check them out ».

Right after Taylor looked at me and walked up to me again and said « so hey, should we take a picture » so she pulls me closer and turns to me and opens her arms and i’m like fuckfuckfuck and look on my left and see all the people in there I didn’t even notice and we hug really tight and pose. We were hugging so tight I literally forgot to smile with my teeth so 2 seconds before they take the picture I open my mouth and that’s why i was so scared of the picture being awkward, but it turned out to be lovely.

The moment we released our embrace I saw a man coming out of the exit of the room with the signed papers and I knew what it meant (your time is over bitch) but I wanted to talk to her about something else so I immediately started talking only to realize that she was making sure with the photographer that the photo was good and she didn’t blink eyes or anything so I quickly said sorry and yeah I always have to check too cause it happens all the time. She nodded and was turning her back to the autograph-guy (let’s call him like that) and I was like you go girl it’s your moment so I tell her about the PROUD signs project that took place the night before and that I helped to organize and I was telling her how amazing it was and how I was running around with my friends giving the pieces of paper to people asking them to raise the sign during the song and she thanked me and told me that it was amazing and explained to me that she’s hardly surprised by things but that our project got her « really really surprised » and she wasn’t expecting it.

I then told her it was so nice to finally meet her and she told me the same and I have no idea of whether we hugged or not cause it was all a blur, the autograph-guy was handing me the paper being like « thanks for coming goodbye » but I remember us saying goodbye and Taylor quickly telling me « I will definitely check out your covers » and I left. They told me to follow someone and I walked back through the lounge and made my way outside and I saw the twins and we hugged so tight. We couldn’t believe it. Then my security guy superhero was waiting for me and you guys he literally walked me back to my section #ANGEL and I thanked him. I then walked up the stairs to Morgen and it was the longest walk ever. I was in shock. I was hardly breathing and it took me forever to get up there, I was holding my autograph and my things so tightly and when Morgen saw me he knew. I could see how proud he was. This random lady asked me if I was okay and I told her I’d just met Taylor and she was very confused and then I told Morgen everything and told you guys… and that’s the story of how I met Taylor Swift. The show was amazing, and at some point she talked about how she had met people at the London shows that were coming from different countries and it made me feel so happy and included. She knows that especially with the UK shows many of us were traveling from far away and she’s so appreciative of it.

Once we came back home I logged on the website with Morgen and Holly on the phone and my picture got uploaded so slowly it was torture, but the moment I saw our faces touching I lost it and started sobbing so slowly… It was 1AM so 2AM in France but I called my parents and they were so happy and excited for me, I really didn’t expect them to be that supportive but I think they were really happy for me and excited that my biggest dreams had come true. I couldn’t sleep and I went to bed at 4am, and Morgen woke up at 5:30am cause he had to take his bus. We hugged in a rush and when I woke up a few hours later I was alone with my memories. I cried a lot that day but seeing my friend Holly helped a lot.

I can’t believe I’m writing this story, and it’s almost done but it wouldn’t be complete if I didn’t mention you who’s reading this. Thank you. When I created my Tumblr account three years ago, I would have never expected to bond with so many people, make so many friendships and be part of such a beautiful community. Many of my friends told me that when I posted I had met Taylor their dashboard was filled with posts being like « CEE MET TAYLOR » and I obviously wasn’t there to see it but one thing I know is that my notifications were blown up and it made the moment even more magical.

To Taylor -- now I’ve told you that in person but thank you for wanting to meet me and thank you for being such a lovely person. Meeting you felt like meeting a friend and I feel like we clicked cause we are the same person on many levels. Thank you for giving so much of your time to your fans and to me - when I heard Love Story in my pink bedroom at 12 I would have never imagined that a few years later the princess in the castle would want to meet me.

I started writing this story on the plane but now I’m home on my bed. I went back to my normal life, to my internship, to my German capital but I’ll always look back on that weekend, that bubble of happiness with a heart full of love. Because in this moment, everything I had ever wanted...had just happened. ❤️

- Cee -

#and that's my story of meeting taylor swift #i can't believe it #i love you all so much #c met t

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pentakillmaven · 6 years

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The Nose Knows, Chapter 4 (NaNoWriMo 2018)

Short chapter this time, but I really had fun writing this one! It’s a group text chat chapter!

Chapter Rating: T

Chapter Warnings: Unresolved mutual pining

Chapter 4

Ladybug and Chat Noir met up a little after sunset at the top of the Arc de Triomphe. They didn't like to use the same meeting spot every time they patrolled, just in case a villain was tracking them, but the structure was a common starting point for their circuitous routes around the city. Ladybug bit her lip nervously as she thrust a wrapped box into Chat Noir's hand. "This is for you, Chaton."

"My Lady?" Chat cocked his head to the side as he furrowed his brow a little, but he accepted the box easily enough. "What's all this about?"

"Just open it!"

Nodding rather reluctantly, Chat tugged on the ribbon wrapped around the box, setting it aside for the moment while he tore through the paper. Lifting the lid, his eyes widened in surprise as he saw what was inside. "What in the…" He reached into the box, pulling out a black beanie hat with green paw prints stitched around the brim and faux leather cat ears poking out of the top. Alongside the hat was a fleece scarf with more of the paw print accents and a pair of faux-fur-edged gloves. "Bugaboo, these are amazing! Thank you!"

"Actually, Marinette asked me to bring this present to you. She said it was a thank you gift for saving her. Since it's nearly winter, she thought you might be able to use them if you get cold during patrol."

"Marinette made these? I knew she was a talented designer, but, wow. These are incredible."

Ladybug grinned. "I know, right? I'll tell her you like them!"

Chat shook his head quickly. "No, no, something like this, I need to tell her myself. Do you mind if I skip patrol tonight?" Chat wrapped the scarf around his neck and tugged the hat on over his head before he quickly started to pick up the wrapping paper, stuffing it inside the box alongside the gloves.

Ladybug's eyes widened in minor panic, though Chat was too busy to notice. "She's really busy right now! She's got some big tests coming up; it's probably better not to disturb her while she's studying. You can tell her another night."

Chat looked a bit disappointed, but nodded. "That makes sense. Tell you what--I'll put together something really nice to thank her for the gift, and give it to her when I get back."

"Get back from where?" It was Ladybug’s turn to look confused by Chat's sudden change of topic.

Chat winced a bit, scratching at the back of his head. "Y-yeah… My civilian identity has something going on that I have to leave town for a few days. I should be back by the beginning of next week, though. Do you think you can get Réna Rouge or Carapace to cover for me while I'm gone?"

"Wait, you're leaving town? As in leaving Paris?" At Chat's nod, Ladybug’s face tightened in concern. "Do you think it's smart to leave right after Hawk Moth just sent out the first Akuma we've seen in nearly a month? What if he's about to start on a rash of attacks? Réna and Carapace are great, but I need my partner."

"I'm sorry, Bugaboo, but I don't have any control over the situation. Like I said, it's a thing for my civilian identity."

Ladybug sighed in resignation, nodding slightly. "I know how that feels. All right. Just keep your Miraculous safe while you're gone, okay?"

"Of course. I won't let it out of my sight."

"Good. Now, shall we begin?"

"Of course, My Lady. Lead the way!"

Marinette dropped into her bedroom through the skylight, having already released her superhero transformation from Ladybug. She shivered, quickly pulling the skylight window shut to block the late autumn chill. Paris hadn't seen its first snow of the season just yet, but it definitely felt cold enough to do so, especially this late at night.

Marinette pulled her cell phone out of her pocket, noticing multiple notifications that she'd missed during her time as Ladybug. Some of them were the usual late-evening push notifications from her various games and apps; she also had a few new emails, mostly junk or advertising. The one notification that did catch her eye was from the group chat that she, Alya, Nino, and Adrien all had going on. It was mostly used for school-related discussions, but occasionally someone sent a funny meme or a video link to share to the rest of the group. Opening the messaging app, she scrolled back up to where the new messages began so she wouldn't miss anything.

[8:57 PM] AdrienAgreatest: Hey guys! Today was a lot of fun! Thanks for having us over, Marinette.

[8:58 PM] DJLahiffe: yeah same

[8:58 PM] AdrienAgreatest: I wanted to let you guys know that I won't be at school tomorrow. Actually, I won't be here the rest of the week. Father has some business to attend to in Milan, and he's taking me with him.

[8:59 PM] TheLadyblogger: what the hell Adrien??? doesnt your dad know that the bac practice tests are, like, next week??? how can he pull you out of school right now???

[9:02 PM] AdrienAgreatest: Trust me, Alya, I'm not happy about it either. I just found out earlier tonight, when I got home from Marinette's house. We aren't even leaving until tomorrow, but he made me come home early so that I could "get some good rest, because we have a busy schedule the next several days." Nathalie isn't saying much about it, but she did mention something about a potential merger with some Italian leather working company. I guess they make things like wallets, shoes, and belts? So the company would be able to offer more in the way of accessories that we don't really have right now.

[9:06 PM] DJLahiffe: wow. that sounds p cool but ur dad is still rude af tho

[9:08 PM] TheLadyblogger: i'm with nino on this one. @MariDC what do you think about this? are you as outraged as we are?

Glancing at the time, Marinette breathed a sigh of relief when she realized it was only 9:15. She quickly typed out a response.

[9:15 PM] MariDC: Sorry, just got back up to my room. Was helping Maman with dishes. I'm sorry to hear you're going to be missing class, Adrien! But if this is something your father wants you to do, I think it's important that you take it in stride. Look on the bright side! At least you don't have to sit through stuffy classes the rest of the week. Your teachers are always willing to work with you when you have to miss class. As long as you're back in time for the Bac practice tests next week, everything should be fine. You will be back by then, right?

[9:18 PM] AdrienAgreatest: According to Father, we will be flying back Sunday, so unless something unexpected happens, I should be back in time for the practice tests. Maybe we can do a video call study group one night, depending on how busy I am.

[9:19 PM] MariDC: That sounds great! Just let us know when you're free in the evenings.

[9:19 PM] AdrienAgreatest: Definitely. I'll keep you guys posted on what's going on. If previous experience is anything to go by, the next few days are going to pretty much be Father talking with a bunch of old people while I sit and do nothing. Either that or I'm going to be doing non-stop photo shoots while Father talks with the board of directors at the other company. This is the first time that I'm going to be out of the country, though, so that's exciting at least. I've never been to Italy before.

[9:22 PM] DJLahiffe: dude let me dm you some new remixes ive been working on, u can listen to them on the plane

[9:23 PM] AdrienAgreatest: Yes please! Anyway, I just wanted to let you guys know so you weren't worried about me tomorrow. Have a good night everyone!

[9:25 PM] TheLadyblogger: night adrien!

[9:25 PM] DJLahiffe: nite bro

[9:25 PM] MariDC: Good night, Adrien! Sleep well and safe travels!

[9:26 PM] AdrienAgreatest: Thanks :)

Setting her phone aside, Marinette sighed, the sound rather forlorn. She crawled out of bed to get into her pajamas, grabbing her History textbook for some more reading before she fell asleep.

However, despite her best efforts, her mind was buzzing with activity; she couldn't get settled enough to read the textbook and she wasn't tired enough to sleep yet. Her mind kept replaying the look on Chat Noir's face as he opened the gift she'd given him. It seemed so familiar, but she couldn't think of why. Not to mention the strange coincidence that both Chat and Adrien were going to be out of town at the same time. "Tikki?"

The Kwami poked her head out of her little dollhouse on the shelf beside Marinette's bed, where she'd settled once they'd gotten inside. "What is it, Marinette?"

"Chat Noir is going to be out of town for a few days starting tomorrow. And Adrien just messaged Alya and Nino and me saying he was going to Milan for the rest of the week."

"Oh… that's an interesting coincidence." Tikki looked up at Marinette intently, as if reading the girl's expression.

"Is it though? I know it sounds crazy, but… what if…" Marinette trailed off. No, that was too crazy for her to even imagine.

"What are you thinking, Marinette?"

"What if… Chat Noir's civilian identity… what if he works for Gabriel Agreste? What if he's going with Adrien and his dad to Milan, and that's why he's going to be out of town?"

Tikki's eyes widened at Marinette's suggestion. "That's… certainly a possibility, I suppose."

"I know we aren't supposed to reveal ourselves to each other without the masks, but if I was on the right track to figuring out his identity, you'd tell me, right Tikki?"

"Of course I would, Marinette. But I'm not sure if you're on the right track or not."

"Oh. Okay." Sighing, Marinette leaned back in bed, staring up at the ceiling as she continued to ponder the curious coincidence. This was getting her nowhere--she needed to get back to studying! With a huff, she picked up her textbook again, gluing her eyes to the page.

However, after trying and failing to read the same paragraph four times, Marinette set the textbook aside and picked her phone back up. Her fingers shook as she typed a private message to Adrien, and she had to reread the message twice to make sure she didn't have any typos before she sent it.

[9:45 PM] MariDC: Adrien? I have a question.

[9:46 PM] AdrienAgreatest: Hey again Marinette! What's up?

[9:47 PM] MariDC: Do you know Chat Noir?

Marinette held her breath as a message appeared in the corner of her screen: AdrienAgreatest is typing…

Ten seconds turned into thirty seconds, turned into a minute, and Marinette had to gasp for air before she passed out. Finally, after the longest two minutes of her entire life, Adrien's reply popped up on her phone.

[9:49 PM] AdrienAgreatest: I'm not sure why you're asking, but yes, I've at least met Chat Noir before. I don't know who he is behind the mask, though. Or, at least, I don't know if I know him. Does that make sense?

[9:50 PM] MariDC: Yes! That makes perfect sense. I have a confession to make: When I said I was at home the whole time the villain was attacking the school on Monday, I was lying. I actually got hurt in the bathroom when the villain first appeared, and Chat Noir saved me. I only lied to keep Alya and Nino from freaking out and worrying about me. Are you mad?

[9:53 PM] AdrienAgreatest: Why would I be mad at you? It's not like you intentionally put yourself in harm's way, right? I'm just glad you're alright. You're one of my closest friends and I would be devastated if something happened to you. I care about you a lot, Marinette.

Marinette's eyes widened almost comically as she read and reread Adrien's messages. She vaguely heard a loud, high-pitched squeal coming from somewhere in the room. It took her a minute to realize it was coming from herself.

[9:56 PM] MariDC: I care about you a lot too Adrien! I mean, you're one of my closest friends too! I love

Shaking her head wildly, Marinette deleted the text and started again.

[9:57 PM] MariDC: You're really important to me and I hope I didn't disappoint you or make you mad.

[9:58 PM] AdrienAgreatest: Don't worry about it, Marinette. You didn't do anything of the sort. Anyway, I should be getting to bed. It's late and I have to be up at 5 for us to make our plane.

[10:00 PM] MariDC: Oh lord! Yes, you do need to be getting to sleep! Can't have Mr. Model with saggy under eye bags, now can we? ;) Sleep well, Adrien. Let us know when your plane lands, all right?

[10:03 PM] AdrienAgreatest: Will do. Good night, Marinette. Sweet dreams :) (edited)

Marinette blinked, peering down at her phone in confusion. She'd glanced away for a moment, but she could have sworn that instead of her name, Adrien had initially written "Princess."

Did Adrien think of Marinette using pet names? Did he consider her his princess?

"Oh my god!" Marinette rolled over and stuffed her face into her pillow to muffle her squeal.

#miraculous ladybug #miraculous tales of ladybug and cat noir #marinette dupain cheng #adrien agreste #nino lahiffe #alya cesaire #ladybug #chat noir #marichat #adrinette #ladrien #ladynoir #nanowrimo #nanowrimo 2018

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serkonans · 6 years

Note

i would legit love to know ur answer to all of those dnd questions tbh

so many gfsljgf thank you antonia i love ask memesputting #13 up here for the anon who requested it and the rest below the cut!13. Introduce your current party.I currently DM a few games! School is hectic and I don’t get to play very often but all the characters are GoodI have one group campaign titled “When the River Bleeds Red” (which is probably news to you, Antonia, and everyone else who plays, idt I ever mentioned that slkfjglfskj) that has a blacksmith (half-elven cleric, @the-idiot-who-stood-still) named Brigitte Faestrum, a pumpkin farmer (halfling druid, @beesgnees) named Cathal Headrig, a former stage performer (fire genasi sorcerer, @merrigold) named Emelia Sparks, and a former mercenary (gnome fighter, @jacqmutiny) named Nyx!I also DM one-on-one campaigns for @merrigold (who plays an aasimar druid named senua tasked with undertaking journeys on behalf of the gods in “The Glacial Erratic”) and @fictitiousbees (who plays a kenku wizard named scribbles called to the service of a high dragon in “Luck of the Draw”)Everything else below the cut!

1. A favorite character you have played.

I’ve only played two characters! One was Carran Warset, who is my Son and like the bulk of the reason I know I’m trans, and one was Chim from your one-on-one campaign. I rly like both of them tbh but Carran is my child gkjlsfgjs

2. Your favorite character that someone else has played.

Excluding anything I’ve DMed, Sivarna by @pluviance!

3. Your favorite side quest.

In the group campaign we played in together, there was one session that idr if you were able to be there for but we like,,, went into a forest and bought a really ugly belt from a stoner for zero plot reasons and I count it as a side quest in my heart

4. Your current campaign.

Well, you know everything about all my current campaigns that you’re allowed to know rn, but for anyone who might be reading who isn’t in them:

The group campaign is being used as scapegoats in the brutal murder of an ambassador’s daughter and is fleeing a city through secret tunnels -- we last left off at Cathal becoming a giant badger and burrowing upward

In the solo campaign with Senua, she’s attempting to deliver a large, magical object from the goddess of earth deep inside a mountain, and she’s facing down a basilisk with three NPCs

And in the solo campaign with Scribbles, he’s just played a card game that was really more of an interrogation, where he found out a high dragon has taken interest in him, and he is, in unrelated news, taking a package to the local apothecary

5. Favorite NPC.

Of someone else’s, I love Lucy from the Chim campaign!

Of mine, I will never stop loving Mr. Kretever Tatell. Kret is a goddamn idiot but he’s my goddamn idiot

6. Favorite death (monster, player character, NPC, etc).

Carran once killed an evil poison merchant by seducing her in an enemy king’s bedroom and stabbing her when he went in for the kiss gkfsljgfsj. Then he and Sivarna wound up hiding with her corpse under a bed discussing the concept of threesomes in whispers while the king wandered around his room. Not as like, a possibility. Just because the topic came up

7. Your favorite downtime activity.

S,,,hop,,,,,,, money tiem $

8. Your favorite fight/encounter.

I liked the fight where I balanced the combat correctly lkgsflkjskljg, the one with guards in the tunnels

9. Your favorite thing about D&D.

Storytelling!

10. Your favorite enemy and the enemy you hate the most.

Homebrew enemies are coolest imo but hard to balance; the giant gemstone ant I had you fight would’ve been my favorite if it’d been able to get more than like two attacks in gskjgksj

And insect swarms are very annoying to fight

11. How often do you play and how often would you ideally like to play?

How often I play is whenever every single one of the stars align and ideally I would play like every other day fksjglskfjg

12. Your in game inside jokes/memes/catchphrases and where they came from.

God the current ones haven’t gone long enough for those yet really and I’m blanking on most from the group player campaign

I do remember Carran was 1000% convinced basil was poison at one point and his pet rat killed an evil, powerful sorcerer by chewing his ear

14. Introduce any other parties you have played in or DM-ed.

Just the group player campaign with Carran, which didn’t get to the heavy plot stuff before it ended tbh, and then the solo one you ran with Chim in what was rly a Very cool world concept of like hellish Las Vegas that I’d like to steal at some point

And then you ofc know this but for anyone reading who doesn’t, I’m going DM a maybe-oneshot, maybe-a few more than oneshot post-apocalyptic campaign for you and @fictitiousbees, set in a world that’s been destroyed by fast growing invasive fungi which is like. only The sexiest apocalypse scenario

15. Do you have snacks during game times?

Yes, religiously. Game time snack time

16. Do you play online or in person? Which do you prefer?

I’ve never played in person other than a single test game for new players! I prefer online tho; you can look things up and type if you’re shy

17. What are some house rules that your group has?

I have a rule about only two players being able to try the same sort of check, but that’s it for us so far that I can think of

18. Does your party keep any pets?

Not yet! Cathal has a way with animals though

19. Do you or your party have any dice superstitions?

I Do

20. How did you get into D&D? How long have you been playing?

I got into it bc Critical Role made it look super super fun, and I’ve been playing off and on for two years now

21. Have you ever regretted something your character has done?

I’ve regretted everything any character I’ve controlled has done I think that’s just dnd

Realistically tho, big yes for a lot of what Carran did, most notably snooping on another player character who had cast Alarm on her room

22. What color was your first dragon?

Haven’t had one yet!

23. Do you use premade modules or original campaigns?

100% original babey

24. How much planning/preparation do you do for a game?

3% planning 97% “oh fuck I need to have an idea Now” babey

For DMs

25. What have your players done that you never could have planned for?

Everything, it’s why I never know what I’m doing

I never expected Cathal to become a large badger and dig out of the underground, how do you prepare for someone to, in all seriousness, tell you they’re going to become a badger and scrabble to the surface

26. What was your favorite scene to write and show your characters.

I really tend to enjoy the one-on-one scenes; I think my favorite was having you roll that insane wild magic surge and detailing What Happened At The Theatre

27. Do you allow homebrew content?

Yes if it can go in DND Beyond

28. How often do you use NPCs in a party?

In group campaigns, not often, although we have two with us right now. In solo campaigns, if you want combat you’re getting an NPC party, at least for a bit

29. Do you prefer RP heavy sessions or combat sessions?

Personally I love RP heavy sessions; combat is fun but I crave Story

30. Are your players diplomatic or murder hobos?

I think mostly diplomatic with a dash of murder hobo

For Players

31. What is your favorite class? Favorite race?

I’m so so so boring but I love humans gksfjgsk

Humans, elves, and half-elves are my favorite

And then I Would Die For Every Rogue, it’s hands down my favorite class

32. What role do you like to play the most? (Tank/healer/etc?)

Rogue role

Lemme stealth and steal and stab

33. How do you write your backstory, or do you even write a backstory?

For Carran it was,, A Whole Process

I came up with a basic idea, then journaled as him several times and wrote and rewrote until I had what felt Right, and then I kept toying with it and adding more details throughout the campaign -- I love playing and would really like to again but the obsession with expanding upon his story made me realize I need the freedom of worldbuilding that goes along with DMing; I don’t think I could be a player without DMing a separate campaign bc I just try to take over

34. Do you tend pick weapons/spells for being useful or for flavor?

Both!

35. How much roleplay do you like to do?

So much, I usually use old acting techniques and get fully into character

thank you again antonia!!! these were fun

#fox speaks #long post #in case the cut doesn't work bc tumblr bad #merrigold

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microkumo · 6 years

Text

You know I’ve seen a lot of people try to frame Shiro and Keith’s relationship in a bad light. I think it’s about time I put my two cents into this. Season 7 Spoilers included

If you’re just going to ignore everything written here then don’t bother commenting, that goes for people who have the reading comprehension of a walnut as well. If you want to talk about my stance on anything here feel free to DM me I’m happy to discuss this with you regardless of what you ship.

I spend a lot of time reading both sides of the arguments shippers and antis make. I think that’s the best way to really understand the point of view each side is coming from. After all, you can’t argue against something you don’t understand.

I started off on the fence, not really caring too much about ships themselves, but focusing more on the what-ifs and the mystery behind character relationships. Some of these things leaned towards Klance and some of them leaned towards Sheith. Both are valid and had interesting hints at connections yet to unfold. However, the discourse started with not knowing the ages of the characters. Shiro was given a tentative “25″ nothing really cemented and the others were late teens which can mean anything between 17-19. I decided that until we had confirmed ages, I wouldn’t consider Shiro to be in a romantic relationship with any of the paladins but things have changed since then.

Moving on to the series and the misinformation people are spreading.

1) Unless you are ignoring Shiro’s relationship with Adam and shipping pre-Kerberos Shiro and Keith in a sexual manner, Sheith is not pedophilia.

I’ve seen a lot of this kind of argument against their relationship and it honestly does such a disservice to Shiro’s character. I’m sure there’s some people out there who are into that kind of thing, but to tack it onto the whole fandom and character is over generalizing and pretty awful.

Sure, people can think Keith could have had a crush on Shiro, but its clear that Shiro’s intentions were not there. He was in a committed relationship with someone else that he knew for a long time but that further cements the fact that Shiro was not viewing Keith sexually pre-Kerberos and therefor had zero pedophilic intentions.

2) Cherry-picking scenes where Keith hasn’t hit his growth spurt to frame Shiro as someone significantly older and then further imply that people are shipping them sexually at this age is a huge fallacy people use.

In the Garrison flashbacks from S7, Keith is around fifteen. I base that on the fact that he’s one year older than Lance and Hunk, and yet you have to be at least 14 to be a part of the Garrison. This is backed up by Pidge’s backstory.

However, though Keith is older than some of the other kids, he’s extremely small. Almost half a foot shorter than the other boys in his class. He’s grown up in an orphanage and like it or not, that kind of thing does affect children. Even as an adult and twenty-one years old, Keith is still much shorter than both of his parents. He’s much shorter than Krolia, and his dad was even taller than her. He’s incredibly small, but he’s always been small, and comparing him to someone that has finished all of his growth spurts is unfair and again implying that Shiro (22) saw him sexually at this time which is not true.

3) Highlighting his age gap with Shiro as bad when Keith’s age gap is not that severe.

Keith was (18) at the start of the show with a 7 year difference between him and Shiro (25).

Keith aged faster than the rest of the paladins due to his time in the Quantum Abyss.

After all the events and adding that bit, that puts Keith at (21) and Shiro at (26) which is not a huge age gap at all when you’re both mature adults.

4) Shiro does not have a boyfriend/fiance waiting for him back on Earth.

Saying that really ignores the single scene of them interacting together which was a break-up scene. I’m not saying that the two have zero chance of reconciling their relationship, but to say that there’s no way Shiro would date Keith as an adult because he had an old flame back on Earth is... transparent.

The two ended their relationship on a bad note over two years ago during a crucial moment in Shiro’s life. He knew Kerberos was probably his last chance to make his mark on the world- he’s battled with his illness and now he’s aware that he has very little time left to achieve the things he’s wanted in life. For him, this was an opportunity he didn’t want to sacrifice, and he didn’t in the end.

Adam’s reaction was reasonable- he was tired of Shiro running himself into the ground over living the safer alternative where they could have been together longer. It was implied that they had this conversation often and Shiro did not want to hear it. He offered an ultimatum, and when Shiro didn’t give into it, he left. Officially breaking off the relationship when Shiro didn’t stop him.

I’m not saying their relationship was the worst- but there was definitely some areas that they didn’t agree on which ultimately led to them breaking up. Even if Shiro returns to Earth, he’s in a much different state than he was when they were together. It would take a huge discussion and even then I don’t think it would work between them because they have different priorities in life that result in conflict in their relationship.

5) Shiro being Keith’s support in life is not “grooming” or even supporting it.

Again, this goes back to people trying to make Shiro’s relationship with Keith sexual even if it was never meant to be in pre-kerberos while also horribly abusing terminology again.

Sexual Grooming is what it sounds like. It’s about teaching a child through various techniques that it’s normal to have a sexual relationship with an adult. Pedophiles will often use being a ‘friendly helper’ to the child as a way to do this but to frame Shiro in this light is a huge disservice to his character.

Shiro does not see Keith in any sexual way pre-kerberos. Keith relies on him as someone who he trusts, but in no way is it ever implied that there were sexual intentions behind Shiro’s presence in his life.

Unless Shiro was making passes at Keith or teaching him questionable things under the guise of being his mentor, this is just not accurate and a horrible way to paint the relationship of a child that has already gone through boy’s homes (which have a high rate for sexual abuse as it is).

6) People need to stop equating Keith’s fourteen year old self with his current twenty-one year old self when bringing up the power imbalance.

A lot of time has passed for Keith. He’s matured a lot, he’s grown passed needing Shiro as his support in his life, a lot of his insecurities in general are behind him especially with his mother in his life.

Yes, Shiro was higher ranking and older than Keith at the Garrison, however Shiro never abused his power to force Keith to do anything. His presence was always supportive and never demanding or threatening.

In the current timeline of the show, saying this especially does not make sense. Keith and Shiro have a mutual trust and respect for each other and never do they ever have a relationship that’s painted as a leader and a lowly subordinate that has no power in any situation. Keith and Shiro have traded leadership positions multiple times and arguably stand on equal grounds compared to each other.

7) Keith and Shiro are not related. Not by blood or by law. It’s not incest and Shiro never adopted Keith into his family.

The staff of Voltron have shot down the two of them being related multiple times but even from outside of that we have a lot to consider.

Shiro was only (21) when he met Keith. That’s not very old, like it or not, and adoption is a very long and difficult process. Now we don’t know how adoption works in the Voltron universe but if its anything like ours, an unmarried and terminally ill man is not going to be able to adopt a child when he himself is young and unrelated to the child.

What Shiro did do is give Keith an opportunity to attend the Galaxy Garrison under his recommendation. This isn’t the same as adoption. He merely got Keith a chance to attend a school he normally wouldn’t have been able to given that he was an orphan and a problem child.

It’s a military school with dorms. Keith definitely wasn’t staying with Shiro, he would have had his own room to share with someone of similar ranking.

8) “Keith only thinks of Shiro as an older brother” ignores his personality and history.

I’m not against Keith only viewing Shiro in a platonic light. However, I think it’s rather naive to think that because you view someone in a certain light that they’re not subject to changing or evolving. I see a lot of people use this to stagnate the relationship they have and to ignore his character.

Keith is a very passionate person. However, he’s a person that hasn’t had many opportunities to love or to be loved. He has grown up not knowing why his mother left him and that not only made him fear getting close to people, but also getting rejected. His biggest fear is Shiro walking out of his life. as expressed in the Blade of Marmora episode.

For someone that’s never loved before, to know that you could be rejected if you voice your true feelings is extremely terrifying. Tack on the fact that you know the person you love might still have feelings for someone else and there is definitely going to be some safety nets involved when expressing your feelings.

This is common for people to do in general but especially so for LGBT+ individuals. There’s a lot of confusion, a lot of hesitation, a lot of trying to convince yourself that this isn’t what you think it is especially when its your first time falling in love with someone who’s romantically unavailable. We hide it behind things like “You’re my best friend of course I love you” or sometimes even “You’re like a brother to me”. Keith has every reason to add these safety nets when he’s worried about damaging his relationship with Shiro. After all, why potentially push away Shiro and make him uncomfortable, when he can play it safe and continue to have him in his life?

9) Shiro’s and Keith’s relationship is far from abusive.

They have one of the longest lasting and uplifting relationships in the series. Shiro provides stability and companionship to Keith, and Keith provides reassurance and companionship.

They support each other in ways that other people cannot and have not provided to them and are stronger because of it.

Shiro was held on a pedestal of expectations where he’s not usually able to be treated like the average person. He feels he has to hide his weaknesses, but with Keith he doesn’t have to. We’ve seen multiple times that they’re able to rely on each other and to open up about insecurities.

They are loyal to each other and unwilling to leave the other behind no matter the cost, because they’re incredibly important to each other. However, despite this, they’re still protective over other people and not overly reliant on just each other.

They have a good relationship built on years of trust and support.

10) “I had a bad experience and so this ship is terrible” is extremely biased and not helping your argument.

Shiro and Keith ≠ Your relationship/Experiences

It’s fine to not like the ship for that, but to spread misinformation because you tie it to your own experience is... not a good way to go about it. To say “I met a person who shipped Sheith and they were awful so now everyone who ships it is awful” is overgeneralizing a huge margin for the one or two bad people, especially when the fandom has a problem with people purposefully posing as “Bad Shippers” for the sake of making the fandom look bad.

Again, it’s fine to not ship something out of personal experience. But to force your trauma onto a healthy relationship and to spread negativity around something that isn’t even present in the show is unhealthy and prevents you from moving on.

In short, there’s been a lot of biases thrown around and a lot of just completely incorrect statements for the sake of tearing down the ship.

I hope that by reading this people will learn that it’s not what people are framing it to be when it’s actually such a sweet story if it does go down a romantic path.

#antis #Sheith #voltron #I'm not trying to start any fights #I'm just tired of seeing people spread incorrect information when we should be celebrating instead #I don't want people asking about Shiro and then having to see all the stuff people are making up #please don't do that to him he's a good character and if Keith is his love story then stop dirtying his name please

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shytiff · 3 years

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May Small Wins

1 - lazed, went to racheel’s place and put my motorbike there, went to slipi jaya with silvi devi reza to watch seobok (it was fun!!), had iftar at the yumz green sedayu. It was raining when we get back. prayed maghrib and isya in some random mosque. went back and arrived at like 8 past sumn. showered, slept like a babyy

2 - lazed, slept and woke up at like 11, went to nila’s house, practiced doing eyeliner by borrowing nila's (focallure brand), iftar at green sedayu foodcourt (originally intended to go to the yumz but it enforces actual distancing) with angkot ppl minus tik will. Arrived home at about 9-ish.

3 - magang as usual. Went to rm. Took mrt to lebak bulus. My inaco salary finally came. My head kinda hurts after tarawih. Ended up skimming over bj alex lmaooo. Did not shower today lol,,,,

4 - added dr dafsah's revision to the excel database otw to rsf. Pak nardi took a while to arrive. Left rsf early to go to the bank. I (((finally))) activated m-banking lmaooo wow the features are neat wow im not jahiliah anymore. Found this method of just let it sweat anyway during tarawih lmaoo. Preferably with long sleeves bcs somehow you feel less of the sweaty feel compared to tshirt.

5 - sampling - data entry - RM as usual. Theres no new RM. Read a goood dramione fic by bex chan even if its not complete, its okay. Im okay :"))). Iftar was soup, salad, chicken katsu and french fries. Its been 2 days that i practiced sleeping-to-rain-sound. The first night was spent as a dreamless quick sleep (its over before you knew it), but tonight i dreamed abt almira's wedding lmaoo.

6 - no sampling today!! Still went to rsf tooo go to the mall w regen lmao. Did some data entry. Went to PP by mrt. Went back by going to halte gbk and thankfully the kalideres one arrived after only waiting for 5 mins. Its surprisingly quick, compared to lebak bulus - pesakih trip. Took abt 20 mins to jelambar.

7 - no sampling today too. Dr vera gave us lebaran cookies! Did gcp for bu suryati a5. Went to rm, finally finished the available rm. Went home early. Can finally relax since its the weekend.

8 - literally laid in bed til my body hurts. Rly want to read sumn but dunno what. Finally decided to read momoiro heaven. And rere hello. And after iftar i read lack of love. And just like tht, my saturday was gone. Cant bring myself to do things

9 - its another day of lazying (or self sabotaging, cant tell). Read spy family and its effin hilarious. Wasted my sunday. Cant bring myself to even move and i just laid in bed all day.

10 - last day of work in the weeekend lmao. Felt better than being in AR, but still not that much productivity. Went to RM. Phone call w fianti along the way to plan food in almira's bridal shower. Went back at 12-ish. Picked up my dress from risma busana. Walked to and fro halte kebon jeruk. Prayed zuhur close to ashar in kfc's mushola. Felt better after ~8k steps. Had homelab's green tea mixed with vsoy. It honestly made me feel better. Matcha, or caffeine, sure is amazing. At least i had a sense of normalcy before losing all the will to self-care

11 - consumed internet entertainment u til i was sick and tired of it. Watched a lot of cut videos. Granny came and stayed over. So i slept upstairs

12 - same as 11 but upstairs. More relatives came near iftar time so i excused myself to shower. Slept in mom n dads room at like 12-ish. Watched hp goblet of fire since keisha and karins newest obsession was draco. We squealed together over liking enemies to lovers trope haha,,,,

13 - Somehow all of dad's jakarta relatives came for lebaran. the last time i checked, there were some bridges being burned. prayed eid at home. watched perempuan tanah jahanam (which was surprisingly not scary). ate. napped. talked about personal things w keisha and karin. i cant believe the time has finally come where we talk about this kinda stuff. watched you’re next (it barely has any plot, just gore). they went back at about 8 pm and i just sleptttt yall lmao i didnt shower today. disgusting, i know

14 - cam barely get out of bed. Managed to shower at zuhur time. Watched dalbang and laughed like crazy bcs its just that funny. Read fanfics. Tiktok. Ate once and had greenfield yogurt at the evening. Fell asleep. Woke up at 1 and snacked on 1 pack of oat krunch

15 - run bts. Originally planned to go to flavola but it was still closed, so i went to dm's dunkin. Ordered orange juice and oeanut choco donut but somehow the price wasnt package price hhh. Turns out my clires account was somehow banned. So i contacted the admin. Instead of doing dr dafsah's excel i ended up taking off the makara sticker from my laptop. Bought some stuff for almira's bridal shower. Bought arirang at hari2 (its funny bcs yesterday i was seeing online marketplace, planning to buy it, but turns out hari2 the magical place had buy 2 get +1 deal for arirang.

16 - run bts. Managed to move my body a bit. Did 20 squats (ill elaborate on this later). That improved my mood. Tidied up some of my stuff. Saw the paper bag of random memorabilias by friends.

17 - went to rsf by tj. left kalideres 06:45 and arrived at RSF 8:15. sampling. went to RM (still no new ones). picked up by mom. went to salemba for almira’s bridal shower. originally planned to get padang at citra minang behind BK but it was closed. so we drove around looking for open ones. ended up buying it in a small (but crowded) padang place near a big padang restaurant lmao. was the first one to arrive at acacia. checked in, pulled the bed near the wall. showered. its hilarious sometimes with a bit more serious discussion anjayy. went home w febby who drove and clara

18 - went to mcd to get lunch (since everyone’s fasting) and tried to muster the will to do something. i didnt manage to do anything except shopping online (brought dusty pink hijab at hijup). got spicy chicken and iced coffee. (spoiler alert: tomorrow i got mencret2 lmaooo). read my suha and beyond the skidipapap its actually rly good

19 - went to RSF (with mom as usual. quickly snapped RM pictures while mom was waiting. went with her to mami’s house bcs she and uwak will fly to banjar. finally got to meet haekal, he’s such a smiley babyy its basically free therapy. planned outing with nisa lmao. from soekarno hatta we went to vintage vibes lmao since we’re already out. vintage vibes is more crowded now. and there’s less good findings now. went back emptyhanded. ate chicken arirang since there’s no food. fell asleep at like 06:30 until early morning lmaooo

20 - woke up at 2-ish am, played my phone, fell asleep at like 9?, woke up again at 11 lmaooo. went to sbux. had matcha latte. did some inaco work. todays the most productive ive been this week.

21 - went to gi with febby to also meet up with fi, bought falsies and glue (later proved to be of a horrible quality), siraman and pengajian almira (first time seeing an actual siraman), went to blok m w nes ren ara gen. Tried naruto takoyaki at little tokyo, went to daitokyo (i didnt eat anything), and got matcha cake, sakura and mango raspberry gelato at kebun ide. Picked up by mom. Renata gifted me bts 2021 winter package photocard 🥺🥺

22 - iluni internship webinar by dr naldo. Grabbed fried chicken master. Stupid time management etcetc made my start makeup at 12 (febby went out at 13:30). My falsies and hijabdo was done by herrr thank god for the help. Went to swissbel. Didnt take a pic w almira bcs time. Almiras wedding at damai indah golf pik. My skin was TERRIBLE at the wedding. The make up didnt stick prolly bcs of vitacid. Thank god for masks,,, went back home w febbyy. Made tiktok lmao

23 - lazed. Went to flavola. Its finally daytime caffeine again w kopsuscok. Did dr triya's translation work and finished it at home. She transferred the fee at like 11pm

24 - off to RSF with mom. no new medical records. wrote fuad’s name on the medrec borrowing form. continued to nisa’s place w mom. lazed, played w haekal, put some patient’s phone number on the inaco excel. Off to GBK with nisa and sarah. parked at abc field (shouldve parked near GBK’s H gate). saw moja museum 2.0, took lots of pics. mo paint (moral lesson: draw the background first!! not the foreground). finished at 16:30. ashar at masjid al-bina. nisa dropped me off at gbk tj station. prayed maghrib on the bus since the traffic was so ughh. met atikah in lippo puri. decided to eat seirockya so we walked to puri. talked about a certain someone along the way. we rly talked about it while walking until we arrived at seirockya. atikah treated me uyeyy since she and racheel will stay in depok for 2 weeks starting tomorrow. got the shoyu ramen and gyoza. took the taxi to atikah’s place. mom’s waiting there lmaoo i was like “noo dont wait at jco, just wait at atikah’s”. still felt energized that night in my bed. no sleepy2. like 100% awake.

25 - woke up at like 9:30. i basically did nothing today. didnt even shower lmao (i showered last night). read the good teacher in one go. zoom meeting w dr eva. i rly need some structure in life, goshhh

26 - showered and went to mcd. got nasi uduk, breakfast wrap and milo for 26k (thanks mcd app promo and mcd duta garden’s menu machine, i dont have to interact with another human). planning to do dr dafsah’s excel after all the data is complete, and still no new inaco data, so i ended up.... online shopping at bobobobo....... (bought outer and white culotte). tidied up the writings on my stickies (plenty of words has accumulated). ordered onejai for emir juan (expensive!!! 79k no promo lolll but free delivery. i was baited by gojek’s 1k 2 week subscription and felt like hmmm i should get something since we live in the middle of nowhere and free deliveries felt significant at that particular time when im holding my phone lmao). fell asleep after drinking vsoy + matcha lol its soft caffeine no longer works i guess

27 - woke up late as usual, went to sbux at 1 pm. tried white peach matcha frapp. the peach overpowers and u can barely taste the matcha. tried to read something useful (in medicine) but skimmed 2 ppt and then i saw solid’s bitly for isip. finished reading banana fish. couldnt bawl my eyes out because im outside.

28 - checked out rsf. Still no new ones. Immediately went back. Lazed and wasted my time

29 - iluni webinar. Here comes the impending life crisis. Ate nasi uduk and mie goreng telor today. Tried vsoy golden grain with matcha. It has almond aftertaste. Line call with kris for almost 4 hrs until 11 past sumn pm.

30 - more iluni webinar. Dr Eric, SpPD, PhD was rly cool. Tried daily box (butter soy chicken). Quite tasty. Mkg w regen. Videocalled in the mall w silvi racil bcs its ale and nadaa's wedding today. Bought gooma 500ml matcha w gofood pickup discount. Ate sushi go (the shoyu has mirin btw). 50k+ you get 6 piece of sushi (2 salmon) and matcha cake and ocha. Quite a nice deal. Talked abt cryptocurrency lmao. Went back and forth w TJ. All hail tj

31 - planned to do at least some productive stuff at home. turns out nila is outside and had some time to spare. so we went out. i met her in citra 6. we went to pik’s white beach. its scorching hot since its 2 pm. spent like 15 mins there. we had wanted to stop by monsieur spoon but THERES A QUEUEEE even if its a hot afternoon. so we ate tom sushi at green sedayu. talked a bit afterwards in nila’s place and then i was picked up by emir. tried gooma’s matcha. its not sweet like sbux. approved by mom (who doesnt like sweets). but its more expensive than sbux’s 2L 100k promo lol. (45k after gopay pickup promo for 500 ml). reread bj alex lmaooooo found new tidbits

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bmaxwell · 5 years

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Top games of 2019

For much of the year I thought I might have a hard time building a solid list of 10 games. As it turned out, I could have made a top 20 without much trouble. So it was a good year for games, but maybe there weren’t many 10/10 classics for me. I did have BT’s, BB’s, and even a BD-1 though!

First up, my Old Game of Year: Yakuza 0

The dichotomy between Yakuza 0′s melodramatic main story and its silly tongue-in-cheek side missions made the game an absolute joy to play. One minute you’re dealing with warring Yakuza factions and torn loyalties, and the next you’re doing minigames like karaoke, bowling, RC car racing, and darts, and then you’re helping a dominatrix find her confidence or helping a human statue sneak away from his post to go take a much-needed shit. All throughout you’re also beating the shit out of legions of street thugs and yakuza dudes using kicks, punches, bats, bicycles, salt shakers, teapots, and whatever else is handy. I fell in love with this game in a way I very much did not expect.

Also good ”old” games: World of Final Fantasy, Ni No Kuni 2, Steamworld Heist, Odin Sphere Leifthrasir

Best Music: Death Stranding

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The game’s score is good, but the licensed music was key in some of Death Stranding’s best moments. The above song starts playing during your first journey in the game, and the tone is just spot-on perfect. Death Stranding works for me in a similar way that American Truck Simulator works for me. When you’re barely surviving a long trek, and a peaceful, melancholy song starts playing just as you reach the top of the hill and finally see your destination? Just perfect.

Also excellent music: Sayonara Wild Hearts

Most disappointing: Control

Well, I got fucking Alan Wake’d by Remedy again. Fantastic atmosphere and setting for a game, cocked up by repetitive, boring combat. So much about Control is so very good. I love the mystery of the janitor and the main character, the Twilight Zone/X-Files vibe of the agency and the Oldest House. The game’s architecture is arresting, and the writing is excellent.

But for me it was undone by the combat which quickly became a tedious, thing I had to Get Through to see more of the good stuff, and the more challenging fights became something I just didn’t want to engage with anymore. The checkpoint system and maps weren’t helpful, and I received too many optional side quests that I couldn’t complete because I hadn’t found the necessary traversal power yet. I loved so much about the game, but the moment to moment playing of the game was frequently not fun for me.

Ultimately it felt like a game that did not respect my time. The game desperately needed an Easy setting so I could just blow through the bits that I didn’t like. Like Alan Wake, I expect to be pulled back into it and then bounce off again at least two more times.

And now, the games that were in the running for the top 10 but missed the cut:

Dicey Dungeons:

You roll dice and spend them to activate equipment, gaining more equipment as you go. It’s a close cousin to deckbuilding games, but a little lighter and more forgiving. Slotting dice into cards feels good though. The variety in characters and cards help give this game good replay value. Give me randomized cards/gear, and characters to unlock in a run-based game and I’m a happy guy.

Judgment:

Yakuza minus Kiryu and Majima, with some investigation minigames thrown in. It’s pretty good! Most of the new detective minigames feel like they get in the way (tailing people is just silly, taking photos doesn’t work great). I never really felt strongly compelled to stick with it though. I miss the charm of Kiryu and the grime of 80′s Kamurocho. It’s an excellent game I might have enjoyed more if I hadn’t played Yakuza first.

Chocobo’s Mystery Dungeon: Everybuddy!:

This port of a Nintendo Wii roguelike is one that I missed in its original incarnation. It’s got the “I move - all the enemies move” turn-based gameplay that I love, and classes to unlock. All of this is very much my shit. It’s goofy the way that Final Fantasy games are, and the design feels older than it is (I thought it was a PS2 port before I looked it up). But hey - give me stuff to unlock and the old “I move - you move” gameplay and, again, I’m a happy guy.

Ring Fit Adventure

This game is getting me to exercise just about every day. It’s not a great video game (nor should it try to be) but as a workout tool it’s wonderful for someone like me who has trouble finding the time and motivation to go out of the house and exercise.

Untitled Goose Game

You are a winged angel of chaos in this joyous little game. I found the gameplay itself to be pretty shallow and lacking, but it’s a wonderful sandbox to play in. Tormenting people is great fun, and the way the goose animates is just perfect.

Table of Tales: The Crooked Crown

This was the PSVR game that stood out the most for me this year. It’s a tactical RPG complete with a DM that narrates everything, tiles to move your characters around on, and card-based combat. It’s a charming game and I hope they make more.

Luigi’s Mansion 3

This was my first game in the series, and I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. It’s a charming game, and the variety from floor to floor. I could forgive the wonky control scheme, but I think there’s just a low ceiling on how much a cutesy, family-friendly Nintendo title can resonate with me these days.

Dragon Quest Builders 2

Dragon Quest and Minecraft had a baby. This was my favorite game of the year for turning my brain off and checking things off a list. I’m not sure Dragon Quest Builders 2 is a Great Game, but it’s wonderful gaming comfort food for a Dragon Quest fan.

Void Bastards

Void Bastards might be this year’s Dead Cells - a run based game that never quite hooked me, but I’ll keep coming back to it. The developers really did a lot without a lot of variety in the way of art assets. It’s a satisfying, often funny shooter (admittedly not my jam). What a terrific name though.

Steamworld Quest

The Steamworld series is an impressive, weird thing. I’ve never seen a series change genres like this; they started with Steamworld Dig (Metroidvania) then made Heist (a tactical combat game) then another Dig, and finally this year they released Steamworld Quest - a deckbuilding RPG. Customization and unlockables are among my favorite gaming buzzwords, and they’re here in spades.

Sayonara Wild Hearts

More of a visual companion set to a pop album than a conventional game. This is for me what Rez was for a lot of folks. Most stages are autorunners where you’re collecting hearts, dodging obstacles, shooting giant wolves, and fighting lesbians while racing atop motorcycles. It’s a story about love, heartbreak, and finding yourself, told through music and images. Nice to have a game that feels like it was made specifically for marginalized folks.

10. Concrete Genie

Concrete Genie’s best trait is its earnestness - an increasingly rare thing in 2019. It’s about an artistic being pursued by bullies in a run-down town. He finds a magic brush that lets him paint friendly monsters into life and also paint magical landscape scenes onto buildings in an effort to bring life back to the town.

The themes of the game and how they’re handled feel a little after school special to me, but the game has a lot of heart. And the gameplay loop of creating monsters, painting buildings, and unlocking new types of things to paint never got old because it’s so damned beautiful. And you have a lot of room to be creative with how you paint. The game is not challenging, and I think the experience is better for it. There is some light platforming, puzzling, and combat, but none of it ever got frustrating. A wholesome game like this was a very welcome thing this year.

9. Indivisible

Indivisible is a odd mashup of platformer, RPG, and fighting game that blends those well enough that I can't easily put it into any one box. For me, it’s the closest to a fighting game I’ve played in probably 20 years. It has launchers and finishers and timed blocks. You collect a big old army of people you can swap in and out, the writing is smart. The platforming parts are the weakest part of the game, as some of the jumping challenges can feel uneven, and there’s a lot of “I see what I have to do, now I just need to try over and over until I execute”

The setting (Asian mythology as a backdrop) and combat felt unique enough to keep me going, and the game has a charm and personality. I like how the main character is a well-intended fuck up that has to atone for her mistakes, somewhat reminiscent of Mae from Night in the Woods.

8. Children of Morta

This is an action RPG with character progression where you are playing members of a family. The gameplay is solid, and the game drip feeds story and character interaction between runs. It’s a well-narrated and charming thing. The writing can be funny and often touching. There are story bits like the uncle crafting a pair of daggers for Kevin, who falls in love with them. Mary - his mother - takes them away for being too dangerous, and she doesn’t want her boy putting himself at risk helped me feel invested in the characters and story more than most ARPG’s.

The movement and combat feel snappy, and there are plenty of skills to unlock so you always feel like progress was made even when a run falls short. There are plenty of little secrets and tchotchkes to find in the dungeons, and between runs you can see the family members doing their own thing in the house where they live together. It’s a refreshing take on the action RPG genre.

7. Outer Worlds

I remember when The Outer Worlds was announced at The Game Awards. None of this checks any boxes for me: sci-fi setting, shooting, wacky characters. You can make your character DUMB and get special dialogue choices! Humor in game very rarely works for me, and this sounded like it was going to be that jaded, shitty Rockstar brand of humor. Hard pass from me.

Enter Xbox Game Pass. The Outer Wilds Worlds started getting positive word of mouth and it was included with Game Pass, so I figured I may as well give it a go. I encountered something I didn’t expect: really terrific writing.

I turned the difficulty down to its lowest settings and mowed through the game, savoring the tongue-in-cheek dialogue in a world where corporations own literally everything. The first character you meet is hiding out in a cave because he’s been wounded. Not too wounded to give you the company’s sales pitch though! It’s not the best choice, it’s Spacer’s Choice.

The whole “corporations are in charge” bleak humor hits more than it misses, but the real star of the show is your companions. They are generally convincing and feel like real, fleshed out characters and not simple tropes. Each companion character gets their own interesting set of side quests (except for the dumb boring robot companion). My first companion Parvati’s story revolved around mustering the courage to pursue a romantic relationship with a woman. They wrote Parvati as an asexual character, and it felt natural and not forced - not an easy task.

It leans into being a dumb video game in all the right ways and made me care about the characters more than the story. The story’s cynicism wore thin eventually, but the game ended at just about the right time and didn’t overstay its welcome.

6. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order

Jedi Fallen Order lies at the intersection of 2 things I admire more than enjoy: Star Wars and Souls-likes. It’s also EA doing their best to show that they can release a AAA Star Wars game with no microtransactions after the tire fire that was Star Wars Battlefront II. This game is an excellent make-good for EA, though I’m sure it’s more “We had to do this to restore consumer trust in us” than any real change of heart.

This game, at the time of this writing on a base PS4 anyhow, has some jank. Textures would often pop in after a second or two, I had a Stormtrooper get stuck in place like a statue, and I had a couple of hard crashes. Despite all of that, I kept coming back to the game every night until it was finished. And it impressed me enough to put an EA Star Wars game in my top 10. You win, universe. The combat was a good balance of fun shit like force-pushing dude off a cliff and tense one-on-one battle where parries and dodges are needed to get by.

The game’s story is what kept me wanting to see what was next. It’s a game set in the Star Wars universe with the confidence to resist reminding you of the characters and places you know from the films, and it’s better for it. I found myself invested in the fates of the characters. While the main character is more or less a blank cipher for the player, he’s still a better protagonist than Anakin Skywalker because I didn’t actively dislike him.

5. Bloodstained

New games succeeding as remakes or homages with goofy videogame-ass videogame stuff was sure a theme this year. Bloodstained is so ridiculous in so many ways. A lady asked me to bring her a specific piece of armor to honor one of the fallen villagers. When I did so, she tearfully thanked me then gave me 3 pizzas as a reward. The paintings on the walls will often come to life and attack you; those paintings are all portraits of people who backed the game on Kickstarter. One of the enemies resembles a giant house cat, another is a giant domestic dog. NPC’s repeat the same dialogue, such as a quest giver named Lindsay who says “Kill those murderers DEAD!” every time you speak to her.

And there is a metric ton of shit to find, collect, and craft. Most of the gear you equip looks goofy as hell. And the more new skills and gear you unlock, the more overpowered and broken you feel. The dialogue is corny as hell and plays things straight, which is the only way a screwball game like this actually works. The combat feels good. Experimenting with the powers and systems is a blast, and uncovering the map and secrets is satisfying.

4. Fire Emblem 3 Houses

- Despite being extremely my kind of shit on the surface, I’ve never done more than dabble with a Fire Emblem game. When I heard people invoking Persona and Harry Potter. I mean, a strategy RPG with relationship stories set in a school environment checks too many of my boxes to ignore.

What surprised me with the game is how much I came to really know the students in my house.* I felt like I knew Bernadetta, Dorothea, Ferdinand, Edelgard, and all the others. Alternating between exploring the school grounds, choosing lesson plans, having tea with a student, and leading them into battle was a nice way to mix up the experience. Training them in skills based on which character class you wanted to promote them to was a nice touch.

3. Death Stranding

Death Stranding has all of the batshittery it was rumored to have: Norman Reedus hiking around with a baby in a jar, poo grenades, tar squids, and people with names like Die Hardman, Mama, and Fragile. Kojima has about as much subtlety as David Cage with the metaphors and themes of the game. Cell phones latch onto you like handcuffs, and Likes are much sought after to the point where people are addicted to them. The game is all about reuniting America and forging connections. You play as a man named Sam. He’s a porter who works for the Bridges company. His name is Sam Porter Bridges.

Sam is playing a major role in reconnecting the country by hand delivering packages from city to city as well as reconnecting the country up to wifi. Continuing with the games themes, Sam has a touch phobia. It’s a game about isolation and introspection, and about the need for connection with one another. Hideo Kojima makes for damn certain that you know that when you play the game. It’s a little like David Cage, but with less cringe and more weirdness.

It’s an introspective game full of small moments. Sam curling up under a structure that another player has built, exhausted and cradling his jar baby as a melancholy song plays is the kind of moment that doesn’t play well in a demo or a video, and won’t resonate with everyone. Those of us it does work for, however, are in love with the experience. It takes the hard-to-describe appeal of a game like American Truck Simulator and adds a decidedly human element to it. There is comfort to motion and travel. We like to be rocked, or transported in a vehicle as babies. It’s the simple comfort of motion, and a way to connect to our world. There’s something to that.

I love seeing this level of ambition and weirdness from a major AAA release.

2. Disco Elysium

He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man.

I thought of Dr Gonzo of Hunter S Thompson fame early and often while playing Disco Elysium. It’s an easy connection to make; you wake up face down on the floor of a demolished hotel room. You have a wicked hangover, wearing nothing but your undies. Your necktie whirls around the ceiling, attached to the ceiling fan.

I got sloppily dressed and staggered out my door, where I was confronted by an attractive woman in the hall. Some primal part of my character thinks it’s a good idea to ask her to fuck; you crudely do so, and it goes the way you might expect. I was fresh off of playing The Outer Worlds, so I was used to any dialogue prompt associated with a skill being automatically a positive thing. As it turns out, your character gets all sorts of a impulses that aren’t always in your best interests. This first interaction put me off a little bit, I don’t want to play a game that’s trying to be cool and edgy. As it turns out, this isn’t really that.

In Disco Elysium, you play as a cop sent to sort out a murder where a body was found hanging in a tree behind this hotel. Seems that, after 3 days, you’ve managed to run up a hotel bill that you can’t pay for, frighten the patrons by threatening to shoot yourself in the head in the hotel before you lose your badge and your gun. Another cop is sent to assist you since you’ve accomplished exactly nil after 3 days. He’s from another precinct and doesn’t know you, so you haven’t burned up all of your goodwill with him yet (unlike everyone else in your life).

At a glance, it’s a Baldur’s Gate-style isometric RPG with a modern setting. In practice, it’s a lot more than that. First off, the game has no combat. Or rather, no conventional combat. Any physical encounters (which were exceedingly rare in my play) are handled through dialogue choices determined by how you’ve built out your skills. And the way the game manifests your skills is smart and feels organic, not forced.

The skills aren’t the usual RPG fare. There are 24 of them, consisting of stuff like Visual Calculus, volition, Pain Threshold, and Shivers. As you might have guessed, 24 skills in a game with no conventional combat means there is a LOT of writing in this game and just as much variance from one play to the other. My detective was a highly emotionally sensitive guy, able to pick up on what folks may be hiding, very in-tune with the cosmos, and deeply introspective (upsettingly so?).

It’s a detective RPG with a healthy dose of political intrigue, class warfare, and nihilism. Disco Elysium feels like an actual adult game, and not in the “look at all this violence and titties” sense. The best comparison I have is Planescape Torment.

1. Resident Evil 2

- What a complete game. This was my first Resident Evil game and I am in love with it. The game drops you into a hostile environment that slowly transitions from a horror show with danger around every corner to feeling like a space that was very much mine. Creeping around an unfamiliar environment in the dark with a flashlight and limited ammunition, as it turns out, is fun as hell.

The combat is slow and deliberate in a way that made the action feel satisfying and not cheap; when I did encounter enemies that moved quickly and suddenly, it got my heart rate going. And my arc with Mr X from pure terror to minor annoyance to acceptance as part of this undead infested police station I call home felt pretty special.

He is an indestructible character that follows you endlessly like the Terminator. You’re faster, but he is relentless. Hearing his heavy footsteps somewhere in the vicinity was a nice atmospheric touch. I had a couple of instances where I was running from something, turned a corner and collided with this 8 foot tall beast.

Resident Evil 2 is just the ideal dose of scariness, and gets all the dumb videogame-y parts exactly right. It feels like a Metroidvania, a world filled with locks and keys where the secrets are drip-fed to the player. Creeping through an unfamiliar area with only 2 shotgun shells and 5 pistol rounds left was a deliciously tense experience, one that other games rarely give me.

The game’s second playthrough felt a lot more different from the first than I’d feared. I’ve never really played another Resident Evil game, and I’ve never had any interest in horror games. And now here I am anxiously awaiting next year’s RE3 remake.

*Black Eagles, baby!

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zippdementia · 5 years

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Part 78 Alignment May Vary: Transition

This is the continuing saga of three (sometimes hapless) adventurers who are beginning to find out they are part of a greater story, one that began eons ago and one that will shape the destiny of the entire world of Toril. In today’s post, we begin to move towards the end of our current story arc and the beginning of the final chapter of our game. But we’ve still got some business to take care of first...

Last time, our players were left on the brink of entering Stardock, so named because it is literally built into an asteroid floating in space. Perfect for our setting! Now, here’s the thing... coming into Stardock, they are in a funny position. They’ve restored most of their hitpoints and Imoaza has her spell slots back. They have several health potions. But they are also missing a team member, Milosh, whose whereabouts are unknown after his capture by the Githyanki. And they have been warned that a mighty brood of Red Dragons patrols Stardock. Their chances of success in a fight are minimal.

So that leaves sneaking around. Imoaza still has a Githyanki soul trapped from the last battle and now she questions it, asking what the best route to the prisoners is (their intentions are to get them and get out... they don’t plan on dealing with Al’Chaia). The answer she gets is honest, but also a little uncertain. One way will take them through a rarely occupied part of Stardock but then into a training center. The other takes them through the usually occupied mess hall. Both choices may lead to sneaking or, failing that, a fight. Ultimately the heroes chose to go through the training center.

There’s some good moments on the way to the center. The ambiance gets set really well: they start on the edge of a dragon’s lair and can feel the heat emanating all around them. They are terrified that any moment they will come across the dragon! As they leave the dragon’s lair, things get cooler and darker and eventually they trade the tension of the heat for the mystery of cold, abandoned caverns. At one point, while wandering through a rocky cavern, a strange floating eye pops up out of nowhere, observes them for a moment, and then disappears as rapidly and mysteriously as it came. They have no idea what that means, but figure it can’t be good. At another point, there’s a moment of humor, when Carrick finds a secret door in the floor of a cavern and tries to lift it... forgetting he’s standing on it (the result of a critical failure in the strength roll).

But eventually they come to the training center, find it VERY occupied (7 or 8 Gith warriors are here, training), and have to decide what to do. They end up coming up with a plan to use a mixture of the Mindflayer’s mind blast skill and Imoaza’s summoned Cthulian darkness to blind and entrap as many of the combatants as possible, then hopefully take down the stragglers and get through the room. It’s not a bad plan, but it doesn’t go off well, thanks to some poor rolling on their part and some great rolling on my part.

This leads to a mighty mess of a confrontation that takes up most of the session. Githyanki are leaping out of Hadar’s darkness while tentacles reach for them and try to pull them back in. They use jump to latch onto handholds on the walls and ceilings and from there leap to attack the players. Imoaza is using her eldritch blasts to knock them back into the pool of darkness, where they are pulled, screaming, to their deaths. The Mind Flayer levitates around the room, trying to eat brains and blast minds, but ends up rolling so poorly he is pretty much just an extra target for the Githyanki to focus on instead of the players. Carrick wades into battle and takes down two of the Githyanki before being surrounded and struck down himself. Imoaza can’t seem to summon Drosselgreymer: every time she tries, the Rod of Storms leaps into her hands instead and eventually, frustrated, she unleashes its potential, blasting the arena with lightning and thunder. There is a great moment when two more combatants enter the fray, powerful Gith magic users, but the door they enter through leads directly into Hadar’s Darkness and they spend a couple rounds getting slammed around in there before they break free.

Ultimately, the situation doesn’t look good: Carrick is stable, but unconscious. Marky the Mind Flayer is set upon by an injured Githyanki knight, who finally chops his head off. Imoaza is pinned to a wall by the telekinesis of the Gith magic users (one of whom is invisible) and two Gith are descending on her with the intent to knock her unconscious and take her prisoner. The players are badly outnumbered despite their good plan!

The way this fight progresses is part of D&D’s unpredictability and that’s not bad, but there are a few things I have taken from the combat to improve in the future. Let me cover those before I get to the conclusion of the fight.

Improving Combat

The combat we have this session is epic and less one sided than the players think... but the perception that it is one sided is a problem, and when this happens in a game it almost always comes from miscommunications between the players and the GM. In this case, there are several things that don’t get communicated well:

This room has many straw dummies in it, spread around and big enough they could potentially be used for cover or lit on fire for a distraction. I only mention the straw stuffing once, and so the players don’t connect the description of this to a potential tactic. I’m also not clear about where they stand around the room.

The Gith are training in full armor and weapons. The players don’t realize this and when I mention the straw dummies wield wooden staffs (another hint that fire could be good here), they think I’m talking about the Gith. So they aren’t that afraid of darting into the middle of them!

The Githyanki are totally surprised by the players, and while they react quickly due to their training and battle expertise, they are afraid for most of the combat.

The ultimate lesson is to be clear, to be OVERLY clear. Players won’t always ask questions, even if you encourage them to (as I usually do) because they may not have any questions, but that doesn’t mean the picture in their head matches yours. Describe everything TWICE, lay out potential plans to illustrate the scenario (but don’t spoon feed the players ideas of what you want them to do), and make sure the players know their options. I talked about this a bit on a recent episode of Adventurous Appetizers, that knowing their options is what keeps players from feeling frustrated at the outcome of a fight. In this case, they felt a little frustrated because they didn’t fully understand the scenario and so, even though their plan was a good (if poorly rolled) one, they felt a little cheated out of the opportunity to enact other plans which maybe they would have used instead if they better understood the situation.

Similarly, throughout the combat, I could have made things seem more frenzied for the opponents: if they had been screaming in fear and confusion or crying out that this might be the first wave of a larger attack (as they probably feared it was), it would have highlighted how well the players did against the odds and even given them a chance to roleplay during combat, maybe using intimidation to increase the enemy’s fear and halt their good tactics. I hate missing roleplaying opportunities but combat is an easy place to do so what with everything else going on and you having to use the other side of your brain to do all the logistics. I’m always trying to remind myself to roleplay during battle. Easier with 20/20 hindsight having had a few weeks to think over the combat though.

The other thing I could have changed is lowered the difficulty of the room on the fly by giving the Gith the wooden staves the players thought they had, but I didn’t realize this was what the players thought until combat was over and they asked about it. This one is their fault, though, as I said a number of times during the fight that the Githyanki had blades and if the players had mentioned it early in the combat, I probably would have changed that, or at least given them a chance to use an inspiration point to put that into effect (tangent: I’m allowing inspiration points now to change the story slightly for things that have no rules, like knocking Githyanki off perches and into the tentacles of Hadar).

I wanted to post these notes because these are all helpful hints for DMs and good notes for me for next time! Still, at the moment, we have a TPK on our hands and we need to give the players a way out of it.

Ah! New Information!

At the beginning of this session, I took Milosh aside and we went back in time before the short rest to roleplay a little interrogation scene between him and Al’Chaia, whom he is brought before as a prisoner. Milosh ends up being a pretty hilarious prisoner. He takes things so literally and has so little ability to deceive or lie that Al’Chaia quickly dismisses him as a threat and instead tries to entice him to work with her. She wants him to free the prisoner, Ezria, and "escape” with him, at least to the point where he opens a portal to the Githzerai homeworld, at which point she intends to step in, kill or recapture Ezria, and secure the portal for her own uses. In return, she offers to take him to the homeworld of the Gith, where he can speak to their queen, peruse their libraries, and learn more about the Surveyors who built him.

Milosh agrees, but just to be sure he stays honest, Al’Chaia gives him a scrying crystal, allowing her to know where he is at all times. She doesn’t tell him what it does, but she warns him not to discard it. Milosh suspects its true purpose, and agrees to carry it. Then, Al’Chaia sends him to the jail cells, where he awaits Ezria, who is currently being mentally tortured in a vain attempt to get information out of him.

What Al’Chaia doesn’t tell Milosh is that she is using the time that Ezria is being tortured to set a trap: she summons the Great Mother Dragon of her brood (insert unpronounceable dragon name) and connects the crystal to her, with instructions to hover outside the asteroid wherever the crystal is and be prepared to use her spell of passwall to enter and attack if the crystal is discarded or the portal is opened. She also knows that the portal can only be opened in “weaker” space, a place where the fabric of time and space is weak enough to pierce and travel through. The one place this is is at the entrance to Stardock. So she goes there to wait, with two young red dragons and a platoon of Githyanki. She tells the other Githyanki not to fight the robotic Milosh and Ezria, but she doesn’t give them the same instructions about any other intruders. These she says “kill on sight.” She knows those intruders are there, but she figures the less companions Milosh has, the more likely he is to adhere to the plan.

Side note: in retrospect it would have been fun if there was a secondary place that the players discover on Stardock where the veil is weak and could be pierced, but I think it would have disrupted the pace we set for the mission. But a good thought for a future playthrough of Stardock.

All of this culminates in Milosh using a key Al’Chaia gave him to free Ezria and join the fight just as things look hopeless. Milosh darts into the training room and begins firing his mega-buster gunarm at the Gith wizards while Ezria unleashes the fury of a Githzerai monk against his enemies.

Then things get complicated. Milosh also freed two Mindflayers as he sped out of the prisons. This infuriates Ezria, but Milos h manages to convince him to stick to the mission and think of them as tools to use against his enemies. This goes against everything Ezria believes, but the Githzerai is wounded, exhausted from multiple psychic tortures, and terrified of the Githyanki gaining access to his homeworld. So he tentatively agrees.

This alliance is tested further still when the Mindflayers burst in upon the room and immediately set upon one of the injured Gith wizards, pulling her down and cracking open her skull to feast on her brains. Ezria’s most inner instincts tell him to fight now, to turn on the Mindflayers, and in a blind rage he nearly does so, with Milosh desperately begging him not to give in to his rage but to let the other Gith kill these Mindflayers, or come back later with an army of Githzerai. Only one set of words finally gets through to Ezria: “It is not the warrior’s way to lose the war just to win one battle.” With this, Ezria finally tears himself from the horendous death of his distant kin and joins Milosh in fleeing through the trapdoor, Imoaza and Carrick close behind (Imoaza killed the Githyanki knight who was dragging Carrick’s body away and revived him during the action with the Mindflayers).

As they come up through the trapdoor, they halt for a moment to heal each other and cast haste spells to let them speed through the dungeon. Then Milosh makes a mistake: he throws away Al’Chaia’s crystal.

Immediately there is a roar and the mother dragon appears in the room with them, blocking the exit. But the three race away, using haste to bypass her and tear down the final hallway to their exit. The mother dragon sends a blast of fire after them, a blast that severely wounds Ezria, nearly killing him, barely catches Carrick, and...

... kills Imoaza, who fails her dodge rolls.

Only, Milosh’s player asks if he can spend an inspiration point and change the story, intentionally failing his roll and throwing himself in the way of the blast. This sounds super appropriate to the story and they have one last inspiration so we allow it and Milosh takes incredible damage, his armor and outer layer melting, giving him a permanent -2 to Charisma, and leaving him looking like something out of Terminator. But he survives and Imoaza survives and the three race on!

But then they come to the Stardock portal and find Al’Chaia and her forces waiting for her. She opens her mouth to speak and Milosh launches a volley of arrows at her and her crew. Taking advantage of the distraction, Ezria opens the portal underneath the party. He turns to join them and gasps as a knife hits him in the back: a poisoned blade thrown by Al’Chaia with perfect precision. His life force fading, he knows that he still needs to protect the portal from being kept open by Al’Chaia and her Gith. So he leaps in and makes the ultimate sacrifice: he spends his life force to close the portal behind him. And because he gave his whole soul to do this last dead, he arrives back in his homeworld dead, unable to be raised by the powers of the Gith.

A Short Rest

The players get a long rest, courtesy of the Githzerai, who are grateful for their heroic actions in returning to them one of their one. The players sleep in the strange Githzerai world set in the Limbo in between space and time. They recover and they dream.

In fact, they dream the same dream, all three of them, of a statue of a woman, set in a garden surrounded by people making love. The love making turns violent and the people begin tearing at each other’s flesh, though still crying out in ecstasy, while the statue of the woman slowly changes its expression into a smile.

Only Imoaza, schooled as she is in dark magic, recognizes the dream as more than just a fancy or an effect of being in the strange environment of Limbo. There is a lingering of magic, almost like a suntan or a burn, left on her aura which tells her that she inadvertently touched powerful magic in her dream last night. This means something has contacted them, or brushed up against their sleeping minds. The thought perturbs her, but she keeps it to herself, not accustomed to having companions to help her think through her problems.

The three are taken back to their ship by the Githzerai and deposited on the bridge, while the Gith go to the reactor core to power up their crystal and send them, finally, home to Toril. How long has it been? In player time, seven months since they fought the Mind Flayer space marine that launched them into space. In game time... well, that is less certain. Knick Knack and Immerstal have given them impression that hundreds of years may have gone by on Toril in their absence. Only Milosh is not disturbed by the thought: “Ah! I have been asleep for hundreds of years already. A few hundred more will not hurt as long as the prophecy is still unfulfilled.”

But they have little time to contemplate or celebrate. As Krisp congratulates them on a job well done, Carrick notices something bareling towards the bridge from between asteroids. It looks like...

“It’s a ship!” he cries out, moments before it slams into the bridge and everything goes crazy.

Family Matters

Crashing through the bridge is a familiar gunship: it belongs to Hecate, Imoaza wayward daughter who has hunted her since Imoaza joined the party. Unsuccessfully hunted, I should add. Hecate has been a difficult encounter to design. As a boss encounter, she has had to walk a fine line between being not strong enough to TPK a party while being strong enough to withstand their brutal attacks. You would think that the answer here would be high HP and AC with maybe a low but consistent damage output, or having her use special abilities to target group weaknesses.

And yeah, you wouldn’t be wrong. That’s pretty much the basis for any Hecate fight. The funny thing is how inconsistent it is in practice, but then that’s pretty much been the take away of this entire post. D&D is unpredictable, unstable. It is not linear story telling: it is improv theater.

For a brief recap, here are all the various scenarios the party has encountered Hecate in and a basic rundown of how they were designed and how they went:

Encounter 1: Mountainside This encounter took place on the mountain path on the way to the Fane of Tiamet right after the Red Hand campaign. Here, I used Maralith statistics for Hecate, with the snake body option, and gave her a special sword that could cut through space, allowing her to basically dimension door/misty step in and out of combat. She was accompanied by a group of Yuan Ti and their Broodguards. The thought was that the multitude of enemies would make the combat harder. It didn’t. Imoaza and Aldric decimated the group enemies, while Carrick provided a nice unhittable target for them with his high AC. It was pretty much a disaster for Hecate, but gave me ideas of how to run future fights. Basically, everything needed an upgrade.

Encounter 2: Hell’s Tavern This encounter took place in the City of Ghosts, with a new and improved bounty hunter verison of Hecate. She had lost her blade, but she had gained a gun arm. I basically upgraded her to a mix of Orthon stats (Mordenkainen’s Tome) and the Marilith States, with some multi-attack thrown in to allow her to be competitive in the action economy. She also fought alongside an acidic troll. This was probably the most balanced fight the players had against Hecate and it took them using all sorts of tricks to beat her, leading to a tense and prolonged encounter which almost killed the party.

Encounter 3: Gunship This was the most interesting fight, as Hecate fought the players from her gunship while they controlled the demon train. I don’t know how balanced the fight was because it didn’t really use in book statistics but was more fluid with some of the moves and attacks being designed on the fly to fit the situation, but it didn’t really matter because it was heavy on spectacle, with the emphasis being on all the cool shit both sides could do to each other and how epic the whole thing felt. When Hecate’s ship went down in the desert, that didn’t feel surprising, but it didn’t feel unsatisfying, either.

This new fight with Hecate is supposed to focus on a few new things: one, she has Blackrazor at full power. Two, she has legendary actions. Three, she still has access to her gunship’s weapons (limited). And four, there is an environmental challenge based on the bridge depressurizing and also something... else. These black portals keep appearing in the bridge during the fight, sucking everything they touch into nothingness.

The fight ends up not going the way I expected. I expected it to be a challenge, maybe too much of a challenge I was afraid. Hecate is most interested in fighting Imoaza alone but of course Imoaza doesn’t go for that (much to the rage of Hecate) and the team takes her on as one. Even this was a little unexpected, as I thought some of the group would be held back by obstacles.

See, first thing that happens is Tinia and other magic users rush forward to secure the bridge from the pull of outer space, using their magics to erect a force field between the bridge and the vast expanse caused by the crash of the gunship. When they do, a number of heavy objects that were being pulled towards the void drop suddenly. One, a Fiona droid, slams into Carrick, knocking him down. A heavy computer bank crushes Milosh (he rolls a critical fail), trapping him underneath. Only Imoaza escapes the carnage, rolling exceptionally well and leaping across various objects to land in front of the gunship and taunt her daughter to come down and fight.

So for a moment, I think this is going to be a one on one fight, which I hadn’t anticipated but awesome! So Hecate uses her gunship to lay down suppressing fire in a line of plasma blasts behind Imoaza, turning this into an arena. But no: I forget how many movement options higher level characters have. Carrick misty steps away from an encroaching black portal and right past the plasma and Milosh misty steps out from under the heavy computer banks and rushes through the plasma, taking damage, but emerging with enough health to feel comfortable closing with Hecate. Within a round, Hecate takes something like a hundred points of damage from their combined onslaught. She uses some of her legendary actions to try and fight back, but bad rolls screw her over. The one thing she gets off is she uses a charm attack on Milosh and she convinces him to target Carrick, whom she says murdered the real surveyor. Milosh turns to attack Carrick. Meanwhile a black portal opens up underneath Imoaza and it looks like this fight is going to end up between Hecate, Carrick, and a charmed Milosh. But then Imoaza uses the group’s last inspiration to try and change the story. She tells me what she wants to do, and I declare a strength contest: not Imoaza’s strong suit, and something Hecate’s pretty good at.

And Hecate rolls a 3. Hah!

Imoaza leapt over a swing from Blackrazor. “You let Aldric die!” the sword screamed. “I was supposed to kill him!” Imoaza would have landed back on the floor of the bridge, but it was suddenly gone, sucked away into a black portal that yawned underneath her. So instead she landed on Hecate, gripping her daughter’s shoulders, their faces mere inches from each other. Hecate hissed. “You were never one of us,” she said. “You stole our weapon so that you could play pretend.”

“No,” Imoaza answered. “I stole the weapon because you weren’t worthy of it.”

Then she swung around to Hecate’s back and pushed off, leaping backwards and sending her daughter screaming into the pit.

And with that, the fight is over. That’s actually suitably awesome, and I love the way the fight ends before it really begins. Still, seeing how badly the fight went for Hecate even before this move, there are a few things I would do differently here in retrospect to make the fight better:

Give Hecate some better armor. I needed to bump her AC up a bit to make her harder to hit, something she totally would have thought to do after her last fight with the players. Oops.

Bring along some minions! Why oh why didn’t I have the ship launch little mechs into the arena or have Hecate hack some of the Fiona units? I can’t believe I missed a chance to have androids fight!

Have Hecate hang back. Yeah, I know Blackrazor is a close range weapon, but she should have known to fight this smarter. Hang back, keep range, use her gun arm to disable opponents and her charm to take over Milosh, then move in for the kill.

Overall, I think this would have made for a far more tactically interesting fight, with Milosh charmed and fighting Carrick and a couple of androids distracting Imoaza while Hecate moved around using range and occasionally closing in for a strong attack. With the players having had a long rest, I think they could have handled this and it would have been a more tense and memorable fight (maybe even with the same ending, which would have been even more impactful, if it interrupted Hecate in the middle of kicking butt). Sorry, players. But hey, maybe you’ll get a chance for a better one in the future.

In any case, the fight ends but the players still have dangers to face. Portals are opening up all over the bridge! Carrick is sucked into one, and Milosh dives in after him, using his grappling hook arm to attach to Hecate’s gunship. When he doesn’t emerge, Imoaza sighs and slides down the grappling steel wire after him.

Home...?

Darkness, and sound. Wind whistling might be how some would describe it, but it would be a kindness the wind didn’t deserve. This wind was howling, howling madly like a tortured thing. Milosh activates his eyes to see that he is in a hut of stone with a single heavy blanket forming a door that is flapping in the raging wind. His grappling hook has retracted, though he doesn’t know when that happened. In fact, he doesn’t know the when of anything. How long has he been... asleep? Is that the right word?

When Milosh eventually pushes past the blanket, he finds himself in another world. A world of grey and white, surrounded by shadows. Snow and sleet rains down upon them, picked up and spun into a flurry by the howling wind. Others are here, too, humanoids that seem to be preparing to leave on a journey. Wagons are being packed and hitched to mules. Provisions are being packed. There is a mighty fire that people huddle around, though others are preparing to dump buckets of snow and ice to put out the flames. Among the people huddled for warmth Milosh spots Imoaza and Carrick.

Their experience is the same as his: they remember entering the portal but nothing since. They do not know where they are, so Milosh grabs a passing man, a man with a weatherworn face and a thick beard with grey at its edges, and asks him where they are.

“Torill,” he barks. “Along the sword coast, on the pilgrimage.”

This has the players reeling. The Sword Coast in the Forgotten Realms?! The world they’ll been trying to return to for... well... for a long time.

“Pilgrimage to what?” Milosh asks.

At this the man scowls.

“You’ve forgotten our lady?!”

“We’ve forgotten many things,” Imoaza says quickly and the man softens.

“I shouldn’t have judged, I’m sorry. The affliction takes us all in different ways but, ah gods, to have forgotten her ladyship you must truly be miserable. Here, you are on your way with the rest of us pilgrims to see the goddess Eshebala, so that she may claim our spirits and usher us into her bright kingdom away from all this suffering.”

Eshebala... Milosh searches his databanks and realizes he does know the lady Eshebala. In his time (which admittedly was centuries ago) she was already an old goddess, worshipped by lovers and would-be lovers for her power to recognize and bring true lovers together, and as a fertility goddess. But Imoaza also knows Eshebala, only she knows her as a Goddess of horror and despair, a dark name shunned even by the hardiest warlocks, for she is known as a being incapable of granting any power excepting that of wild uncontrollable chaos, whose own followers she has forsaken and to whom she grants no gifts or insight, except the gift and insight of madness.

Still, with nowhere else to go, the players join the procession, learning that the pilgrimage ends in Baldur’s Gate and that they are as of yet eleven days away from their destination. And that’s where we shall leave them for now.

#Eshebala #Dnd 5e #Dungeons and Dragons #Campaign journal #alignment may vary

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studymotivation53 · 7 years

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How to extend your focusing abilities when studying? Before giving you the tips. I’d like to tell you “What type of student I was.” I didn’t have time to study for a long period of time actually, I have classes from 7:30am to 8pm. I’ve got 4 major subjects of 4 different topics that would have a quiz the next day. I have manuals for my laboratories to finish. Hours of Classes to attend. I have to sleep and study and do this and that chores and etc. I have 8 hours of laboratory duty during Saturday. So as you can see. I’m tired. I don’t get much studying done. I’m a huge blah and tell you the truth? I don’t even know how to time manage at that time. Now that I’m done I wish I was able to like focus right away and when I have a Sunday for myself instead of sleeping and resting I wish I spent it on studying. Before the tips. I want you to put this as your routine in life. Sleep very very important!!! No way are you be able to focus without it .I’d rather sleep than study believe me! Next focus on class. Some people wants to write while listening. I do to but not the wordy type. I place my pen and notebook on my desk empty page and all cross my arm and listen real well. I process what my teacher is talking about not just listening but actually visualize what he is saying step by step I try to put the thoughts together in my mind. (For example. The Immune system is at a constant of battle. We have 3 lines of defenses The skin and the mucous membrane (and impenetrable barrier that cannot be easily destroyed, lines the nose and etc to trap antigens so that they can be flushed out), next are fever and inflammation (Increase heat makes the antigens uncomfortable this is due to increase in blood flow of RBC and the fever produced by the body) , last but never the least the Immune system (T cells and B cell are responsible for I.D and production of antibodies which destroys the antigen that has entered).) People would write it down this way. Line of defense 1.skin mucous membrane - and impenetrable barrier that cannot be easily destroyed, line the nose and etc to trap antigens so that they can be flushed out like coughing and sneezing 2.fever inflammation - Increase heat makes your antigens uncomfortable this is due to increase in blood flow of RBC and the fever produced by the body 3.immune system - T cells and B cell are responsible for I.D and production of antibodies which destroys the antigen that has entered Me: sure I have to read the book and read this too. Great more things I need to do with my schedule. -__- My version? I’ve processed this in my mind like a drawing. To tell you the truth I wouldn’t have to write it down. I got it in here (Brain) let’s just imagine this as kind of like a hand drawing. Antigens = red circles; Triangle = heat; y=antibody Pic on top.

Then Eat real food. You’ll have more energy this way for the day. Then you can still study when coming home instead of feeling like dying. Now on to the tips!

1. Get it started. When you aren’t used to studying for a long period of time. It is normal that you can’t stay focus for more than 15 minutes. I experienced this as well. Start a time you want to study like 7 am in the morning choose a desk that is wide enough for you to place your things, oh and Don’t eat a lot! We get sleepy when we are too full, sometimes apps that will refrain you from using my phone can’t help me because it has become an essential part of my life now not to mention I’m used to holding and using my phone all the time. So what I did was use a timer app that would time my progress of studying (Brain focus is what I use (not sponsored)) I studied for like what? 3 minutes at first then I was grabbing my phone because I was sooooo bored with studying. But that clock that counts my time makes me stop myself from holding it. But when I do use my phone I press the pause button of time I’m studying.

NOW a minute or two of progress is a great deal already. Yes it is! Progress is progress no matter how small it is. You just have to keep going! Now if you can’t study anymore then get off the desk and do something else. Don’t watch movies and if you have that feeling that I won’t get up after this I’m sure try to push yourself to try again. If you really want to watch a movie I have a Chinese series called Love O2O. The girl is a Gamer but she is also a scholar student so her friends studies for exams and all and she’s like I’m done with my studies gonna play a game now.(I so want to be like that!!!) gives me a boost whenever I see her study.

2. Keep studying at your assigned time 7 am EVERYDAY yes EVERYDAY. You have to get used to it train your mind to think in the morning (Sidetrack I used to be a night own now I’m a morning bird. You have to teach your body to work in the morning that is when exams, quiz, class usually occurs right? You have to sleep at night remember? I know studying is boring but you’ll get used to it . YOU HAVE TO GET USED TO IT. 3. Track your status, the app (Brain focus has like statistics on how much studying you’ve done for the day) you have to make it your goal to improve! Push push push yourself and let it get used to it. Habit is the key! 4. I used to be someone who doesn’t like any sound when studying. For me this is a no no, your future circumstances like me I aim to be a surgeon someday is not going to adjust for you. Is the O.R or E.R or the hospital itself quiet? Nope! It is one of the noisiest place when during an emergency, the sound of machines beeping, people calling out for aid, groans of patients, bustling sounds of clothes, footsteps etc etc. I changed this by listening to study with me videos from youtube (Ways to study is a fave of mine. Awesome study tips by the way! Check her out, my friend tried her methods and she’s having perfect marks recently) not full blast ofcourse just enough for it to be a background noise (Using an LGK10, app mx player volume 12(This lets you play Videos like an MP3. I have to see the Brain focus app)). 5. Don’t eat too much! You will get sleepy!Tthe body will focus on digesting your food. So you will get sleepy and you won’t be able to study and a 10 minute nap? No way man! My bed is too comfy. I suggest a cup of water if your thirsty, or an apple. For me I don’t eat anymore when I study. I study when I wake up, then have breakfast after an hour or two as for snacks I have them in the afternoon. Around 3 pm just a piece of bread study again then dinner. Hmmm go online a little bit(I post on my studygram studymotivation53. I don’t have to set that much time on going on line because when I have my break I post on my studygram so no need) then study then sleep. 6. If you achieved a 30 minute or more improvement of focusing test yourself. Move your location. I was scared to go home when I did this because I’m staying at a boarding house for my review. I was scared that I MIGHT NOT GET SOME STUDYING DONE SINCE I’ll be staying home for a bout 2 weeks and that’s a lot but glad to say that I can study even though its not my desk with the TV with just a wall separating us. I used to get frustrated that my brother screams or plays loudly now it doesn’t bother me anymore or the sound of what used to be my fave show TEEN TITANS now teen titans Go! My laptop playing Ways to study’s study with me vlogs. 7. Hmmm nice study stuff is a bonus too a great pen and a smooth white paper or notebook really helps me out when I study. Highlighters are great too. My pens are color coded (Blue = Title; pink = terms or names of organisms or test etc etc.; orange = explanation or notes). Nice things makes you want to stay more on your table so make that desk simple but efficient. 8. Planner. I do have a Bujo but I prefer to use my challenge accepted pad. Like I want to finish 12 topics for today so I list them down and check them out after I finish the topic. Remember a cute Bujo would be useless if its not going to help you. Don’t spend too much time on doing them. 9. So to summarize it all. Start. Discipline. Make it into a habit. Change yourself don’t stay on your comfort zone. Sorry If I have some grammar mistakes or like commas are missing. English isn’t my mother tongue sooooooooooo Sorry!!!!!!!!

I hope I could help! 1 person that can improve is a big big motivation for me. Speaking of which I also have a studygram (studymotivation53) I post motivational quotes over there. If you could give me tips on how to improve myself then I am always open for messages and Dm’s!

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