#((i will now repeat a joke i said on discord))

[lemonlover1110]

can we get boyfriend/husband fluff with toji please🥹

Pairing: Toji Fushiguro x f!Reader

Warnings: Pure Fluff

Summary: Toji tends to crack a couple of dad jokes to make you laugh.

Discord +18 - Twitter - Ko-Fi

Toji does anything to put a smile on your face. He’s picked up a habit of cracking bad jokes every five to ten minutes to hear your laugh. He says the most ridiculous things on purpose, just to lighten up your mood. He would’ve called himself an idiot a couple of years back, but nothing beats the feeling of hearing you chuckle at something he said.

“Are you paying attention?” You ask with a mouthful of popcorn, noticing that your boyfriend is intently looking at his phone. The movie that’s on is one that he picked, making you wonder what’s more interesting than what’s on the television. You try to peek at what he’s looking at, but he moves his phone so the screen is out of your sight. Your brows furrow and you yell, “Toji! Are you looking at other women?!”

“Yeah.” He’s joking, but you snatch the phone out of his hand. He whines and you begin to scroll through it, confusion consuming you. He has to look away, too embarrassed to look your way but not being brave enough to take his phone back. “Are you almost done?”

“What are these?” You ask him, reading each and every line that’s on the screen. “I’ve never been a fan of facial hair. But now it’s growing on me.”

“Well aren’t you going to laugh? That one was funny.” Toji says, and you do chuckle but not because of the awful joke.

“So you’re just looking up dad jokes whenever you’re with me.” You finally come to the realization that this is the reason why Toji is almost always taking out his phone. It’s obvious, but you never really noticed how he’d read something over and over again on his phone before repeating it to you five minutes later. You thought the awful jokes came naturally once a man turned into a dad.

He lets out a sigh before nodding. He expects you to be disappointed but in one swoop moment you throw your arms over him and begin to fill his face with kisses, “You’re just the sweetest.”

“I know.” He answers, though he doesn’t think he’s so great. He’s not going to say anything that’ll make you stop kissing him. “Some of them were originally mine though.”

“Like? Which jokes?” You ask, stopping. You proceed to lay your head on his chest, giving him back his phone so he can continue to read his awful jokes to you.

He scratches the back of his neck before admitting, “The ones that didn’t make you laugh.”

[two-white-butterflies]

i can see you | dr3

Description: Secret relationship tension. You both struggle to keep the relationship a secret.

Pairing: daniel ricciardo/red-bull admin!reader

Daniel's arms were wrapped around your torso, carefully leading you towards the secluded station of redbull racing. You've been dating each other for six-months now, and due to his job and your adoration for privacy - you've never really announced your relationship to the public. It's not like they're supposed to care, right?

'Private but not secret' was your motto.

Everyone in redbull racing knew that Daniel was dating somebody - they just didn't know who.

"Can we get some milkshakes before the race?" you inquired, knowing that the both of you were going to spend the entire race watching from a tiny screen. It could get boring. "Yeah, chocolate or strawberry?" he asked, reaching for his phone to call someone.

"Mint," you replied with a smile.

"Are you serious?" he chuckled - showing you a toothy grin smile.

"Yeah," you hummed.

"Did Max really expose our relationship?" you giggled while pressing small kisses to his lips. "Don't worry, he doesn't know who my girlfriend is." he says for certain, hands trailing up to cup your cheeks. "Really?" you raised an eyebrow.

Daniel told Max everything.

You used to joke around that they were the ones dating.

"Yep,"

Daniel dared to kiss you in the open.

His lips were pressed against yours, hands squeezing your ass - while his hat partially covered your face. "Daniel," you whispered, surprised by his sudden bravery. "Y/N," he repeated your name.

He pulled away from your face - hands raising to settle on your waist. "What are you doing?" you chuckled, pecking his lips. The both of you were lucky since it was lunchtime - thus, there weren't any people in the garage. "Kissing you?" he answered.

"How courageous..." you hummed while he pulled your body closer. "Wanna see how far this goes?" he joked - pulling away in time when another personnel enters the garage.

"Daniel?" Christian raised his eyebrows. "We're filming content, sir." you quickly lied - pulling your phone out to pretend to be filming him. "Oh, okay - have fun then." he waved goodbye - not wanting to be part of another tiktok.

Daniel wiped the tears away from your eyes. "Hey, twitter is a shitty place. Twitter is irrelevant, like who even uses it?" he calmed you down - hiding your phone in his pocket before you could read more hate tweets about you. "If someone feels this about us, I feel shitty - Dan." your voice sounded hoarse from the hours of crying.

"That's normal - but it doesn't mean that you'll live based on what anonymous people say." he reasoned, already used to the hate. "I know - but I never wanted our relationship to be exposed this way." you sobbed, burying your face in his chest.

"I agree, but my manager said that this can be our chance to fuck them up. We need to own our narrative."

F1 FANS DISCORD SERVER

kittenwhispers: anyone else find it weird that daniel is dating some 23 year old 😭? - thebossdaddy: it's weird fr WAHAHA

rosesforrose: it's not weird, i think they look good together. daniel's always been childish anyways. (edited)

annieunnie: nah i ship them so badd acck

danielricciardo: Annabelle in theaters near you. 🤣

0 comments 174,393 likes

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[tj-dragonblade]

[FIC] Past the Wit of Man (or, Bottom's Dream)

Fandom: The Sandman Pairing: Dreamling Rated: M Word Count: 3657 Tags: comedy, attempted comedy, comedy devolving into feels, identity reveal, sex worker Hob Gadling, advancing my Men In Lingerie agenda, long-haired Hob Gadling agenda, stretching timelines like taffy, Desire and Dream get along AU, but Desire is not actively in this, Dead Boy Detectives comic spoilers mentioned, miscommunication, Dream of the Endless finally uses his words, happy ending

Notes: Kudos props and huge thanks to everyone in the Mr Sadman discord who creatively interpreted a snippet I posted of something else and launched the whole idea of Hob working for a supernatural escort service; this would not exist without y'all and your beautiful brainstorming. ❤️

This fills the August monthly @dreamlingbingo prompt Identity Reveal, replacing square A2 (creature: Veela) on my bingo card

Summary: Hob is nicely settled in a new career and a new identity and does not expect to see his Stranger until 2089. The universe, apparently, has other ideas.

On AO3

~ "Your client is Dream of the Endless. He is extremely ancient and extremely powerful, an underpinning concept of the universe. Absolutely terrible about loosening up and letting himself relax."

"Don't think I'd be much good at relaxing if I was an underpinning concept of the universe either," Hob jokes, opening the profile that the Agency rep has just airdropped to his phone and thumbing through it.

The rep, a foppish vampire with curly white hair and impeccable fashion sense, arches one elegant eyebrow at him. "Apparently his most recent girlfriend dumped him quite harshly and his sibling has arranged this booking on his behalf; he's—and I am quoting here—'absolutely incompetent at managing his own happiness'."

"He knows he's been booked though, right? I'm not gonna catch the fallout because no one told him what kind of appointment this is?" It's only happened once, a prank played on a shy ace nixie by her well-meaning but ill-informed friends; all the same, Hob does not care to repeat the experience—particularly with someone potentially more dangerous.

"He is very much aware and in agreement, yes. We promised him our top companion." The rep dimples at Hob, a smile of saccharine sincerity that shows only the barest hint of fang. "And that's you, sweet Nick."

"And that's me," Hob agrees matter-of-factly, frowning at his phone, then turning it to show his guest. "No photo?"

The rep glances at the screen and makes a commiserative noise. "Oh, yes. Unfortunate, that. Cameras have a very hard time with this fellow, something to do with his general relationship to reality." His tone takes on a simpering air of great melodrama. "We were forced to use an artist's rendition instead! Tragic, really; it doesn't do him justice."

"Huh," Hob says, turning his phone back and studying the cartoony hand-drawn image. Guy looks like he's got some sort of steampunk insect for a head, dark and bolt-laden and bug-eyed, with a trunk that's strongly reminiscent of a disembodied spine. "Dream of the Endless, you said? Looks more like a bloody nightmare."

The rep gives an exaggerated roll of his shoulders, as if shrugging off his delivery duty now that it's done, and turns to leave. "Well whatever the case, an Endless is far above the average client, darling. Give him your best."

"'Course." Hob grins. "That's why you brought the assignment to me, after all."

"Just so." The Agency rep gives a lazy wave in parting and Hob closes the door, still scrolling through the profile as he makes his way to the kitchen.

"Dozens of titles and names", he murmurs, glancing through the list of them. "King of Dreams and Nightmares, alright. Contains the entire collective unconscious of every living being in. Every…universe…?" He shakes his head. "Has never taken a vacation ever. Bested Lucifer Morningstar and oversaw the reassignment of Hell—okay, wow. Billions of years old." He whistles, a long sound of awed disbelief. "Maybe I throw in a free massage for this guy; sounds like he could use it."

He shakes his head again, pockets his phone, carries on with getting breakfast together.

Bug-headed workaholic foundational concept of the universe. Won't be the weirdest client he's ever serviced.

~

It's been ten years since his stranger showed up late for their meeting and smiled so openly and named him friend. That had been their longest meeting yet, lasting all afternoon and on into the evening and it wasn't until the Inn had started closing up for the night that they wound down. His stranger had spoken briefly of the missed appointment in 1989, making clear that something at least mildly traumatic had kept him away and also that he did not wish to elaborate, and Hob had let it go. There was so much to tell of his own century past, his friend remarking with interest on a great many of his stories, and it was enough. His stranger, his friend, had come back, and they'd had a lovely long meeting. Perhaps in 2089 he would be comfortable sharing more of his own story, but even if not, Hob didn't mind. He was confident once more in the friendship he'd declared back in 1889 and willing to coax it out bit by bit, meeting by meeting. He had all the time in the world, after all.

Within a year of that meeting he'd wrapped up his teaching career, arranged for ownership of the New Inn to transfer to a 'relative' in the States who'd keep it running the next few decades, and started searching for a new career for his next identity.

He stumbled quite by accident into the broader supernatural world after being stalked by two dead teenagers helping that de Rais creep who wanted to steal his immortality. It all turned out fine in the end but opened Hob's eyes to exactly how much the supernatural had integrated into the modern world around him. And once old Hettie clued him in to the existence of a certain Service Agency catering to supernatural clients, his next career path was all but decided. What was he going to do, not seize the opportunity for fantastical sexual exploration when presented with it? Life was for living! Werewolves, vampires, sirens and fae and merfolk, the occasional ghost and even an extra-terrestrial or two; scales, feathers, tentacles, knots—Hob's shown them all a good time and earned a stellar reputation among the Agency's clientele. He doesn't plan to do it forever, but he enjoys exploring new avenues and stretching his limits and 'Nick Bottom' is the perfect persona to let him do so.

And now sweet high-priced in-demand Nick has been booked to rebound-fuck an uptight concept in humanoid form who looks like something straight out of a nightmare.

Hob can't wait to completely take this guy apart one orgasm at a time until he's a boneless puddle of satiation and send him home afterwards a brand new man.

Concept. Entity. Whatever.

~

The booking is scheduled for the following day and when the time comes, Hob is fresh and clean and set up in the Agency's most lavish suite. He's let his hair grow the last few years, sports a proper Hozier-like mane at this point, is wearing it down for this appointment. His beard is several weeks old, trimmed to artfully-scruffy perfection and well-groomed. He's lounging on the bed in a short open silk robe and a pair of lace panties that hug his hips and leave most of both arse cheeks exposed, a popular outfit in his repertoire sure to please the classiest of clients with the most discerning taste. Both pieces are a matching vibrant cobalt blue that complements his skin tone beautifully. He's wondering what fucking a concept is like, idly massaging his dick now and then to keep it primed, when finally there's a peculiar displacement of air and then a figure in dark robes with a weird spine-trunked bug-eyed head is standing in the middle of the suite. He's taller than Hob and inhumanly rail-thin; the robes plunge deep from the neckline, displaying milk-white skin without a hint of chest hair and clavicles that beg to be nibbled on. He's in profile, angled slightly away, and Hob has the distinct sense that this is a deliberate pose meant to make an impression, to instill awe and possibly fear in him.

So Dream of the Endless has a flair for drama, got it.

"Hello," Hob greets in his best breathless-and-sultry tone, rising from the bed to approach his client. He layers in a suitable amount of awe, pitching his voice toward 'smitten' with a subtle ring of sincerity to support it. "Oh, wow. You must be Dream of the Endless; I'm so delighted to get to meet you! I'll be taking care of you today; you can call me Nick."

The guy, the concept, Dream of the Endless, he goes stock-still as Hob speaks, and it's like the air in the room pauses with him. He turns, slowly, until Hob is face to face with his…oh, possibly that's a mask, then; the bug-eyed lenses are somewhat translucent in the light though Hob still can't see beneath them.

"There has been some mistake." The voice is deep and distorted through the helmet-mask, bone-rattling in an almost-pleasant way and, somehow, somewhat…familiar? "I was meant to be meeting with 'Nick Bottom'." The quotes around the name are audible.

"That's me!" Hob says, raking a hand back through his hair and shaking it to settle around his shoulders attractively, flashing his most charming smile. "At your service, love, whatever you need. I'm here to make sure you have a very good time, and—"

"Hob Gadling."

That draws him up short. He's currently Robyn Gadrin for tax-paying purposes in the outside world, but the Agency wouldn't give out his current identity let alone his true name, so how—

Hob's brain is babbling insistently about the note of familiarity in that voice and he finally lights on why as Dream of the Endless reaches up to remove his helmet.

Hob finds himself staring at the slightly-more-than-human-but-still-very-familiar face of his Stranger, his centennial touchstone, his friend.

Everything about his reality tips a little bit sideways, dominoes crashing one after the other in his brain until all that's left is that awful ringing alarm tone that features in emergency broadcast alerts on American telly.

Between them, the silence stretches awkwardly, until finally Hob breaks it, the first thing that comes to his tongue spilling out while his poor brain is still rebooting.

"Six-hundred some-odd bloody years, and this is how I learn your name?!"

~

It is five minutes later. Hob is sitting on the side of the plush bed in his short silk robe and lace panties, clutching a bottled water and seriously considering availing himself of the bar in the next room because his emotions are all over the place. His Stranger—Dream of the Endless, apparently—is seated next to him. His eyes are not the blue that Hob is used to, are fully black with actual stars winking in and out of them; it's gorgeous but uncanny. He's currently not looking at Hob, has got the weird bug-spine helmet gripped tightly in both hands. Which are still so pretty, Hob can't help noticing, his fingers longer and more spindly than normal, splayed wide around the curve of the helm, nails painted black. Or maybe not painted, maybe they just are black.

Pretty, regardless.

Not a helpful thought at this juncture.

It's not like he'd thought his Stranger was actually human, obviously, and okay yes the possibility of meeting up with him via this particular career choice had crossed his mind once or twice, might've featured in a private fantasy or two; but also he'd never seriously imagined it because it felt so entirely implausible that his prim and lofty Stranger would ever engage in something so mundane. So casual.

Apparently, Hob was wrong about that.

He's not sure how to feel about it, either.

The smooth inhumanly-pale chest on display in the plunging vee of those artfully-draped robes is also not helping anything.

His Stranger—Dream— moves slightly, glances at him with those starry eyes, flexes those pretty fingers on the helmet. "I will. Arrange. For another. To take your place, Hob, you need not—"

"Now hold on a minute," Hob interrupts, sudden direction presenting itself for his floundering emotions to flow. "What do you mean, 'arrange for another'? What's wrong with me?"

Dream, his name is Dream of the Endless, Dream looks perplexed. "Our. History—"

"Oh yes, our illustrious storied history wherein we have met all of seven times before now and, may I remind you, you took offense to my suggestion that we might be friends until you'd had time to digest it properly, yes."

"Eight."

"Eight?"

"I visited your dream, before undertaking a daunting journey from my realm to another. We shared wine. You gave a most thoughtful toast."

"I. Okay." He remembers that dream, yes; he remembers the wine that followed him out of it, and now with the knowledge that his Stranger is apparently King of all dreams and nightmares suddenly it all makes brand new sense. But he will process that later. "Eight. Still not a factor in my ability to do my job."

Mostly. It is his Stranger, after all, and it's not like he hasn't ever wanted—

"Sex would be. Awkward," Dream insists, and Hob loses it, never mind he'd half-thought the same thing until a second ago; Dream saying it makes him refute the assertion with everything he's got.

"You dare," he says, setting aside his water.

Dream boggles at him, cosmic eyes wide, mouth slightly parted.

"You. DARE. To disdain my professional services just because we know each other?!"

"Hob— "

"No. No, your booking was very clear that you were to have the very best, and that. Is. Me. So you will not be re-booking with another companion on the grounds that our acquaintance makes it 'awkward'; if you mean to partake of the services you've hired you will partake of them with me."

"My sibling."

"What."

"My sibling hired your services. Did they know—" He's half talking to himself and Hob sighs, forcefully pulling the conversation back on track.

"Yes, right; your sibling booked you and here you are. Did you want to get laid today?"

"You need not be so crude about it."

"Forgive me. Of course. Did you come here hoping to have a sensual skillful sexual experience with a stranger intent on your pleasure with no judgments or expectations placed upon you in return?" He makes a valiant effort to rein in his sarcasm. "Because I can still provide that. Minus the bit where we're not strangers."

Dream looks positively miserable, a sodden wet cat of a man in sex-appeal robes hunched on the edge of the decadently-plush bed, and there is certainly an understandable element of embarrassment to the situation but Dream is taking it so seriously. Hob is not surprised, exactly, but christ—he's more than willing to follow through never mind any feelings he may or may not want to admit to, and Dream is the one who'd agreed to the booking in the first place. You'd think he could handle this hiccup with a little more grace.

"It was my intent to. Do, as you say," Dream says at last, and Hob sighs.

"Is that still what you want, then? I promise I'll take good care of you." He's actually really warming up to the idea, not that he was cold to it to begin with. It's his Stranger after all. He's been willing to say yes for centuries. "They really did book you the best, and I would love to show you how well-earned my reputation is—"

"Hob—" Dream sounds pained, gives an artfully-dramatic shake of his head. "My wants are. Manageable. If no one else is available. I cannot simply engage with you so frivolously—"

Hob leaps up from the bed, stalks a frustrated few steps away and whirls back, spreads his arms. "Am I not appealing to you, Dream of the Endless?" He tosses his head, shakes his hair back, gestures at the blue silk and lace that he knows looks absolutely spectacular on him. "Would you like me to change clothes? I have a dozen more ensembles I'd be happy to put on if you'd rather peel me out of one of those. Would the Prince of Stories prefer roleplay? Golden-age pirate, biker bad boy, Mr. Darcy or Elizabeth, cowboy, librarian, Starfleet officer—I'll dress however you like." He's fired up, he's…it feels like anger but it's more like alarm; he is absolutely not about to let a colleague fuck HIS Stranger if Dream's looking to unwind. Not with all the thoughts he's entertained the last couple centuries, not when Dream is looking so entirely miserable about the whole experience. Hob wiggles his bare toes in the plush carpet, forcing a deep breath; he is jealous and possessive and protective all at once and has no idea how to safely navigate this storm to get Dream what he wants without pissing him off.

"Your…clothing becomes you greatly, Hob." He's sneaking a glance as he says it, like he's not allowed to look but can't help it. "Your clothing is not at issue."

"Then what is?" Hob rakes a hand back through his hair, frustration fizzling, careening toward concern. "If you're truly that put off by me, I'll let it go. But you're here, for sex, which you did say you wanted; this is my job and I'm good at it and you clearly need—" Someone to take care of you, he'd nearly said, and while Dream has been giving him so much leeway in this conversation he thinks that might be one straw too much for this particular camel's back.

Nice to know he appreciates Hob's hairy chest and his dick in blue lace, though.

Dream levels him with a look that almost puts him right back to 1889, and Hob has half a second to start panicking before Dream closes his eyes, draws himself up, sets his bloody weird helmet on the bedside table with a soft leathery clunk. When he opens his eyes again, they are resolute, resigned, the eyes of a man headed for the gallows despite the stars winking hopelessly in their depths.

"I do not wish to be intimate with you. When you view it as simply a job. I. Would like—but not. If it is a transaction. If I am merely a client."

Oh. Oh.

Oh shit, really?

Impossible.

Really?

"You want. You want it to mean something?" Hob is embarassed at how small his voice comes out.

Dream closes his eyes, something like shame written all over his beautiful otherworldly-pale face. "I had thought. At our fifth meeting. That perhaps there was the possibility of. Attraction, between us." He opens his night-sky eyes again, meets Hob's resolutely. "Had we not been interrupted…" He shakes his head. "I pondered the idea until next we met, anticipating the possibility of. Seeing, where we might have come to. But you named what was between us friendship, you named me lonely; I perceived your words as mockery and acted accordingly. I spent the next century with a surplus of time to wander my own thoughts. They turned to you, Hob Gadling, with regularity. As I expressed when last we met, I regret leaving our previous meeting so abruptly, so harshly. Your friendship is of great value to me. I am content to let it remain friendship, in the interest of keeping it. But I am unwilling to engage with you, who named me 'friend', as I would a lover when I have yet to fully bury the wish. That you might have been my lover in truth."

Hob is desperately trying to keep from bluescreening again and while he's focused on that, his mouth runs along without him. "You never even gave me a name, but you wanted us to be lovers?"

"I am. Aware, of how foolish my wishes—"

"No, oh no. Dream. Love." He absolutely cannot let him think that. "All you ever had to do was ask."

Dream looks at him, starry eyes full of misery with the faintest spark of hope underneath, glimmering with unshed tears. "I. Could not—"

"That was then. Water under the bridge. What about now."

Dream shivers, his more-than-human face wary and pleading and resigned all at once and the last of the fight drains out of Hob. He approaches gently, until he is directly in front of Dream on the edge of the bed again; he half straddles Dream's lap with one foot still on the floor and a bare knee sunk on the mattress beside him, threads both hands into Dream's hair behind his lovely ears, tips his pale face up.

"Ask me now. Please."

Dream's hand settles above his bent knee, a gentle, tentative touch; his eyelashes flutter, and the sound that leaves him steals Hob's breath. That hand travels softly around to grip the back of Hob's thigh, slides hesitantly higher, and then it's Hob making the helpless noise as Dream's fingertips card beautifully through his leg hair, run up beneath the short robe. Dream's spindly black-nailed hand caresses up over his exposed arse cheek, squeezes, and all the while Dream's beguiling uncanny eyes are fixed on him, wet and wondering, full of blossoming hope.

"Hob Gadling." His voice is hushed, almost reverent. "I should like to have you, as my lover. If you are amenable." His face is tipped up, so close between Hob's hands, and Hob.

Hob's shaking. He's actually trembling, pent up, a little scared; daring, as he leans down and his hair falls around them both, hoping—

He brushes his lips to Dream's.

He kisses his Stranger, his friend, his touchstone.

And Dream of the Endless, who is all of those things, kisses him back.

It's nothing like he might have imagined, and ten times as wonderful, and over before he realizes he's ended it.

"Do you mean it." His voice is breathless, the words spoken directly against Dream's mouth. It's a stupid question, in light of the entire conversation gone before and the hand still on his arse, but he can't help asking. This entire turn of events is just too good to be true.

"Yes."

But true it is, apparently, and Hob's heart soars.

"Then. Dream of the Endless. My Stranger. My friend." He presses soft kisses to those plush pink lips between each moniker, dizzy that he's allowed. "Let me add another title to the list, darling. Take me to bed; the suite is ours 'til tomorrow. Let me learn how you would have me. Let me show you how I would treat you. And let me, at long last, name you mine."

= Started: 8/21/24 Drafted: 8/27/24 Posted: 8/30/24

If you're looking for a spicier take on this concept, @delta-pavonis has you covered: Dossier 54392 - please, give it a read, it's delicious.

(and here, have a post-script-y epilogue-exchange of sorts that did not quite fit:)

= "You chose to name yourself Nick Bottom?"

"What better name for a callboy to the supernatural than the bloke who got unwittingly embroiled in a fae lovers' spat and ultimately survived the entire encounter unscathed? Feels pretty relevant to me. Empowering, a bit?"

"Nick Bottom was less 'empowered' than simply lucky, perhaps."

"Perhaps. I'll not turn my nose up at good luck, either. But a name like Bottom in this business is also too good a pun to pass up, and I figure old Shaxberd would approve."

"I believe he would, indeed."

"The irony being that fully half of my clients want me to top them, heh."

"I do not wish to speak of your clients while you are in bed with me."

"Got better uses for my mouth, have you?"

"Other sounds I would prefer to hear from it, yes."

"Fair enough. Why don't you tell me what you want, Mr. Sandman, and see if I can make your dreams come true."

"Must you be so cliché?"

"You love my clich—mmph—"

"Stop. Talking."

"Yes love."

(Dream will tell him about commissioning A Midsummer Night's Dream at some other time 💖)

= Nick Bottom's lines from A Midsummer Night's Dream that lent themselves to the title: I have had a dream, past the wit of man to say what dream it was and also The eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not seen, man's hand is not able to taste, his tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report, what my dream was. I will get Peter Quince to write a ballad of this dream: it shall be called Bottom's Dream

[skyeslittlecorner]

On the other side - Andrealphus

I have no idea who proposed it because sadly I can't find it (found you! Thanks for inspiration @\rae-pss!), but someone came up with an idea of what would happen if the characters from WHB started to realize that the MC was not us. That there is someone on the other side of the screen who takes care of them. I created a little silly fic loosely interpreting it.

Word count: 1284

Other parts: On the other side | Promised Land | Point to point | Love is blind (18+)

꧁:･ ✡ ･:꧂

Life is so repeatable. Work, eat, sleep, work, eat, sleep, work, eat, sleep, only with some little pleasures in between. You took off jacket, threw it away and plopped down at the chair. Old phone landed on a table as you were struggling with thoughts whether to eat instant noodles today or heat up yesterday's dinner.

"Come on, boys." You turn on game and tapped loading screen just from boredroom. "I don't have all evening."

You wanted to have a pet, you've considered it a lot. But with these earnings, the closest thing to an animal in this house were fish sticks. So all that had left to do was talk to fictional hot guys. At least they don't need to be feed.

When Andrea appeared on the display, you tapped on him with a smile.

"Hi, babygirl."

"Who’s there…?"

You've never seen this speech bubble before. Update? But nothing downloaded, and any additional files were in a queue. Well, maybe it was one of those little tweaks nobody notice. You tapped the screen about three hundred more times to see if there were any new voice lines, but this time everything was the same. Maybe it was just a combination of overactive imagination and tiredness. Yes. Instant noodles will be a better option, you will make them faster and go to bed faster.

꧁:･ ✡ ･:꧂

"…and then this stupid bitch said it was all my fault." 

Lying half on the chair, half on the desk, and half somewhere in between, you were chatting with a friend on Discord and doing tasks for nightmare pass.

"That sucks. What are you going to do about it?"

"No idea. But if they take my bonus because of her, I'll kill her, I swear."

"I hope everything will be fine, but I have to go. Sorry."

"Yeah… Have fun on a date."

"Thanks!"

Hearing the disconnection sound, you sighed. Obviously, you couldn't blame them, keeping fingers crossed that they had found their other half of orange, but now they didn't even have time to meet for coffee, and you lived three minutes' walk from each other. Talking together, joking together, everything faded into the background. In addition, work was getting worse...

"I also hope everything will work out"

The voice sounded different. Familiar. But they definitely weren't your friend. You quickly checked the screen to see if anyone had joined the voice chat, but the screen was blank.

"What… Who? How?" Of course, there was no one around the room. Is this the beginning of hallucinations?

"I'd like to ask this too."

The voice that came from the speakers. From the telephone. From...?

The phone screen showed only a familiar sprite turning its head from side to side.  You forgot about the strange update from a few days ago. Was that it again? Andrea's red braid was beautifully animated, and facial expressions changed, delicate movements of the eyebrows and lips showed new emotions. It really looked stunningly real.

"Gorgeous." You complimented in a whisper godly work of the animator. "I can't wait until you get L, since you already look so sexy as S..."

"What are S and L...?"

He answered without tapping. Moreover, he tilted his head as if listening. There's been a lot of talk about AI lately, but you didn't agree to use the microphone in game… Unless it's some stinky term of services. This needs to be turned off, it will probably be in the settings. But after checking options, there was nothing like that there.

"Strange…"

"Trust me, I find it unnatural too." Andrea replied with an uncertain smile. "I hear you, but I don't feel anyone around me. But your voice… It’s nice. Can you keep talking? It feels good to be less... alone."

He sounded so much in character. Whoever programmed this, put a lot of work into it. It was a little weird... but you were so tired and done that chatting with the AI seemed like a nice change.

"Sure. It's weird talking to the screen, but well, I do it all the time anyway. Good thing it’s only an AI, because if anyone heard half the nonsense I moan, they'd probably send me to solitary confinement."

"You're calling grown man babygirl."

"Because you are!"

He chuckled, and it felt almost like a talking to an actual human. Muttering such nonsense, you felt ashamed for a moment. If the government suddenly started eavesdropping, the agent who was in charge was such a poor man.

"Tell me something else." He asked. "I've been hearing your voice for several days. I'd like to finally know who I'm having the pleasure of talking with."

He didn't have to ask twice. Of course, without providing any personal details, but you could give him your name. And told about that stupid bitch at work...

꧁:･ ✡ ･:꧂

You checked tumblr, checked X, and checked the official website of the game. There was no word about an update anywhere, and after writing that this new option with talking to devils was great, all mutuals started to worry if everything was okay or asked how to unlock it. What were you supposed to tell them? That it just appeared?

What's worse, you started to treat Andrea like an ordinary person. A human being. Turning on the game during cleaning, cooking or making bed, talking to that little devil on the screen, and... listening to his stories. He spoke so beautifully. Talked about how he likes to spend his time (if not murdering angels), or what everyday life in Nilfheim is like. Sometimes he worried about the war, sometimes was happy when you stayed with him longer being off work.

"My blindness is truly a gift." He said one day with a dreamy smile.

"Why so?"

"In this daily hustle, if my eyes were still working properly, I certainly wouldn't be able to hear you, a small voice in my consciousness. I thought there was something wrong with me. But when I finally focused, you heard me too."

What he said was so similar to what you remembered about own feelings. Longing tightened your chest, longing for someone who didn't exist in this world, and that feeling turned into pain.

"I'm also glad we can hear from each other." Your voice changed noticeably. 

Andrea sensed it.

"Now that we've been able to talk, maybe one day we'll be able to touch each other?" He held his hand out in front of him, but you knew he couldn't pass through the screen. Still, you placed a finger where his hand was. Stupid mind was tricking you that you could feel his warmth. Tears came to your eyes.

"One day." You whispered with a trembling voice. "I don't know how, but one day we will."

"Do not cry, please. I don't want you to ever cry because of me.”

You tried to keep calm, but it was no use. Maybe one day, in another time, in another reality. Maybe it will work. No, it has to work. No matter how crazy others might think you were, this wasn't the world you were supposed to stay in. Your intended one waited patiently on the other side of the screen. You just didn't know how to do it. Not yet.

[stolenorchids]

WARNINGS - this drink may include the following: fem!reader, use of y/n, phone sex, teasing, marking, oral (fem!receiving), mutual masturbation, use of the word 'god' (not really a warning, however apparently people get triggered by it, so, y'know), swearing, only proof-read once - I think that's all, but please let me know if I missed anything^^

ALC percentage - 5.7% (5.7k words)

the stream was in full swing, the chat buzzing with emotes and inside jokes as Shoto leaned back in his chair, his mischievous grin practically lighting up the screen. his voice carried that playful confidence his fans adored, and his vtuber model mimicked his smirk perfectly.

"alright, chat," he drawled, glancing at the cascading wall of messages. "we’ve got a guest today - someone you all seem to be obsessed with. can you guess who it is?"

the chat immediately exploded with excitement: "IT'S HER!!" and "FINALLY LET'S GO!"

"you guessed it. let’s welcome the one and only-" he paused, dragging it out just long enough to make the anticipation unbearable. "our very own shy queen."

the discord call connected, and your voice came through, soft but warm. "hi, Shoto. hi, chat." the stream erupted with hearts and inside jokes. Shoto tilted his head slightly, his avatar following suit, as he leaned closer to his mic. "you sound nervous, y/n. am I making you blush already?" you chuckled softly. "you wish, Shoto."

the chat exploded.

for the next hour, the two of you bounced off each other effortlessly, the rhythm of teasing and laughter keeping the energy alive. Shoto, true to form, leaned into his flirtatious side, making sure the chat was in on the fun.

"you’re too quiet, y/n," he teased, his voice dipping into mock seriousness. "you’re supposed to help me carry the stream! unless…" he leaned closer, his avatar’s mischievous smirk sharpening as his tone softened. "you just like hearing me talk, huh?"

the audience immediately erupted, spamming "HE'S AT IT AGAIN" and "RIZZ MASTER."

Shoto grinned, fully expecting the usual shy laugh and change of topic. but this time, you surprised him.

"you know," you said after a pause, your voice light but steady, "I do like hearing you talk. it’s cute: watching you try so hard to impress me."

the silence on his end was deafening, though only for a moment. his vtuber model stilled for half a second before suddenly throwing its arms up in exaggerated shock as Shoto burst out laughing.

"WHOA, WHOA, WHOA!" he screamed out, leaning back in his chair, his avatar mimicking the motion. the chat erupted, spamming "SHE GOT HIM" and "CLIP IT CLIP IT!"

Shoto covered his face with his hands, his voice breaking into a flustered laugh. "y/n, you can’t just - where did THAT come from?!"

you grinned, enjoying his reaction. "what? you flirt with everyone all the time. I figured it was my turn."

"your turn?!" Shoto repeated, tugging at his hoodie strings. his model mimicked the motion, his face still red as he stammered. "chat, help me! she’s turning the tables, and I wasn’t ready for it!"

the chat doubled down, spamming "SHE'S TOO POWERFUL" and "RIZZ WAR DECLARED."

"alright, alright," he said finally, pointing toward the camera like he was accusing you of a crime. "you win this round. but don’t think I’m letting you off easy next time."

you giggled, your usual shyness melting away as you leaned into the playful atmosphere. "looking forward to it."

for the rest of the stream, Shoto was visibly more cautious, his usual flirtatious quips replaced with dramatic pauses as though gauging your next move. the chat noticed too, poking fun at how he was now "playing it safe."

but everyone could tell - this new dynamic was only the beginning.

the stream wound down after another hour of playful banter and shared laughter, the tension from your earlier comment still lingering in the air. Shoto’s usual energy had shifted slightly - not lessened, but… focused. every time you spoke, he seemed to hang on your words just a little longer, and the chat didn’t miss a thing.

"HE'S BLUSHING AGAIN," they spammed. "HER RIZZ IS TOO STRONG."

"alright chat," Shoto said, his voice carrying an edge of finality, though he still wore that trademark smirk. "it’s about time to wrap things up. any last words for y/n before we kick her out of the discord call forever?"

you snorted softly. "kicking me out already? I thought I was carrying the stream, Shoto."

the chat loved it, spamming "SHE'S TOO SAVAGE" and "ROUND TWO INCOMING."

"okay, okay," he replied, leaning back in his chair. his avatar mimicked the motion, arms crossing over its chest in a mock pout. "you carried… for like, ten minutes. I did most of the work."

"sure you did," you replied, your voice dripping with sarcasm.

Shoto chuckled, his laughter trailing off into a quieter hum as the chat started spamming goodbyes and hearts. "alright y/n, say goodbye to the gremlins before they start crying."

you laughed. "bye, chat. thanks for having me!"

as the discord call ended and the stream screen transitioned to Shoto’s “thank you for watching” animation, you sighed softly, leaning back in your chair. and just as you were about to close the discord tab, Shoto’s voice popped back in through a private call.

"hey…" he said, his tone noticeably softer now that the stream was over. "got a second?"

you clicked to rejoin the call, your curiosity piqued. "what’s up?"

there was a pause, the comfortable hum of silence stretching between you two. then he spoke again, his voice losing its usual bravado.

"so…" he began, drawing out the word as though testing the waters. "you really caught me off guard earlier."

you grinned, your confidence from the stream still lingering. "oh? wasn’t that the point?"

"okay, listen," he said, laughing lightly, though it carried a nervous edge. you’re not supposed to turn my own game against me. that’s illegal."

"illegal?" you teased. "I thought it was fair play."

"you’re dangerous," he replied, and this time his voice dipped just slightly - a subtle shift that sent a shiver down your spine. "and I don’t think you realize what you started."

his words hung in the air, the playful tone from earlier now carrying something heavier, something more deliberate. you felt your cheeks warm, though you couldn’t tell if it was from embarrassment or anticipation.

"careful, Shoto," you replied, your voice quieter now. "you’re making it sound like you’re planning your revenge already."

there was a low chuckle on his end, the kind that made your breath hitch. "oh, I’m not planning anything." he paused, his voice softening even further. "i’m just thinking about how bold you were today. it was…new."

"did you not like it?" you asked, your heart pounding.

"like it?" he echoed, a teasing lilt creeping back into his tone. "I loved it. but now I’m wondering if that boldness is just for show… or if it’s real."

your breath caught in your throat. there it was - that unspoken tension that had been simmering beneath the surface all night, now bubbling to the top.

"why don’t you find out?" you said before you could stop yourself, the words slipping out in a low, almost challenging tone.

the line went quiet for a moment, the weight of your words settling. when Shoto finally spoke, his voice was low, almost a whisper.

"careful, y/n," he said, his usual teasing replaced with something darker, more intimate. "you might not be ready for what happens if I do."

the silence after his words was deafening, the weight of them settling deep in your chest. you could hear your own heartbeat, pounding steadily in your ears as Shoto’s soft laughter broke through the quiet.

"speechless?" he teased, his voice carrying a low hum of satisfaction. "that’s a first."

you swallowed hard, gripping your phone a little tighter. his confidence was intoxicating, but the shift in his tone - the way it lingered in that space between teasing and serious - made your pulse quicken.

"not speechless," you countered, your voice steady despite the nerves bubbling in your stomach. "just wondering if you’re all talk."

that earned a sharp inhale from his end. his chuckle returned, darker now, like you’d just issued a challenge he was eager to accept.

"y/n," he said softly, his voice curling around your name in a way that sent a shiver down your spine. "you’re playing a dangerous game right now."

"and you’re the one who started it," you shot back, though your tone betrayed the mix of excitement and hesitation you felt.

"fair enough," he murmured, and you could hear the shift in his posture - the faint creak of his chair as he leaned forward, as if closing the distance between you, even through the screen.

the air between you felt thick now, the playful edge giving way to something far more intense.

"you know," he began, his voice quieter now, almost intimate. "i’ve always wondered how far you’d let me take this. the teasing, the flirting... I didn’t think you’d ever actually bite back."

"well, you seemed so confident," you replied, letting your voice dip just slightly, testing the waters. "I didn’t think you’d fluster so easily."

a low groan slipped from his lips, and you swore you heard his chair creak again. "you’re gonna regret saying that," he muttered, though there was no malice in his tone - just a simmering heat that sent your thoughts spiraling.

"am I?" you whispered, your voice barely audible, yet enough to make him pause.

for a moment, you thought he might laugh it off, but instead, he let the silence hang, heavy and charged. when he finally spoke, his words sent a jolt through you.

"turn your camera on."

your breath hitched. the request was simple, but the command in his tone left no room for argument.

"Shoto-"

"please." he added quickly, softening the edge just enough to make it feel like a choice. "I want to see you."

your hands trembled slightly as you adjusted your webcam, the soft click of the activation sounding louder than it should have. when your face appeared on your screen, you saw his vtuber model react in sync with him - his usual mischievous smirk replaced with a more focused expression, his avatar leaning in as if he were truly watching you.

"hi…" you said softly, feeling vulnerable under his gaze.

"hi," he murmured back, his voice lower now. "you look... flushed."

you bit your lip, suddenly hyper-aware of how warm your face felt. "well, whose fault is that?"

"mine." he said without hesitation, his smirk returning. "and I’m not done yet."

your breath hitched as his model leaned closer, and you could feel the tension in his voice. “you don’t know how long I’ve been waiting to see this side of you, y/n. you’re usually so shy. it’s cute, but… this?"

"what about this?" you asked, your voice barely above a whisper.

"this confidence," he said, his tone dropping further. "it’s driving me crazy."

his words sent a jolt of heat through you, and you couldn’t stop the small smile that crept onto your lips. "good," you replied, surprising even yourself with your boldness.

there was a sharp intake of breath on his end. "god, you’re gonna kill me," he muttered, his voice carrying a raw edge that sent shivers down your spine.

for a moment, neither of you spoke, the silence filled with the weight of everything unspoken between you. when he finally broke it, his voice was barely audible.

"if I were there right now," he began, his words slow and deliberate, "I wouldn’t hold back."

"then it’s a good thing you’re not," you replied, though your voice wavered slightly.

"why’s that?" he asked, his tone sharp, challenging.

"because I wouldn’t either," you admitted, the words slipping out before you could think twice.

his low growl of approval sent a wave of heat crashing through you. "y/n..."

the way he said your name felt like a caress, and suddenly, the distance between you felt unbearable.

"tell me what you’d do," he said, his voice rough with restraint.

your heart pounded in your chest as his words wrapped around you, pulling you into a heady mix of anticipation and desire. the playful banter from earlier felt like a distant memory now, replaced by something far more intimate, far more dangerous.

"i’d…" you hesitated, feeling the weight of his gaze even through the screen. "i’d make you regret teasing me so much."

his laugh was soft, almost disbelieving. "oh, i’d love to see you try."

your confidence surged, the tension between you thick and electric. "maybe one day you will."

"i’ll hold you to that," he said, his voice a low promise.

the call stretched on for multiple hours, as the line between teasing and something far deeper had vanished. Shoto’s voice, warm and low through your headphones, filled the quiet of your room. the tension between you had reached its peak, and neither of you seemed willing - or able - to pull back.

"I don’t think you realize what you’re doing to me," he said, his voice rougher now, like he was struggling to keep his composure.

"what am I doing to you?" you asked, a playful lilt in your tone, though your body betrayed the growing ache that his words ignited.

"everything," he admitted without hesitation, the single word wrapping around you like a tether, pulling you closer to the edge of something you’d never expected.

the camera feed was still on, his vtuber model animating on one side of your screen, but the image seemed distant now, insignificant compared to the sound of his voice and the heat in his words.

"you have no idea how long I’ve thought about this," he continued, his tone slow, deliberate. "hearing your voice like this, knowing how flustered you are right now. it’s driving me insane."

"i’m not flustered," you tried to argue, though the breathy quality of your voice gave you away.

Shoto chuckled softly, and the sound sent shivers down your spine. "don’t lie to me, y/n. I can hear it in your voice. you’re just as caught up in this as I am."

your cheeks burned as his words pulled a soft gasp from your lips. you shifted slightly in your seat, the ache between your thighs growing impossible to ignore.

"and you’re not helping," you muttered, your voice quieter now.

"good," he replied, his voice dropping lower. "I don’t want to help. I want to make it worse."

the intensity in his tone made your breath hitch, and you bit your lip to keep from making a sound. Shoto’s sharp intake of breath told you he knew exactly what you were doing.

"don’t do that," he said softly, his voice almost a growl.

"do what?"

"bite your lip," he replied, his words sending a jolt of heat through you. "you don’t know what it does to me."

a rush of boldness surged through you, and you leaned closer to your mic, your voice dropping into a whisper. "what if I do know?"

silence followed, heavy and charged, before Shoto let out a low, frustrated groan.

"y/n, you’re killing me," he muttered, his voice strained.

"good," you replied, echoing his earlier words, your confidence growing with every sound he made.

the air between you crackled with unspoken desire, the distance between your two rooms feeling unbearably vast. you could hear the subtle shift of his chair, the faint rustle of fabric as he adjusted himself, and the thought sent a flush of heat through your body.

"tell me what you’re doing right now," he said suddenly, his voice rough with need.

Your breath hitched, the vulnerability of the question sending a thrill through you. "I…" you hesitated, your pulse pounding in your ears.

"don’t hold back," he urged, his tone softening just enough to coax you forward. "I want to hear you."

your fingers trembled as you trailed them over the hem of your shirt, your voice barely audible as you replied. "i’m…touching myself."

a low curse slipped from his lips, the sound unraveling what little composure you had left. "fuck, y/n," he muttered, his voice filled with raw want. "you have no idea how much I wish I could be there right now."

"tell me what you’d do," you whispered, your own voice trembling with anticipation.

Shoto’s response was immediate, his words spilling out in a husky rush. "i’d start slow," he said, his voice like a caress. "my hands on your thighs, pushing them apart so I could see you. i’d take my time, make you beg for it."

a soft whimper escaped your lips at the vividness of his words, and Shoto groaned in response.

"are you touching yourself now?" you asked, your voice barely a breath.

"yeah," he admitted, the rawness in his tone making your whole body thrum with heat. "I can’t stop thinking about you. the way you sound, the way you’d feel under me..."

his words broke something in you, and you let your own restraint slip, your soft gasps filling the space between his deep, ragged breaths. the distance between you no longer mattered - every word, every sound, pulled you closer together, until it felt like you were sharing the same space, the same air.

"Shoto," you murmured, his name slipping from your lips like a plea.

"i’m here," he replied, his voice a quiet promise. "i’ve got you."

your breath came in soft, uneven gasps, your hand brushing over your thighs as Shoto’s voice wrapped around you, pulling you deeper into the moment. his tone, once playful, was now rough and unrestrained, each word carrying the weight of his desire.

"y/n," he murmured, your name falling from his lips like a prayer. "tell me what you’re feeling right now."

your cheeks burned as your fingers slipped beneath the hem of your shorts, trailing over the sensitive skin just above your inner thigh. "I feel…" you hesitated, your voice trembling with need, "warm…needy."

Shoto’s low groan echoed through your headphones, sending a shiver down your spine. "fuck," he muttered, his breath hitching. "keep going. tell me everything."

you bit your lip, your movements tentative as your fingers dipped lower, brushing against the damp fabric between your thighs. "i’m so wet," you whispered, your voice barely audible.

"god," he breathed, his voice filled with longing. "do you have any idea what you’re doing to me right now?"

"tell me," you urged, your confidence building with every sound he made as your hand slipped the fabric of your underwear to the side.

his voice dropped lower, rough with restraint. "i’m so hard, y/n. I can’t stop thinking about you."

the confession sent a jolt of heat through your body, and you let out a soft moan, unable to hold back. Shoto’s sharp intake of breath told you he’d heard it, and his reaction only fueled your need.

"let me hear you," he said, his tone commanding but tender. "I want to know exactly how good you feel."

your fingers slipped beneath the fabric you just pulled to the side, gliding over the slick heat between your thighs. you let out a soft, breathy whimper, your head falling back against the chair as you lost yourself in the sensations.

"that’s it," Shoto murmured, his voice like a caress. "touch yourself for me. pretend it’s me."

your movements quickened as you dipped your ring finger into your pussy, your breaths growing heavier as his words spurred you on. "Shoto," you gasped, his name falling from your lips like a mantra.

"i’m right here," he replied, his own voice thick with arousal. you could hear the faint, rhythmic sounds on his end, his breathing uneven as he worked himself in time with you.

"I want to feel you," you whispered, the words slipping out before you could think. "I want your hands on me, your lips..."

"say it," he urged, his voice tight with need. "tell me exactly what you want me to do to you."

your inhibitions melted away under the weight of his voice, and you let the words flow freely. "I want you to pin me down," you confessed, your voice trembling with a mix of shyness and boldness. "I want to feel your hands on my thighs, your fingers inside me…"

Shoto groaned deeply, the sound sending a wave of heat crashing over you. "fuck, y/n," he muttered, his voice strained. "i’d spread you open so I could see every inch of you. i’d take my time, make you beg for more."

the vividness of his words sent you spiraling as you added your middle finger, the added friction only fueling you on as your movements grew desperate and you chased the release building inside you. your soft gasps and whimpers filled the space between you, mixing with Shoto’s rough, uneven breaths.

"i’m close," you whispered, your voice barely audible.

"me too," he replied, his tone ragged. "cum for me, y/n. let me hear you."

the command in his voice pushed you over the edge, and you cried out, your body trembling as waves of pleasure washed over you. Shoto followed moments later, his deep, guttural groan filling your headphones as he reached his own release.

the silence that followed was warm and heavy, the air between you still charged with the intimacy of the moment.

"y/n," Shoto murmured after a while, his voice soft and filled with affection.

"yeah?" you replied, your heart still racing.

"I meant what I said," he continued, his tone quieter now, more vulnerable. "if I were there, I wouldn’t be able to hold back."

you smiled, a warmth spreading through your chest. "maybe one day you won’t have to."

the heat between you hadn’t subsided, not even hours later. after you’d both succumbed to the intimacy of the moment, the call lingered on, neither of you willing to let go of the connection you’d found. Shoto’s voice, once playful and teasing, had softened, carrying a warmth that made your heart ache in the best way.

"are you still thinking about it?" he asked, his voice low and intimate.

"about what?" you teased, though the flush in your cheeks betrayed you.

"don’t play coy," he murmured. "you know exactly what."

your lips curved into a smile as you leaned back in your chair, feeling the warmth of the screen light on your skin. "maybe I am," you admitted, your voice soft but honest.

"good," he replied, the smirk audible in his tone. "because I can’t stop thinking about it either. about you."

the weight of his words settled over you, sending a thrill through your chest. for so long, the playful banter between you had felt safe, like a dance you both knew the steps to. but now, it was different - real, raw, and impossible to ignore.

"you know," he began, a hint of hesitation creeping into his voice, "i’ve been thinking about seeing you. for real."

your breath caught, your heart skipping a beat as his words hung in the air. "you mean…?"

"in person," he clarified, his tone firmer now. "I want to meet you, y/n. I want to see your face, hear your voice without a mic, hold you..."

the vulnerability in his voice made your chest tighten, and you felt a soft, giddy smile spread across your lips. "Shoto," you murmured, your voice tinged with affection. "i’d like that."

"yeah?" he asked, the excitement in his tone unmistakable.

"yeah," you replied, your heart racing at the mere thought.

the idea took root between you, growing more tangible with every passing minute. plans began to form - a weekend, a city, a quiet, private space where the two of you could finally let the tension between you reach its peak.

the hotel room was quiet, save for the soft hum of the air conditioning. you stood near the window, your heart pounding in your chest as you stared out at the city skyline. you’d arrived an hour ago, nerves buzzing in your veins as you waited for the knock on the door.

when it finally came, your breath caught, and you hesitated for a moment before crossing the room. your hand trembled slightly as you reached for the handle, the weight of everything leading up to this moment pressing down on you.

and then, you opened the door.

Shoto stood there, looking every bit as handsome as you’d imagined. his hair was slightly tousled, his dark eyes warm and intense as they met yours. for a moment, neither of you spoke, the silence stretching between you as you took each other in.

"hi.." he said finally, his voice softer than you’d ever heard it.

"hi.." you replied, your lips curving into a shy smile.

without another word, he stepped forward, his arms wrapping around you in a firm, grounding embrace. the scent of him - clean, warm, undeniably him - filled your senses, and you melted against him, your nerves easing as you felt the solid weight of his body against yours.

"you’re real…" he murmured, his breath warm against your ear.

"so are you…" you replied, your voice barely above a whisper.

when he pulled back, his hands lingered on your waist, his gaze searching yours as if to confirm that this moment wasn’t just a dream. slowly, he leaned in, his lips brushing against yours in a tentative, gentle kiss.

it started soft, testing, but the heat between you ignited quickly. his hands slid up to cup your face, tilting your head to deepen the kiss as his tongue teased against yours. a soft whimper escaped your lips, and he groaned in response, his fingers tightening against your skin.

"do you have any idea how long i’ve wanted to do this?" he murmured against your lips, his voice rough with restraint.

"show me…" you whispered, your hands tangling in his hair as you pulled him closer.

he didn’t need to be told twice. his lips trailed down your jaw, pressing heated kisses along the curve of your neck as his hands roamed your body, exploring every inch of you he could reach. when his teeth scraped lightly against your skin, you gasped, your nails digging into his shoulders.

"fuck-" he muttered, his breath hot against your neck. "you’re even more perfect than I imagined."

your knees buckled at his words, and he guided you back toward the bed, his body pressing you down against the cool sheets. his hands slipped beneath your shirt, the warmth of his palms sending shivers through you as he slid the fabric up and over your head.

"you’re beautiful," he murmured, his eyes dark with desire as he took in the sight of you.

heat rushed to your cheeks, but before you could respond, his lips were on yours again, hungry and demanding. his hands traced the curves of your body, his touch igniting a fire that burned through every inch of you.

when his lips trailed lower, leaving a path of wet kisses down your chest and stomach, you arched into him, your breath coming in soft, desperate gasps. the sensation of his hands and mouth on your skin was overwhelming, and the air between you was thick with anticipation, every small movement charged with electricity. Shoto's hands slid over your skin with deliberate care, his touch both firm and gentle, as if he were memorizing every curve and line of your body. his lips trailed over the soft skin of your neck, pausing to nip and suck, leaving purple and red marks that sent shivers through you.

"you're so sensitive…" he murmured against your skin, his voice filled with wonder and desire. "every little sound you make is driving me crazy."

your fingers tangled in his dark hair, tugging gently as you arched beneath him, your breaths coming in soft, uneven gasps. "you’re one to talk," you whispered, your voice trembling but teasing. "I can feel how much you want this."

a low groan escaped him at your words, and his hips pressed against yours, his erection evident even through the layers of clothing still between you. "you have no idea…" he muttered, his tone rough with restraint.

you reached for the hem of his shirt, your fingers brushing over the warm skin of his stomach as you tugged it upward. he helped you, pulling it off in one swift motion before leaning back over you, his bare chest pressing against yours. the heat of his skin against yours made your breath hitch, and you ran your hands over his shoulders, down his back, savoring the feel of him beneath your fingertips.

"god you’re beautiful…" he muttered, his lips brushing against your collarbone as his hands slid down to your hips. he hooked his fingers into the waistband of your shorts, his gaze meeting yours as he slowly began to tug them down. "can I?"

you nodded, your heart pounding in your chest as you lifted your hips to help him. his eyes darkened as the fabric slid away, leaving you in just your underwear. his hands roamed over your thighs, his touch both reverent and possessive, as if he couldn't get enough of you.

"god, y/n…" he whispered, his voice thick with desire.

the way he looked at you - like you were the only thing that mattered - made your cheeks flush, but the heat between your thighs demanded more. you reached for him, your hands moving to the button of his jeans, and he let out a sharp breath as you undid them, sliding them down his hips.

when he was finally as bare as you, he leaned down, capturing your lips in a heated kiss. the weight of him pressed against you, his hard length evident even through his boxers, and you couldn't help but let out a soft whimper as your hips shifted instinctively toward him.

"patience," he murmured against your lips, his voice teasing but strained. "I want to take my time with you."

his words sent a shiver through you, and he began a slow exploration of your body, his lips and hands tracing every inch of you. his mouth found the sensitive peaks of your chest, his tongue flicking over one of your nipples before moving to the other, his hand kneading the soft flesh as he sucked gently on the skin.

"Shoto..!" you gasped, your fingers digging into his shoulders as your body arched into him.

"that's it…" he murmured against you, his voice like a command. "let me hear you."

his lips trailed lower, leaving a path of kisses down your stomach, and when his tongue flicked out to tease the sensitive skin just around your still-clothed pussy, you let out a soft cry, your hands gripping the sheets beneath you.

"you're so wet," he murmured, his voice filled with awe. "is this all for me?"

"yes…" you whispered, your voice trembling with need. "only for you."

his eyes flicked up to meet yours, and the intensity in his gaze sent a wave of heat crashing over you. "good," he said softly, his breath warm against your skin. "because i’m not stopping until you’re screaming my name."

as he hears the soft whimpers you let put Shoto quikly drops his head down between your thighs. you let out a breathy sigh as he licks along your thigh, forming small, purple marks.

your head falls back against the pillow as Shoto drags open mouthed kisses up your thigh to your pussy, eyelids heavy and lips parting. you gasp, feeling his tongue sweep along your folds, almost teasing.

your fingers twist the sheets beneath you, back arching up off the bed as your hips jerk when Shoto sucks on your clit, his teeth grazing it just enough to let a shock run through your body.

he moans against you, not specifically loud, but obscene as one of your hands fly from the bed to his hair, tugging lightly at it.

you can feel the way he whimpers against you at your tugging, however he doesn’t look up at you, too focused on his tongue inside of you and the almost euphoric taste you bare. your thighs tighten around his head and you look down at him, your eyes half-lidded and bottom lip tugged into your mouth as you tug harder on his hair.

“fuck…” you breathe out, eyes widening slightly when you notice Shoto grinding his hips against the bed, desperate and erratic, trying to get himself off.

the sight alone sends a shock through your body, a loud moan escaping your throat as you push his head further into you, your lashes fluttering and thighs trembling on either side of his head. as he sucks on your clit your hips instinctively jerk up to grind harder against his face. you squirm as his tongue drags in and out of your pussy repeatedly, your moans turning almost pornographic.

your vision feels blurry and your thigh muscles burn as his tongue fucks you closer and closer to release. 

you try to nudge him, letting him know that you’re close. the lewd sounds of your moans, the sloppy sound of his tongue driving itself in and out of you, flicking over your clit, as well as the creaking of the bed, it’s all too much for you. you can’t keep this up. you fail to notice how your warning comes out as a garbled slur of incomprehensible words.

your entire body spasms when you cum, thrashing in his hold, your free hand flying up to grab the pillow behind your head as you cry out. “ahh!! Shoto~!” as you come down from your high you realize that he must have cum too, as you can feel the way his hips still against the bed, and you distantly hear the moans muffled against your pussy ‘god, he’s shameless,’ you think again as you lay limp against the bed, reeling from your intense orgasm, completely forgetting about how you had sounded the same, if not worse, mere seconds ago.

"are you good?" he asked softly, his forehead resting against yours as he caught his breath.

"more than okay…" you replied, your voice still breathless, and as you lay tangled together, your breaths evening out and your bodies still pressed close, you knew that this was only the beginning of something far deeper - a connection that neither of you would ever let go of.

[darkenedroses-world]

Laser-Focused — Droid x Reader

gn!reader, playful chaos, stream shenanigans, chat roasting, post-stream moments, simp nation, request

The stream started off relatively chill—just Droid running through a solo match while his chat spammed jokes and commentary. The other guys were still finishing up their own things, promising to join in later, leaving Droid to hold down the fort. “Alright, chat,” he said, leaning back in his chair and cracking his knuckles. “Let’s see if I can carry this match solo, or if I’m about to embarrass myself in front of, like, three thousand of you.”

The chat immediately filled with:

You’re gonna fold.

Nah, Droid’s got this

Imagine dying in the first five minutes, lol

“Wow,” Droid muttered, squinting at the screen as he adjusted his aim. “Real supportive energy, chat. Love to see it.” Just as he started pushing toward the next objective, the Discord notification chimed in his headphones. His mouse froze mid-click, and the second your voice came through the call, his heart practically jumped out of his chest. “Hey, Droid,” you said casually, your voice warm and light. “Oh,” he blurted, his voice cracking slightly. “Hey! Uh, what’s up? You joining early?” You laughed softly. “Yeah, figured I’d hop on since the others are taking forever. That okay?” “Okay?” he repeated, his hands fumbling over his keyboard. “Yeah, of course! Totally okay. Great, actually. Perfect.” His chat noticed immediately.

Ohhhh, Droid’s folding already

Is that Y/N???

SIMPPPPP ALERT 🚨🚨🚨

You must have heard the shift in his tone because you chuckled. “You sure? You sound a little… I don’t know, flustered.” “Flustered? Me? Nah,” Droid said quickly, though his words tumbled over each other in a way that didn’t help his case. “I’m just focused. You know, laser-focused on this game.” His cursor moved erratically on-screen, and a sniper shot clipped him in the shoulder, almost taking him out. He winced as his chat exploded with messages.

Laser-focused, huh? 💀

This man is GONE

Y/N speaks = Droid dies

“You okay over there?” you asked, amusement lacing your tone. “Y-yeah, totally fine,” he said, frantically trying to recover in-game. “Just… adjusting my settings.” “Sure,” you teased. “Adjusting your settings or adjusting to me being here?” His brain short-circuited, and he let out a nervous laugh. “I—I don’t know what you’re talking about.” The chat was absolutely losing it now.

BRO IS BLUSHING SO HARD RN

HE CAN’T EVEN TALK

Someone save this man.

You smirked, leaning into your mic. “Droid, are you okay? You’re acting like you’ve never talked to me before.” He groaned, dragging a hand down his face. “I’m fine. It’s just—your timing caught me off guard. That’s all.” “Mhm,” you hummed, clearly unconvinced. “Well, don’t mind me. Just pretend I’m not here.” “Impossible,” he muttered under his breath, his chat catching it immediately.

IMAGINE BEING THIS DOWN BAD

Droid just exposed himself 💀

Y/N, he’s finished. Absolutely finished.

You laughed softly, your voice breaking through his spiraling thoughts. “Relax, Droid. I’m just messing with you.” “Yeah, yeah,” he mumbled, though his face burned as he glanced at his second monitor, where the chat was absolutely roasting him. Just as he started to recover, you spoke again, your tone playful. “By the way, chat’s right. You’re really bad at pretending not to be a simp.” He froze, his hand slipping off the mouse as he stared at his screen. “I—I’m not simping! I don’t simp! I’m just… being nice.” “Uh-huh,” you said, your laugh sending shivers down his spine. “If you say so.” His chat, of course, ran with it.

HE’S DONE FOR

Y/N knows! IT’S OVER!

Stop lying, Droid. We all see it.

“You know what?” Droid said finally, throwing his hands up in mock defeat. “Fine. Whatever. Let’s just play before chat ruins me even more.” You grinned, your voice soft and teasing. “Okay, Droid. But don’t think I didn’t catch what you said earlier.” “What did I say?” he asked cautiously. “That it’s impossible to ignore me,” you replied sweetly. He groaned, burying his face in his hands as his chat erupted in emojis and laughter. “Chat, I’m muting all of you. And Y/N. And myself.” “Love you too, Droid,” you said, your laugh making his heart race even faster. The match ended in predictable disaster, with Droid going out early thanks to his “totally laser-focused” gameplay. His chat, of course, had a field day with it.

Y/N speaks = Droid dies, confirmed

Bro can’t handle the pressure 😂

Stream MVP: Reader, for singlehandedly destroying Droid’s brain cells

“Alright, chat,” Droid said, his voice tinged with mock annoyance as he leaned back in his chair. “Y’all have been ruthless tonight, so I’m calling it. Thanks for hanging out and, uh, bullying me into oblivion. Appreciate it.” His stream sign-off was met with a flood of laughing emotes and teasing comments, but the chaos finally subsided as the stream ended. Droid sighed, pulling off his headphones and slumping in his chair. But just as he started to relax, your voice broke through the quiet in his headset. “Hey, Droid,” you said casually, still on the Discord call. “You okay? You got kinda quiet there.” His face heated instantly, and he sat up straight, fumbling for words. “Yeah, I’m fine! Totally fine. Just… recovering from chat. They were wild tonight, right?” You chuckled softly. “I think they were just calling it like they saw it.” “And what’s that supposed to mean?” he asked, though his voice cracked slightly. You smirked, your tone turning teasing.

“That you’re a little down bad, maybe?” “I—I’m not—” He groaned, lifting his glasses to rub his eyes. “Oh my God, you’re as bad as they are.” “Am I, though?” you teased, your grin evident in your voice. “Or am I just honest?” Droid’s mind raced as he tried to come up with a response that wouldn’t dig him deeper into the hole he was already in. “You’re enjoying this way too much.” “Maybe,” you admitted, laughing softly. “But it’s cute watching you get all flustered.” His breath hitched at your words, and he quickly tried to play it off. “I’m not flustered.” “You sure about that?” you asked, your voice dropping just enough to make his heart skip a beat. “Because you’re stammering a lot.” “I’m fine,” he said quickly, though the way his voice cracked again didn’t exactly help his case. “Totally fine.” There was a beat of silence before you spoke again, this time softer. “Droid?” “Yeah?” he asked, his voice quieter now. “I’m just messing with you, you know that, right?” you said gently.

“I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.” “You’re not,” he admitted, his shoulders relaxing slightly. “It’s just… you catch me off guard, that’s all.” Your smile softened at his honesty. “In a good way or a bad way?” “In a… good way,” he said, his voice almost shy. “Like, you make it impossible to focus, but I don’t really mind.” Your heart fluttered at his words, warmth spreading through your chest. “Good. Because I think it’s kinda cute.” He let out a soft laugh, the tension finally easing as he leaned back in his chair. “You’re gonna be the death of me, you know that?” “Maybe,” you teased, your grin returning. “But at least you’ll go out with a smile.” “Yeah,” he said softly, his voice laced with affection. “Yeah, I would.”

[i-may-be-an-emu]

Hello, you seem like a very knowledgable person when it comes to shoot from the hip!! Could you please explain the shark friend and squid boi jokes? Im incredibly new in the fandom and im so confused haha

HELLO HI OF COURSE I CAN TELL YOU :D

Shark friend:

during a warm up video on their tiktok AJ panics and says “shark friend” when he can’t think of anything and keeps repeating it and then in another warm up video from the same show probably taken right after it he does it again as a joke and it just became a thing!

Their patreon used to have two levels, one was cheaper (only about half of the current cost) and they called it the “Shark Friend” level- but so many more people bought what was known as the “Fellow Mr Wompa” level. Shark Friend really just means a fan of sfth now though it could also mean that you’re on the discord (if you aren’t on the discord and would like to be I can give you the link, just let me know :))

Fellow Mr Wompa was Sam misspeaking and instead of saying “Fellow Oompa Loompa” said “Fellow Mr Wompa” (as Wompa sounds like “Wonka”) Fellow Mr Wompa means that you are a patreon of sfth

Squidboi:

Tom is the Squidboi. He is squid. This is just a thing that happened because on a Covid livestream he put his arms up in his hoodie and waved the sleeves around with the hood up and said “look I’m a squid! :D” and has done it a few times since then. Tom loves and welcomes the nickname. People tend to call him it when he does his classic Tom Contortions(tm) lol. (Him bending weird and moving around in a weird way, I don’t know how to describe it but you see it when he’s playing the spirit of somerset in beetroots and murder and when he gives his “MY BODY IS A TEMPLE. AN ENGINE OF WAR!” monologue (from memory)

I hope this helps!! If you ever have any more sfth related questions or anything I am always down to talk about it!!!! (And if this doesn’t make sense let me know and I’ll try and explain again. And if you want clips of anything I’ve mentioned here just let me know!) :)

[ninjagirlstar5]

So, uh, I might've gone a little crazy last week and came up with a Kanade Concept rewrite. (And made some redesigns of IRL!Kanade and IRL!Hibiki to reflect that.)

SO, for context, if you've been following me for awhile (or just came across some of my posts in the past), you'd know that my friend and I have been playing through SDRA2 for fun and it's around the end of Chapter 3 that I started making posts mentioning certain segments of our reactions, feelings, and some jokes. And to say we hated it would be an understatement. But I've had asks where I went on a rant about Chapter 3 more than once, so I won't repeat myself here. If anyone hasn't seen that, you can find it here, and here.

At this point, we're at Chapter 6 and during one of our after stream chats in VC, my friend, @bittersweetbeet, suddenly brought up an idea that could've tied Kanade (and thus Chapter 3) into the main plot and that was this:

"What if Kanade was blessed with Divine Luck from Utsuro like Void? Like, she wasn't in on the plan, but the reason why everything went south for her is because her luck was running out and got screwed over in the trial because of that, and was more than willing to die because she'd prefer that over losing her Fortune. It wouldn't fix Chapter 3, but at least it'd explain how she got away with all those damn murders for so long!"

I'm kinda paraphrasing here since I don't remember the exact wording due to this idea being brought up in the voice channel. But that was essentially what they said and it drove me NUTS at the time. After all, it's been brought up that Utsuro tended to bless a bunch of kids that were the same/similar age as him during his travels out of boredom, and while we don't know a lot about Kanade and Hibiki's parents to know for certain if they were bad and good (personally, I interpret them as decent people but tended to play favorites with Hibiki and accidentally neglecting Kanade, which only worsens their issues even when they try to bring them together), we DO know that Hibiki tends to bully Kanade a lot and that alone can make for a difficult childhood even when you have parents that care about you. So, with a bit of timeline adjusting, Kanade coming across Utsuro when she was, ahem, down on her luck, and getting blessed by him after she vents about her problems can make sense as this is something he's done for awhile now. And it should be noted that not every kid he blessed with Fortune had the same level of dire straits, as many had different levels of Fortune which faded away at different paces. It's why Void lasted for as long as they did since their situation was the worst of the worst so their Fortunes faded away much slower while others either succumbed to fates sooner or lost their fortunes and survived but couldn't handle being back in the same state they tried so desperately to escape from that they just...well, you know. Not every person that was blessed with Divine Luck was going to be a good person or, hell, some people can end up getting worse with the Fortunes they were blessed with instead of becoming better (like Mikado). And so, we started chatting ourselves up about this idea and I really wanted to share it here on Tumblr that I asked if it was alright if I shared it on my blog and they gave me the go ahead. I didn't share it right away, but I was thinking over how to word the post while I was at work. Which is when I realize there were...a few problems with this idea, unfortunately. Mainly this since I brought it up in our rambles channel in the Discord server to get my buddy's thoughts on it, so I'm just gonna copy and paste that:

"...I've been trying to figure out how to word the idea of Kanade being blessed by Divine Luck and I kinda realized something: how would Kanade realize her luck is fading…when she's not a part of Void? Like, she's not in on the plan from the very start so she's been reverted to a [place] where she believes that she's fine and her luck is still running strong. And how that would be conveyed to the audience…

Like, I can believe Kanade could figure it out, even if I think how the writer LINUJ showed off her intelligence to be stupid, but I'm struggling [on] how to explain how she'd figure out that she ran out of luck? She'd be surprised that things have turned on her suddenly due to her state of being reverted back to a time where her luck is strong, but would she fully understand the context to the point that she'd rather die with her sister than lose what she already have?"

Like, I could've been overthinking on that. I could've had it so that a character comments that she was just hit with a wave of bad luck and Kanade goes, "Me? The most luckiest person ever? Never! (...unless-)" But I was really struggling to come up with an answer I was satisfied with at the time and even Bertie was like, "it's stuff like this that makes it so that the only option that would fix Chapter 3 is by rewriting the whole thing." Which is something I do agree with. This idea wasn't a complete fix to everything that's wrong with Chapter 3 anyways, especially when it comes to Kanade and how the writing on her character just sank it into the depths of hell. It was simply an explanation we both really liked.

And then Bertie went on to say, and I quote, "Tbh I think it would be more interesting if Kanade hated Hibiki deeply rather than love her. It’d be cliche probably but it’s better than the weird incest-like shit we have going on here" end quote.

And I started off with a normal response agreeing and elaborating on the idea, like so:

"HONESTLY, yeah. It's better to just scrap the whole chapter and rewrite it from the ground up.

And yeah, I do agree that anything that's different than what we got in Canon is probably much much better. Although I would still want to keep the nuances of Kanade and Hibiki's status as victims of each other's toxicity. Hibiki is constantly bullying Kanade due to seeing how good Kanade is at a lot of things and is jealous of that but still cares and loves her as a sister even though she sucks at appreciating Kanade for who she is. Meanwhile, Kanade still loves her sister and willingly goes along with her bullying, going as far as to try and be meek and shy to appeal to her sister's dominant but cowardly ways but deep down she resents her for keeping her from doing things she likes even though she does genuinely enjoy spending time with her and gets jealous whenever other people get close cause it means that Hibiki won't bother to spend time with her. She often drives them away one way or another so she can have Hibiki to herself, even when nothing changes because Hibiki is her sister and she just wants her to love her and spend time with her (but not in the gross incest way and we're taking away the whole crazy serial killer thing, she's just her own level of toxic)."

And that's when I started spiraling into an gigantic ramble that lasted nearly an hour and thirty minutes (minus a dinner break) because my brain was in a creative mood that night. Enjoy my copy and pasted ramble (I won't italicize all of this to make it easier on the eyes cause if you know me by now, my writing gets very long + a bit of editing to make it a little more coherent):

"I still like the idea of Kanade being blessed by Divine Luck and being good at many skills because of it, and she's smart enough to realize that the boy she met long ago somehow changed her when she had openly vented to him about her problems the day they met (after giving him her umbrella to protect himself from the pouring rain, as she had ran away on a whim due to being fed up with her parents and her sister [at the time]). She's very grateful for what he's done for her, believing that the skills she now has can bring herself closer to Hibiki by being useful to her."

"But here's the catcher: her blessing doesn't work in the way she had hoped. Because surprise! Divine Luck has it's own set of rules despite being able to break reality as long as the chances aren't zero. Basically, Divine Luck can make you better at anything, get you anything, without having to go through the process of improving or skipping the steps that are needed to get the result, simply jumping to the result itself. However, out of everything it can change, from skills to getting someone shelter to just winning any kind of luck-based event, it cannot change a person's heart. And Kanade, despite having the skills that are "supposed" to bring her closer to her sister, only makes Hibiki even more jealous and she continues to bully her, going as far as to push her workload onto her now that she's so "good" at everything and proclaiming that she's just as good, if not better. Her blessing got her what she wanted but not what she needed in her case, unlike with the rest of Void, and she ends up paralleling Mikado as despite being blessed with Divine Luck, it did not make them better or improve their situation due to their own choices/how they used their blessing (Mikado because he constantly pursued Utsuro to the point committing crime after crime, Kanade because instead of standing up for herself and establishing her boundaries, she continued to support her sister no matter what, something that only ends up building the resentment in her heart). That's not to say that Hibiki isn't instigating most of the abuse, she is. But Kanade isn't making things better as she uses her skills to make herself seem like the better option in comparison to the people Hibiki wants to hang out with and get to know, even going as far as to scare them away to isolate Hibiki so she doesn't even have any options to choose from."

"And then, Chapter 3 rolls around and Hibiki starts to change, trying to be supportive of the group and take charge to help everyone get through the killing game. It…surprises Kanade, but she watches her sister change and grow, becoming more confident, cheerful, kinder…

…And she realizes that she hates it.

She hates the thought of her sister changing. She hates the thought of her being kinder after everything she's done to her. She hates the thought of Hibiki growing closer to these people, becoming attached and happy without her, Kanade, her own sister.

She hates the thought of being left alone again. She hates the thought that Hibiki is going to leave her again.

She hates it, she hates it, she hates it.

She hates her.

But she loves her.

She wants her to be with her, forever.

So why won't she ever look her way?

Why, why, why?

Kanade is spiraling in her head, trying to keep up her shy, sweet side up but gritting her teeth the whole time as she watches. Even when Hibiki is being kinder to her, still making her usual jokes about her but is actually trying to prop her sister up a bit more, it's only because Sora and Setsuka had suggested her to be kinder, not because she wants to. At least, that's what Kanade thinks. She doesn't want to believe her sister is changing for the better, that she's able to change at all, that she's going to leave her behind for other people again.

And when Setsuka tries to reach out to her on the third day…Kanade finally snaps.

She tears into Setsuka, accusing her of stealing her sister away from her, for giving her ideas to be better when she can't, she should never be better than she already is because if she is, she'll just abandon her and leave her all alone. Her stupid, cowardly sister can't ever hope to be on her own, she always has to rely on her, HER, not anyone else…and definitely not SETSUKA!

And before Kanade knew it, she lunges at Setsuka.

The scuffle was short…but the result was predictable."

"To elaborate a little bit more on Setsuka, she's was still pretty distant from the group as she was focused on doing what she needs for Nikei and stuff. But after Hibiki starts to break down a little and reaches out to Setsuka for help, she commits herself to stabilizing the group once more, supporting Hibiki and telling her and everyone else that she has something to tell them. But Kanade, watching this entire scene, only starts to become even more on edge as Hibiki, once again, reaches out to someone else instead of her. Despite trying to "change," Hibiki had so easily broken down once more, crying and begging for help, relying on another person for support and to "fix" everything for her. And that convinces Kanade that Hibiki can't change, she won't EVER change, and she bitterly goes to bed. But Setsuka notices Kanade's displeasure and, not knowing why she's unhappy, decides to take matters into her own hands and have a one-on-one talk with her to see if she [can] help. Unfortunately, this decision backfires on her hard, resulting in her own death.

Now, unlike in canon, Kanade panics as this was the first time she's EVER committed a murder before. Sure, she's harassed, blackmailed, and even threatened people that tried to get close to Hibiki before with violence, people that would only take her away from her. But she didn't…she never…she didn't mean to do this! But, no, Setsuka…No, no. Why should she regret this? Why should she apologize?

Setsuka was getting in the way. Setsuka was going steal her sister away.

And Hibki was still the same as she ever was. Not being "better," not ever "changing." She was still Hibiki, the bully, the sister, the bratty, snappy, fussy older sister that demands respect despite her cowardly, weak self. A sister that Kanade deeply loves…and hates."

"But she won't let her die her. She'll escape with her, a certain "ritual" should allow her to escape with her as it's an option for the blackened on the third island according to Monocrow. If she goes through with that, she can escape with her sister…and make sure she'll never change again.

But if she loses…then she'll die. She'll die…

…and she'll take Hibiki with her. For she doesn't deserve to live without her.

Kanade goes through with the ritual as fast as she could, relying on her skills (and thus her luck) to succeed in framing Hibiki and nearly gets away with it.

But, unbeknownst to her due to her current memories, Kanade's luck has been dwindling and since her situation wasn't as dire as Void's, hers has been fading away far faster than them. And ends up making a few mistakes that seem innocent enough until it all starts to pile up, with one last conclusive evidence fucking her over and revealing her to be the true culprit.

Kanade is seething when she's caught, her ego bruised and lamenting how the hell she lost, with Syobai dryly stating that her luck has run out. Kanade laughs, saying that can't be true. She's always been lucky! She's always been able to get things her way, even when she has no friends outside of Hibiki. This tips both Mikado and Nikei off that, hey, wait a minute, is she…? Of course, neither of them speak up on it due to keeping their own plans close to their chest. Everyone asks her why, why did she do it, with Hibiki grabbing her sister, begging her why she would do something like this, why would Kanade frame her of her best friend's death? A death that she caused?

And Kanade, after years of bottling up her own resentment…finally blows up at Hibiki."

"She tells her off for her bullying, of her neglecting to pay attention or spend any time with her unless she wanted something from her, and pushing all the things she doesn't want to do onto her. She proclaims that she had ALWAYS hated everything she's done to Kanade, wishing she could've done anything else, wishing that, for once in their goddamn lives, that they did something she wanted to do, not because Hibiki had chosen it. All Kanade had ever wanted was her love and affection, but she never appreciated her or all the things she's done for her. [She even went] as far to change herself to try and appeal to her sister and her wants and needs. And yet…despite everything, she still loves her. She loves the times when they would dress up together. She loves the times when they would perform together. She loves it when Hibiki actually cares for her. She loves her, because she's her sister…

And because Setsuka was getting in the way of that, she had to get rid of her. Just like everyone else…!

Everyone freezes when Kanade admits that out loud. She pauses when she realized what she said, but instead of apologizing [or even denying it], she doubles down. She admits that she drove away their childhood friend, she admits to spreading false rumors about their teacher and getting him fired, she admits to falsifying a hurtful rejection to a guy Hibiki was getting close to and pretended to be her so that she can ruin their chances of getting together when he finally confessed, she harrassed, blackmailed, threatened people that got close…and Setsuka was just another person on a long list of those that got in the way. She just…didn't mean to kill her. It just…happened. But Kanade…doesn't care about that. She doesn't care about anything anymore. It's apparent that her luck ran out…and now she's going to die.

But she's not dying alone. She refuses to die alone.

[After all, they're] sisters, right…? It's only right that they stay together till the bitter end, right?"

"Hibiki tries to back away, but Kanade grabs her just as Monocrow drags her into her execution, bringing her with them."

"The execution goes almost exactly the same but Kanade is doing her damndest to make sure Hibiki dies with her, with Hibiki trying to escape. And it seems like it was going to happen…until Hibiki beats the hell out of her with a microphone, crying and wailing for all the people Kanade had hurt in her name, demanding why, why, why. Kanade can only answer this:

"It was ALL for you. You and you alone."'

"Hibiki drops the microphone, backing away from the sister that was so possessive of her, in her hatred and love.

And then she runs away, leaving Kanade all alone.

Monocrow doesn't stop her, for this execution was only made for Kanade…and seeing her despair as she finally loses the one thing she had tried so hard to grasp onto slip away from her was enough for him to pull the lever, the platform underneath Kanade falling and killing her.

By the time Hibiki has made it back to the trial grounds, her gait is slow and unsteady, hugging herself as she stares down at her feet, processing what had just happened. What her sister had done. What she had done to everyone she knew. What she had done to Setsuka and Hibiki herself.

Why she had done it.

She had done it for her.

She had done it to keep Hibiki to herself.

She had done it because she both loved and hated Hibiki.

And the people that had been hurt because of Kanade…was because of her. Because of Hibiki. Because of all her bullying and her selfish wants, and because she didn't treat her like she should've treated her as a sister…! Because she's a horrible, awful person that hurt her own family until it was too late, her best friend dead, her sister, dead! All because of her…!!

Hibiki falls to her knees, going into dissociation as everything that she ever thought she knew and was normal shattered like glass."

"Hibiki, for the rest of the killing game, blames herself for what Kanade has done, but with Sora and co.'s help, she's able to rationalize that yes, what she did to Kanade was horrible and none of this may have happened if Hibiki had just bonded with her sister instead of bullying her…but Kanade had also made her own decisions, alienating Hibiki's friends and support from her to try and isolate her so she can try and force her to rely on her and her alone. Hibiki had done a lot of wrong that she probably can't ever make up now that Kanade is dead, but that doesn't excuse the awful actions Kanade has done either as many people were hurt from her own actions, one even losing his job and others probably traumatized from what she did to them. They were both toxic to each other and so long as neither of them were changing, that cycle was only going to continue until something broke between them…and this just so happened to be it. It's just horrible that it also ended in Setsuka's death alongside Kanade's, who was just as much a victim as she was a perpetrator."

"As for the reveal in Chapter 6, I was thinking of two options for Hibiki and Kanade's relationship:

The two of them, despite years [of] staying together as sisters and as a part of Melody Rhythm, only ended up falling apart as their toxicity turned their head as one of Kanade's past victims, their childhood friend, decides to finally come out and reveal everything Kanade has done to her and other people, even providing evidence of what she did. And the moment Hibiki found out about it, a public argument breaks out between them and Kanade finally spills out everything about her feelings on Hibiki, which only hurts both of them as Kanade had tried so hard to isolate Hibiki from other people while Hibiki had only hurt and bully her sister out of jealousy for years. But this? This was enough for Hibiki to stand up and go, "We're done here." And she leaves, cutting ties with Kanade for the shit she's done to others but also left reeling at the revelation of what her bullying and abuse had done to her sister. Was this…her fault? She wasn't sure. But she knew [she] had to make things right somehow, even if it's only for herself, reflecting on her behavior and reaching out to those that were hurt by Kanade, apologizing for everything that had happened even though it wasn't her fault that she chose to do the things she did and tried to make it up to them…if they want her, at least. [Meanwhile,] Kanade is PISSED that her sister left her, who went as far as to block her from her phone and even ending their contract as Melody Rhythm as she's left to deal with the fallout of the media bashing her for what she's done…but as time went on, Kanade is able to pick up the pieces and strikes out on her own, telling herself that she doesn't need Hibiki or the people that criticizes her for what she's done. She can do this by herself! She never openly apologizes, but she never says outright that she's happy with how things had turned out either, despite getting her career back on track…eventually."

"And then the Tragedy happens, they lose their parents, and one of two things happen.

Either 1.) the Tragedy brings them back together, with them starting off very reluctantly working together to do charities to help those in need, only to slowly and carefully rebuild their relationship while trying very hard not to fall back into bad habits as Hibiki admits that yeah, she's done a lot of horrible things to Kanade and she IS sorry for that…but she won't let Kanade hurt anyone anymore. She's trying very hard to be patient with her sister, as they know the Tragedy is a horrible thing to go through, they even lost their parents from it…but if they want to make things work, then something has to change between them, even if Hibiki is the only one taking the initiative FOR the change. Kanade is very reluctant to admit that she was EVER in the wrong for what she did…but as they continue work and bicker over the concerts they put together, their different ideas colliding but somehow coming together with the help of their coordinator, they start to…actually bond again. They start to talk things out, Hibiki is actually trying to show interest in her hobbies and the things she likes, and while she can never bring herself to like the same things she does, she's trying to be respectful and give her the time of day this time. She's trying to make things right for her, so long as Kanade never does the things she did again. And while Kanade doesn't like the same things Hibiki does, it's still a bond Hibiki is trying to nurture…and it makes Kanade question if what she did was ever necessary, that if she had just stood her ground, let Hibiki form her own relationships while searching for her own friends that she can rely [on] like the ones she had now…then maybe none of this would have happen. Maybe they could've remain as sisters, forever, if she just accepted their differences and tried to break away and do her own thing, while letting Hibiki grow as a person [as I think if Hibiki was allowed to bond with other people, she would've grew out of her bullying and become a better person, but because she never had the chance or had people that would stand up to her and let her experience the consequences of her own actions, she never grew out of that mindset as she was never put in her place before]…

[And then the killing game happens, reverts them back to their teenage selves, and they start their toxic cycle all over again until one of them literally kills and gets executed for it.]"

"Or 2.), Kanade and Hibiki remain separate, as not even the Tragedy and the death of their own parents can bring them together. Their parents funeral, one they tried to arrange anyways, only escalates into another argument, with Hibiki changing as a person…but Kanade did not. She still feels entitled to be Hibiki's one and only sister, her one and only support, and Hibiki recognizes that, deciding that it was safer that they stay separated as she NEVER wants to risk anyone else she loves coming to harm thanks to Kanade. The two part ways, with the both of them doing their own separate charity events, with Hibiki proclaiming that Kanade Otonokoji is not her sister, [not anymore], while Kanade proclaims that Hibiki Otonokoji will always be her sister, and refuses to acknowledge the fact that she had been disowned and will continue to be disowned for the rest of their lives."

"Either way, Hibiki is depressed to realize that their future together was never forever, and Hibiki had lost her sister…one way or another."

And that's it! That's the concept rewrite, plus the sprite edits since Kanade and Hibiki are no longer together as sisters and as a band outside of the Neo World Program, so their appearances reflect on that as they pursue their own solo careers. They're no longer trying to match each other, and Kanade pursues her own rock and metal music.

Oh, and while I was copying and pasting this, I had an idea that Kanade's relationship with Sora could be interesting as she's the only one that Kanade is actually okay with getting close to Hibiki...because Sora shows interests in both of them in their FTEs. She talks to Hibiki in private about her treatment of Kanade and even asked Kanade herself if she was okay as she genuinely cares about her just as much as she cares about Hibiki. This surprises Kanade as no one has ever bothered to look her way before, they always pay more attention to Hibiki than herself. And Sora makes it clear that she's genuine about this, asking her if there's anything she can do to make things better for Kanade when Hibiki is defensive about her actions. It makes Kanade feel...seen, for once in her life, and she actually likes that. So she allows Sora to get close, so long as she promises to continue being her friend, too. It's why Sora succeeds in befriending both twins while Setsuka ended up getting rejected by Kanade in the worse possible way: Setsuka unintentionally added to Kanade's insecurities by focusing mostly on Hibiki and overlooked Kanade's needs as well. She's not doing this out of ill-will, far from it. It's just that she recognized that Hibiki is a little weaker in her mental strength and her breakdowns were far easier to notice while Kanade was able to keep a cool head most of the time. So Setsuka prioritizes on supporting Hibiki first and foremost, thinking that Kanade can handle herself fine on her own. She's not completely wrong...but she's not right, either. By the time she finally notices that Kanade is hurting and reaches out to support her, it's already too late as she's finally reached her breaking point and snapped, which resulted in her own death. Just a little something to tie this whole thing off.

[wishmaker-astra]

Name: Astra Tsiolkovsky

Pronouns

• Default Preference: she/her

• Friends Can Use: it/its

• Though honestly as long as you're not a dick about it whatever works

Species: "Jirachi" (?)

Occupation: Astrophysics Doctoral Student

Other: Mute, psychic, former human

[Credit: Amber Aria: https://www.sunset-aria.com/]

Hey internet, I'm Astra Tsiolkovsky. I'm a doctoral student studying astrophysics in Unova. Ask me about science, engineering, and Space Stuff™ if you want rambles.

See my full about page

My Website

I use the "cw: topic" format for tagging that kind of thing.

//Mail: [off]•Mystery Gift: [off]•Magic Anon: [off]•Union Circle: [off]

//[OOC Notes Below Cut]

EXTREMELY IMPORTANT

Check with me OOCly before sending anything ICly transphobic to her. After a couple instances of this, and one OOC Totally Normal ask, you guys have lost privilege of me accepting and rejecting on the fly with the hope you'd know when to stop.

If you fuck this up more, I'm going to mandate all asks about IC transphobic stuff get approval OFF ANON first and will start blocking anons over not asking OOCly. That said, I know some of these are hard to recognize for those of you who've never had to think about it in depth. Just think twice on if need to ask please?

EDIT 10/10/24: Congratulations on first OOC block about this. I am less likely to start off with warnings from now on.

Will Not Interact:

Similar applies to her jirachi status. I'm a bit more lenient and open to this one, but, like, please use your brains.

EDIT 1/24: Mail and mystery gift has been turned off due to repeated attempts to send pokemon and money to Astra while ignoring that anything sent to her should be via normal parcel post. If you have my discord, or history of tumblr DM chat, I might be open to in advance arrangements.

Magic Anon

Fae deals/name stealing

Meta Horror

4th Wall Schenanigans

Very dark topics

• This includes post-apocalyptic stuff to be clear

Mental Alteration/Mind Control related subjects

• I WILL just ignore things, have Astra behave utterly OOC, blanket refuse to interact with characters, and/or just suddenly drop interaction as if never happened if required for this

Other Notes:

I try to treat her experiencing rotomblr as *just a website* as much as possible. Granted, one with weird multiversal connection that she will assume is due to ultrahole shenanigans she doesn't understand yet

Lose combination of games and anime setting, leaning more towards the games

Pelipper mail will be interpreted as regular parcel mail being sent to her via student services.

Please keep mystery gift to minor items at most. She's a grad student as part of her character, part of that is putting up with tight money situation.

Astra's got the full abilities of a jirachi potentially, but is completely unable to use them yet. Think of it as getting a new limb suddenly.

Assumes sentient pokemon are rare, and mostly limited to:

• Ones with decent canon support (rotom inhabiting devices with a CPU, mewtwo, one off instances such as Meowth, latias, etc)

• Certain humanoid and/or psychic types raised in human society in a way that  "bootstraps" them during critical development periods (e.g. Gardevoir line treated as effectively human from birth)

Feel free to treat her as a kid screwing around on the net with a character if you want or similar if it makes sense for your character's setup or personality

She's an adult lesbian, please block the tags "suggestive", "cw: boob joke", "cw: dick joke", "cw: sex joke", and "cw: sex mention" if you are not comfortable with those topics. Please let me know if you need something tagged.

[honeyconez]

Chat how crazy would it be if I said I make a joke with one of my friends about something on discord and he said "pregnant engineer" and then we had this on-going joke where we just said "who got engineer pregnant" and then i texted him during lunch saying "who got engineer pregnant" and then i said "soldier HUHHHHHWHATTTWHOSAIDTHATMUSTVEBEENTHEWIND" and he was like "yeah if the wind was Scout" but basically i kept repeating "soldier got engineer pregnant" and I'm tortureing him with that now (he's chill abt it)

😭😭😭😭😭 I started tweaking after reading this

what if instead of helmet party it was called freaky party and instead of engineer and soldier it was freakineer and freakdier 😰😰😨😥😨😥😨😥😱😱😱😥😨🫣🫣👅👅👅👅👅👅👅👅

[ikamigami]

What happened to Moon's therapy with Earth where she told him to re-establish the bond he had with Sun and Moon agreeing to it? Like Moon, where is the progress in that? Hello??? I get it, Moon and Solar has a lot in common (and that's one of the reasons people ship them together but I digress) but like Sun is his brother. The one who has been there from the start, Old Moon, to now, New Moon. I get it, Moon wants to protect his family that's why he is always keeping things from them but as Earth said before, Sun wants to protect him and everyone else too. Please, I'm so tired of the Solar and Moon show episodes...

Thank you for asking this question, anon!

I hope that you don't mind that I'll use your ask to address the elephant in the room.. which is why Moon is keeping things from Sun once again?

The one conversation I had with my friend on Discord.. reminded me that I saw the shift in how Moon acts towards Sun.. and that it all started when Moon went to Evil Sun's dimension.

I realised that from that moment Moon stopped informing Sun about things and started distancing himself from Sun...

It's also that from that moment Moon started to tease Sun again. First it was Sun turning into a dragon but later Moon started teasing Sun about "the crush he has on Roxanne"...

Moon also stopped calling Sun brother.. and when you remember that Evil Sun told Moon that Sun and Moon being brothers is rare.. things start to make sense...

I thought that showrunners run out of ideas to give us the plot of "past repeats once again" and started using jokes about Sun having crush on Roxanne to fans' annoyance.. but if we take Moon's visit in Evil Sun's dimension into consideration then it all makes sense...

Moon is paranoid and I'm afraid that he's scared that Sun may start acting like Evil Sun.. and he's scared that maybe his brotherhood with Sun isn't that.. deep...

It explains why Moon started distancing himself from Sun and why he started teasing Sun.. it's because Moon sees Sun as his brother and he cares about Sun deeply.. but he's scared of these doubts that appeared in him since the talk with Evil Sun and he tries to be casual about it and that's why he started acting like that towards Sun..

I think that Moon didn't lie to Earth that he trusts Sun with his own life.. but I think that Moon is doubting that trust and he's scared of it.

It's the same thing when you starts to distrust your own family due to how paranoid you are and ofc Moon is scared of it.. Who wouldn't be scared?

But Moon should talk about it with Sun.. Sun needs to know why Moon is distancing himself.. why Moon is pushing Sun away...

Because if Moon won't talk with Sun soon.. something terrible will happen and Moon will regret running away from this issue forever...

Moon doesn't realise how much it is affecting Sun.. how much Sun is suffering because of Moon's decision...

Earth sees that something is off with Sun and she sees that Moon distanced himself from Sun that's why she both tried to reassure Sun that he can talk to her about whatever is bothering him and tried to push Moon to reconnect with Sun...

And like I said Sun is lying that everything is fine and he's in his best mental state.. it's a lie.

He's suicidal and Moon's decision to push Sun away makes Sun feel like he's unneeded and it's pushing him more and more on the edge...

Something tragic will happen.. and I can see it happening in three ways (actually two but.. I'll give three options just because):

Sun will try to sacrifice himself by going after Eclipse or creator - it happened once already so I'd love if showrunners wouldn't do that with Sun again...

BM will attack Sun and Sun will give up - it's very likely to happen.. it was established more than once that BM wants to kill Sun and Sun giving up was hinted in episode when Sun and Moon played Joyville.. Moon said that Sun will give up in life or death situation one day...

Sun will try to kill himself by overusing star's power either on himself or maybe on the voodoo doll - the possibilty is high because Castor reminded Sun twice to not use star's power, Sun throat was hurt similarly to Lunar's and Lunar's throat was hurt due to overusage of their powers.. The thing with voodoo doll is more unlikely to happen...

I think that Earth would push Moon even more to talk to Sun.. bit she's busy dealing with that whole creator situation and it's a big deal for her so I can't blame her for not thinking about Sun and Moon's situation at the moment...

Moon on the other hand is once again prioritizing wrong thing.. He's taking care of Eclipse's situation.. but the thing is Eclipse isn't a threat... He didn't do anything. The only thing that Eclipse is trying to do for now is to find out who brought him back. In other words Eclipse is busy with his own issues...

Moon should talk to Sun. It's more important than Eclipse's or Ruin's situation...

It's not that surprising that Solar doesn't see the issue with the way Moon is distancing himself from Sun.. because Solar doesn't understand how it is affecting Sun and why it is bad for Sun's mental state.. It's because Solar is poorly managing his own feelings and emotions... That's why he doesn't see that there's a problem and that something tragic will happen really soon...

So it seems that I was right and show is really going with Sun is suicidal plot and that's good because it shows us that the story is consistent and that showrunners aren't giving up on some parts of a plot like some of us had thought.

Unfortunately we're heading into one of the most angsty story plots in the show and we need to prepare for it.. At least I'm sure (or I hope so) that Sun won't succeed and he'll only end up in a coma or something similar...

I hope that the answer satisfies you, anon 🙇‍♀️

[candor-creator]

SO.

a few months back me and a couple friends would alternate streaming Hollow Knight to each other: one blind, one knowledgeable (me), and one heavily modded to be easier.

Now, during these streams I would, of course, gush about whatever I could that was spoiler-free, and because he is my favorite, I often talked about the Pale King. Whenever I could. Always.

One of the major character details I love to point out when discussing him is all the various contraptions around Hallownest. They're all SO unnecessary and complicated they look and feel like redstone machines in minecraft they're just so Extra.

Why did the King invent a fucking foldable bench. Why not?

He just likes Mechanisms. Machines. various Contraptions. Doohickeys and Thingamabobs. He didn't need to pop off like that but the kingdom is littered with small, complicated machines that do not need to be as complicated as they are. Don't get me started on the fact that Wingsmoulds beep.

So one day I missed a stream from the modded friend, the once-blind now-experienced friend the only one watching. And to make me feel included, he and it both wrote down a handful of funny lines from the stream.

One of which stood out to me and would irreparably change my vocabulary.

The Pale King Fucking Loves Devices!

this quickly became an inside joke and also something i would constantly repeat to my brother whenever we discussed my longrunning fic and pk's place in it. This Device Lover is my special guy.

The other day though, I was joking around about the fact that Hallownest Vocalized is a thing. And I said that if I ever met James Dijit, Voice of PK in the mod, I would request a handful of little lines from him, the last of which was, of course, "I fucking love devices."

And then I realized the only thing actually stopping me was myself. I mean. I have money. I have his contact since I'm in the discord server. I could ask him to say stuff and offer to pay him if he didn't want to.

So anyways I asked him and I now have the best audio files on the planet.

"can we hear the-" NO. later.

i'm gonna fuckin animate it.

[bharv]

oh, the ramble was incredibly useful! i have much to chew on now, i greatly appreciate it

it’s more of an internal criticism that sort of stems from oblique/tangential external… experiences? i guess you could say. they’re not necessarily criticisms, exactly, but moments where i miss my mark, and some of the layers of my jokes-that-aren’t-always-just-jokes get missed in social interactions. i’m not sure if you’re familiar with brennan lee mulligan and his monologues, but he says he struggles to not just talk like that all the time, and i feel somewhat similarly. how i write is very much how i think, and how i speak (though with writing i do have the power of editing), so how i feel about my flubs bleeds over. and some of that could certainly be a skill issue on the part of my audience, but the discordance between my delivery at times and what it is that i am actually saying does hinder comprehension some, i think.

this is hobby writing, yes, which is something i’ve come back to in full recently (my creative outlet for a good while was tabletop stuff, so all outlines and vibes, and concepts of plans, with the gaps to be filled in with improv), so i think part of it is noticing my deficits/certain skills that have atrophied due to disuse — which is also why i’m struggling to finish things in general probably, because i’ve not had to polish any work in a long time, lol. i am looking to challenge myself to a certain degree, like the writer’s equivalent of gentle physiotherapy just to tickle my brain a little and instil some self assurance.

do you have any exercises or resources in particular that you could recommend? i’m not hooked into any sort of writing resources, so i wouldn’t even know where to begin to look, or what keywords to smash into google to be perfectly honest with you.

and i really appreciate the reframing/reinforcement! it is usually a feature that i take pride in, and don’t often consider it a bug, but sometimes errors do crop up which makes me second guess myself. i think trepidation might be a more accurate word for what i’m feeling, actually, rather than just self-consciousness at large, now that i reflect on it more. something something the perpetual fear of being misconstrued, or whatever. which, y’know, is something that is totally outside of one’s control once they cast their words out into the void, but is still a fear nonetheless.

and again, thank you for your time and your in-depth response, you’ve very much helped assuage my concerns

Hello again anon!

There's some great books on writing, but one of the most useful practical ones for me was Steering the Craft by Ursula K LeGuin (which I think is about to be republished!)

This is an example exercise, to give you an idea:

Part one: Write a paragraph of narrative (150 words) that includes at least three repetitions of a noun, verb, or adjective (a noticeable word, not an invisible one like Was, Said, Did.) then for Part two: Write a paragraph to a page (200-300 words) in which you deliberately repeat the syntactical construction, or the exact rhythm, of a phrase or sentence several times (I'll put an example of this.) and then the big one, Part Three: Write a short narrative (350-1000 words) in which something is said or done, and then something is said or done that echoes or repeats it, perhaps in a different context or by different people, or on a different scale. You can combine parts of this exercise, or if you're feeling brave, combine all of them in one narrative.

A deliberate repeat might be something like this example: With her hands in her pockets, she walked to the door and faced the stranger. His eyes on her face, he stood there a moment and said nothing.

Other great books include Bird by Bird by Annie Lammot, Into the Woods by John Yorke, Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert, and A Swim in the Pond in the Rain by George Saunders. If you're looking for more structured genre advice, Story Genius and Save the Cat Writes a Novel both dive into the grit of structure, but I find they're at odds with my poetic soul lmao.

As for the trepidation... I feel with this the way I personally deal with it is the same I kind of deal with life. You can put forward your intentions but honestly people will meet it the way they want to, with their preconceptions and their own cultural understandings etc. It's interesting that you bring up Bleem because he's got a very similar communication style to me lol (I know he's not *out* as autistic HOWEVER...) but you know... he's extremely popular for a reason lol, and maybe it's not about being so hard on your style but just playing with the "music" of it. At the end of the day all you can do is put something out into the world and hope somebody gets what you want to say, but honestly the more you try to explain it, many times people will just listen less. You have to just let it go out there and hope for the best.

[leis-notes]

I flipped 1000 coins on google yesterday.

Two of my friends and I started playing Stardew Valley together, and they both wanted to marry the same NPC. So, in order to figure out who gets to have her, they decided on a coin flip and asked me to do the honour.

I flipped the coin and the losing party naturally called it rigged (as a joke), however, I heard somewhere before that it was, in fact, rigged. The source I heard it from wasn't reliable, of course and it's also been a while. Still, I chimed in and said that I actually heard somewhere that it is in fact rigged.

I did that for two reasons. Number one being to contribute to the conversation, but the main cause was to reference a meme that is rather prominent in this friend group.

Now, the winning friend required proof of that and tasked me to flip the coin 1000 times. So... I did. I will post the whole thing under the cut, but the end result was that Heads appeared 455 times and Tails appeared 545 times.

What I find funny is that the losing friend immediately settled on it being obviously rigged when he chose tails. I don't think he did that intentionally, I think he just forgot what he picked. I decided not to say anything because I was actually curious to see this being played out.

The winning friend, however, was not yet satisfied. He told me that doing this one time wasn't a proper result, and to actually test this theory, we'd need to repeat it 10 times. So, I was tasked to do this 9 more times. Which I will do. I started already, actually.

Now, why am I doing this?

Well, there's three reasons. For one, I'm interested in the reactions of my losing friend and if his memory of what he originally picked actually changes again depending on the outcome of the coinflips.

Then, the question on whether or not this thing is rigged actually started interesting me as well now.

But mainly because it's a repetitive task that doesn't take me too long (the 1000 flips took me about 1.5 hours), and I can carry it out while doing something else like listening to music, watching YouTube/Netflix/etc. Or be on a Discord Call with those friends.

But anyways, here's the result of 1000 Google coin flips (might reblog with the others as well once I'm done)

[caelum-et-ocean]

This is getting a bit long and emotional so i’m gonna put a cut in case you don’t wanna read all of it

tldr: i’m reflecting on my time on tumblr and thanking some people (DW IM NOT QUITTING, I JUST FEEL LIKE BEING NICE TODAY LOL)

i’ve always felt like i could always just be my true self here on tumblr ngl. like, i could be free to just post about whatever interest i had and then i wouldn’t get insulted or bullied for it 😭

i remember being super scared to even start posting about Yuurivoice in the beginning since i thought i would get teased for liking asmr, but i was pleasantly surprised with how kind and accepting everyone was!!

now that all this time has passed, i would like to say that i am really, really glad that i was able to make so many friends here, and i love how we all made such a great community 🫶🫶

i’m doing some individual shout outs now, i’m sorry if you weren’t included here, these are just the people that really made all the difference in my little tumblr journey

@tqnk and @milosirlgf i think i already said this in jay’s inbox before but no joke, you two were the reason i wanted to make a tumblr account and start posting here LMAO

i think i still remember both of your old urls (i believe they were hhawks and gay-jay?) and i also really enjoyed seeing both of your posts when i first started listening!!

you’re both really funny and amazing to talk to, and i’m glad i got the chance to be able to meet both of you personally!

@p0pp3t and @sweetangle8 I LOVE YOU BOTH SO MUCHHH Una you were also one of my first moots LOL Both of you always make me so happy when I see you <33

And Tallu, you were the entire reason i actually gained the courage to start tuning into calls on Discord + being able to form a closer bond with everyone else, so thank you so much for that! You and Una brighten my day every time I talk to you, and I love all the jokes we end up making, whether it’s about Redacted david specifically or OCs!!

@anunmarkedface You are honestly such an amazing person to talk with, especially about Redacted, OCs, and just general topics! I love how you care about everyone in our group, and how you always know the right thing to say to people when they need it. You are one of the best people I’ve met, and I’m glad to have you as my friend :D

@yourunderratedbix I love hearing your stories and interests on call so much! You’re a really sweet and funny person to talk to, and even if we don’t speak too much personally, it still makes me happy whenever we do have those times! (Btw I also loved seeing your outfit plans for theme parks)

@lunamoff You’re a really cool person to talk to in general! Even though we unfortunately don’t share many interests outside Redacted and Yuurivoice, it’s still interesting to see you talk about other things you like (even if it takes me some time to process it lol)

@sethsbooblicker (nice username) You make my day every time we talk LOL I love your art, and your personally is just as amazing!! You make everyone feel happier whenever you start talking in the GC or in the server and I enjoy reading our chats together

@eulogylullaby Aaaa I love it whenever we talk!! ^^ Whether it’s about Redacted or Limbus, I always end up feeling really happy inside whenever we speak! You’re such a kind person, and I always feel like it’s really easy for me to open up to you and just be myself, even if our interests are completely different

People who I also have a special place in my heart for (but just don’t know how to express my thoughts without repeating too many details from above snelsnwlsnw):

@sunfl0wer-h0ur @bunrubyy @oceanlue @outofthebluemoon @peacefullibrarian @rose-the-witch1 @emmaoftoomanyfandoms @4letteraroace @phantom-face @blissful-clown

thank you again for making all of these memories with me, i love you all so much <33

[7grandmel]

Todays rip: 21/01/2024

8​-​bit Fish With Dreams

Season 4 Episode 1 Featured on: SiIvaGunner's Highest Quality Rips: Volume AI Also on: I JUST WANNA DO CATCH SOME FISHS

Ripped by l4ureleye

"This one's for you, buddy."

There's a time and place for everything, and honestly, right now really isn't the time for me to recount everything surrounding Marrow's place in the channel's history again. I've covered tributes to the ripper twice in the past, once with the heartachingly beautiful Telling Fish Tales, and later in the bittersweet cheerfulness of Turnabout Fishters. I won't repeat myself all too much here, so I suggest you read up on those posts if you're out of the loop in regards to StreetPass Fishing's place on the channel. And so, to round this topic off for the foreseeable future, we have 8​-​bit Fish With Dreams - one more tribute, yet one that seems to come from a rather personal place.

Honestly, in the recent months, in my time doing this blog, it's been a bit...strange, slowly assimilating into the more active parts of the SiIva community. I've said it a few times before, but before making this blog I was effectively nothing but a very invested observer - I kept my interest in the channel almost entirely to myself beyond leaving a couple of YouTube comments. That has left me out of the loop on occasion, primarily with in-jokes spawned from the SiIvaGunner Discord, yet I was content in knowing that I didn't really...have much of anything to contribute. And its with that preface said that I need to clarify once again that, I don't truly know much of any details regarding people's relations to one another in the SiIvaGunner team. Nowadays, with this blog and all, I've had the opportunity to finally talk with members of the team and other fans on a regular basis, and it's been a ton of fun - yet, I'll never know firsthand just how much Marrow meant to people. And honestly, its not exactly something that concerns me to begin with - it's not my feelings to hold.

Yet, the beautiful thing about music, about art in general, is that feelings that can be so hard to convey properly through words, through stories, through recollections and retellings, can be encapsulated so perfectly within a piece. And that is represented so beautifully within every single part of 8​-​bit Fish With Dreams. It's not a flashy tribute, nor some huge collaborative sendoff - but what is is, feels like a deeply personal arrangement made out of pure love. l4ureleye applies her signature flair and expertise for creating soothing, healing soundscapes in arranging 8-bit Kids with Dreams, an under-the-radar song made by fellow chiptune artist jankybit. Past the initial minute-long opening fakeout, so few parts of the original Beauford Pond remain, yet it still manages to feel...at home, with StreetPass Fishing's other music. It asks you not to be excited, nor to cry, but rather just invites you to sit by and enjoy the ride. As was the case with the original 8-bit Kids with Dreams, it feels like a gift made from one friend to another, a toast in their honor.

I really do not wish to intrude on the lives and mental states of these rippers to any degree - yet there's little I can do to avoid being emotionally affected by rips like 8​-​bit Fish With Dreams. As is the case with art as a whole, any rip made is inevitably going to feel like it has a piece of its ripper imbued into it. And its the ones where you can feel that most, the rips that feel almost like hearing one side to a conversation, waiting for an answer, that always end up sticking with me longest. Those are the rips like 8-bit Fish With Dreams, by rippers like l4ureleye.

"u cast your line at me when I needed it most, and helped pull me out from the murky depths of my anxiety and self loathing. I needed a friend like you, and I'm glad I got to have that. Hopefully I was good to you too, u more than deserve it. Rest easy gamer"