#(by the time i'm posting this the new blog and the captain are almost settled pfft i just. have to get this one switched over)

[gunsblazin]

there’s gonna be a new little guy soon but that means i have to actually do what i’ve been meaning to and move cap to a sideblog / make this a hub. so this blog is going to be under construction, including some tweaking to the rules pages!

[milazka]

August twelve — Rudy Pankow

image found on pinterest

summary: the one where it’s your boyfriend’s birthday and you planned an amazing day for him.

request: yes

content: fluff

author’s note: i didn’t add a smut part because i feel like i’m only writing smutty imagines and i needed to write a fluffy one with this hottie! my requests are open and you can find my masterlist at the end of this post if you feel like reading more of my stuff!

warnings: most of my stories may contain mature themes such as swearing, underage drinking, substance abuse, sexual language and scenes, fights and more. also, i do not intend to be offensive towards anyone who reads this blog, if anything written can be perceived as hurtful to any community or person, i apologize, it was never my purpose while writing it.

word count: 1700.

She was standing in the frame of the door, her pretty eyes observing the young man lying on the bed, his body half covered by the grey blanket. His chest was rising at a peaceful rate with no sign of trouble apparent on his angel face. A little smile slipped over her rosy lips as she thought about how lucky she was that this man was still a part of her life, twenty years later. Both born in Ketchikan, Alaska, just a few months apart, Rudy and her had grown up as a duo. hey did everything together. Rarely did you ever saw one without the other; she was the Bonnie to his Clyde and nothing in the world could have changed that. Over the years, they both had a few meaningless relationships, and they never lasted long. The girls were envious of his closeness with Y/n while the boys were quick to understand that she would never look at them the way she looked at Rudy; he was her person, but she hadn't figured it out yet. It was on a cold December afternoon, a few days before the New Year’s eve, that they exchanged their first kiss, their lips frozen by the Alaskan winter, both seated by the burning fire in the chimney. Five years later and in a much warmer town, she was looking at her sleepy boyfriend with the same sparks in her eyes.

“You're staring at my butt, aren't ya?” 

Rudy's sleepy voice took her out of her thoughts as she laughed. His eyes were half opened and he had pillow marks all over his right cheek. His disheveled blond hair was falling out in front of his pretty ocean colored eyes. She carefully made her way to the bed, trying not to knock over the breakfast tray she was holding with both hands. 

“I made you waffles” 

“The blueberry ones?” he asked with his childish voice and she nodded. “For what occasion?”

“It’s your birthday, remember?” she chuckled as she watched his facial expression change from confused to excited. He has always loved his birthday, especially since the day she became his girlfriend and always planned a day full of surprises for him. Rudy grasped her blue sweater sleeve and lured her towards him to kiss her lips tenderly.

“Mmm you taste like maple syrup.” 

“I may or may not have already eaten a waffle while cooking them,” she smiled, tilting her head to the side to give him her guilty puppy eyes, making him fall more in love with her. “I planned the whole day so you better start eating your waffles now because we’re leaving in an hour.”

“Did I ever tell you you're the best girlfriend?” he mumbled with his mouth full of waffles dipped in maple syrup.

“Many times, but I'll never get tired of hearing you say it, lover boy.”

“Good, because with such a good waffles recipe, you're stuck with me for a while, pretty girl!”

─── °• ❀ ───

Chase picked them up around eight pm in front of their apartment with his black truck, the rest of the cast were already at the the Pate’s house, decorating and preparing the cake. She had blindfolded his boyfriend and he kept asking where they were going every single minute of the trip like a child. He had done the same thing a few months ago when she took him skydiving for the first time, it was almost routine for her to hear him complain in the back of the car. 

“Stop asking, you big baby!” she said to him, turning her upper body toward the back of the car where he was seated. “It’s a surprise, I’m not gonna ruin it because you can't wait for a few minutes.”

He gave her his pouting face and crossed his arms on his chest, knowing she would not say a word to him about it even if he tried harder. A few minutes later, Chase parked his truck next to Drew's car. She walked to the left side of the car to opened Rudy's door, quickly kissing him on the lips and automatically causing a big smile to cover his pouty face. She guided him to the backyard with Chase’s help. He opened the back yard gate, letting them pass in front of him before closing it back so Lilah's dog would not run away like he did multiple times when they filmed the first season of the show. All the cast members were silently gathered in front of a multicoloured cloud of balloons and were holding a sign that said 'Happy birthday, Rudy!' 

“Okay, you can take your bandana off!” she said to his ear and he could feel the excitement in her voice. 

Slowly, he pulled his blindfold down and a wide smile slipped on his lips at the sight of all his friends singing happy birthday to him. He squeezed his girlfriend's hand while his friends were still singing and she couldn't help but let a few tears of joy run down her cheeks when she saw him so touched by the surprise she had planned for him. 

“Thank you for all of this, baby. I love you more and more everyday my sweet girl,” he whispered to her ear before leaning down to kiss her soft lips that tastes like caramel due to the caramel macchiato she drank in the car.

“I’m happy you’re happy, lover boy,” she said to him as he pressed his cheek against her palm, a smile at the corner of his lips. “Now, go hug your friends!” 

─── °• ❀ ───

After her and Rudy hugged and thanked everyone, they all swapped their clothes for bathing suits that would come in handy during their little boat trip of the afternoon. Jonas had let them borrow his boat, taking advantage of the fact that his children were with them to spend a day with his wife at the spa. Drew was at the helm of the boat while the others were all sitting on the benches, toasting to Rudy's birthday just before Chase announced that they were far enough away from the shore to put the tube in the water. JD, Rudy and Y/n were the first ones to shotgun a spot on the pneumatic tyre.

“Babe? Can you help with the zipper?” Rudy asked his girlfriend, frowning completely clueless.

“He’s twenty-two and still needs his girlfriend to zip his life jacket,” Jonathan mocked him, resulting in him being pushed in the water by a proudly smirking Rudy who quickly followed him the water, grabbing Y/n by the waist to take her with him. She surfaced quickly thanks to her life jacket, clearing her face of wet hair and sending a wince at her boyfriend. They all swam to the tube, splashing each other on purpose along the way. Rudy climbed aboard first and reached out his hand to Y/n to help her climb up. She sat between him and Jonathan, clutching a black rubber handle with one hand while the other was firmly intertwined with her boyfriend's hand. 

“Are you ready?” yelled drew, turning his upper body toward the back of the boat, his right hand resting on the wheel. 

“Aye aye, Captain!” Rudy screamed back and the boat begun to pick up speed. 

The water was splashing back in their faces and they could barely keep their eyes open, but they couldn't help smiling stupidly. The three of them let out cries of surprise and laughter every time they jumped a wave and almost got ejected from the tube. They could see Madison and Chase laughing at them while Madelyn filmed them for her next tomfoolery instagram post. Drew took a sharp right turn, dropping Y/n and JD on Rudy. She firmly grabbed her boyfriend's bicep after she lost her grip on the handle and pushed JD back up with her shoulder so he could settle back into his seat. Just when they thought Drew was done messing with them, he suddenly accelerated, ejecting them out of the tube like three little rockets. 

“You fucker!” Rudy shouted to his friend, laughing before turning towards his girlfriend. “You okay baby?”

“All good and still in one piece!” she replied, swimming back to the boat where Deion gave her a hand to climb up. A few seconds later, she felt a towel being placed on her shoulders and two arms wrapped around her waist. She smiled, turning her head to meet the face of her boyfriend who had pressed his chin to her shoulder. He placed a few kisses on her neck, making her squirm under his grip from the tickling of his lips against her wet skin. 

“Look at them! You guys are so cute,” whined Lilah, taking a picture of them. Y/n blushed while Rudy smiled proudly. “Can you send me the picture? I'm gonna post it on instagram.” rudy said as he grabbed his phone and sat on one of the benches while Chase and Madelyn were putting on their life jackets. She sat next to him, resting her head on his shoulder and playing with the hem of his boarding shorts, a gift she gave him for his birthday last year, right before he started shooting for Outer Banks. He quickly wrote a caption and posted the photo of them on his instagram, getting hundred of likes and comments only a few seconds after. 

‘My sweet girl. Thanks for the amazing birthday surprise! Love you to the moon and back, my love.’

“I love you too, baby,” she cupped his face with her palms and kissed his salty lips. “Oh, before I forgot,” she brought her face close to his and took her sensual innocent voice. “Since it’s your birthday, I’m gonna let you do whatever you wanna do to me tonight.”

His eyes opened widely and he cleared his throat. “Fuck, you’re gonna be the death of me, pretty girl,” he kissed her, nibbling at her bottom lip. “I’m gonna please you so much tonight that you’re gonna beg me to stop.” 

She smirked at him and grazed his crotch with her fingertips. “I look forward to it.”

─── °• ❀ ───

mila’s masterlist

taglist (send me an ask if you want to be added)

@milaonthemoon @spilledtee @pogue-writings @thebutterflyonhischest @ilovejjmaybank @bananasfromtarget @drewstarkeyobx @void-maybank @prejudic3 @pit-zuh @starlightstarkey @lefthandwritings @theonetheonlyalexbrown

[askyancy]

A choice...

OOC: Below the cut is extracted from the discord. A certain duo paid Yancy a visit in his time of need.  With this, our trio story is finally all wrapped up in a big bow and tomorrow brings a new story! We’ve been planning it for a while now and can’t wait for you all to take part and see what’s in store! Yancy - @askyancy​ Actor Mark - @actor-mark​ Darkiplier - @markimoojackaboi​

YancyYesterday at 7:05 PM

Yancy hadn't come back to his cell yet, having left Sparkles with Jimmy and Hank, a bit of high alcohol content hooch to drown out the worries. Yancy wasn't much for drinking, instead he'd wandered off... through the nooks and crannies, the holes in the walls and floors. Off to a small secluded and rather secretive location that only he knew of. It was HIS place..... His private hole in the wall. Several floors below the prison and so far away from it all that he could sing to his hearts content and not be heard at all. He'd been down here before.. many times... Yancys-studio was as isolated and alone as he could ever possibly hope for.....

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

He was pacing.... Back forth back forth. 7 steps left 7 steps back again. chewing on the end of his thumb. His brain wrought with worry, with conflict. All my fault... This is all my Fault He couldn't stand hearing that Bambam wasn't going to make it. They'd been updated after class. Bambams heart was slowing down... Doctors said it was just a matter of time. Time was all Yancy could hope for now.... More time.. just give them more time and maybe they'll pull through.... It felt surreal and tormenting knowing that there was nothing he could do. Not a damned thing. So he'd pace.... Pace and wear a hole in the concrete floor. The studio was a basement crawlspace of dusty concrete and piping, a support beam stands in the center and the whole little crook sits 2 floors deep beneath the kitchen. The far wall has been fitted with many small mirrors to make up one large dance studio-esque mirror. Not much to look at but it served the purpose. But Yancy wouldn't dare to look at his reflection as it stalked him back and forth across the room. over and over....

The cold basement hide away had almost completely still air, never really changing from part of the room to another. Cold that settled on top of the skin but never penetrating deeper than that. It was dusty. Even if Yancy cleaned it every day it would remain slightly dirty due to it's concrete walls, celling, and floor....

Yancy gave a shiver, the cold of the room prickling but it was more his unstoppable anxiety making his back tense up so much. He paused in his pacing, trying to shift his attention away. Maybe to tumblr? But doing so only reminded him he hadn't even touched it all day... One small post, an update on Bambam.... After he was done he slowly sank against a wall, knees to his chest and just hunched forward a little into them, burying his face to cry alone. He couldn't bare to be up there with the others anymore. Couldnt bare that sight of his own cell or knowing that Bambam's would be empty now. There was no way Sparkles would stay in there alone. Maybe they'd go stay with that Dusty person? He didnt even want to think about losing the rest of his family now Bambam was gone... but what if the gang started falling apart? Tiny was never really interested in any of them, Jimmy and Hank tended to stick together and Sparkles was very different from Yancy, and likely seeing Yancy would only bring up memories of Bambam..... Would he lose them all!?

He slowly pulled himself together and ran a hand over his face, standing back up and eyed his phone again... Maybe he could say hi to the discord folks? They should know too right? Then again he'd alerted the blog. they'd know... He found himself pacing again, the same track...  "You look a little lost, friend."

Yancy whirled around, straight for the exit and paused. .... No one? He spun in a circle, eyes all over the room. Not a soul.  "Wh-......." Had he just imagined it?  "Ohp Don't make yourself dizzy now!"  "Who's dere!?" Yancy growled low, territorial mode sinking in, ready to defend his little hidey hole.  "A friend~"  "YOUSE SHOW YOUSES SELF!"

There was n eerie echo in the room as Yancy's voice boomed out, it seemed to carry more than it should have....

"..... Wow. Angry little Tiger aren't we? " "Sh-shut up... Who are youse?" 

“What's with the weird accent?” "I SAID SHUT UP!.... Tell me who youse is!" "

....................................

 "ANSWER ME!" 

“Oh I'm sorry I thought you wanted me to shut up”

Yancy grit his teeth. "..... Youse just.. leave me alone... I aint in de mood"

Yancy backed up a bit away from the door. 

“Oh c'mon now friend. I came to offer you the help you so desperately need. Don't worry..er.. Yancy was it?”

 "It's Yancy..." 

“That's what I-.... nevermind...”

 "Where de heck is you--" He'd started turning around again but leapt half a mile back when he discovered a man standing directly behind him. 

“Ahaha Oh I'm sorry! Didn't meant to startle you friend!”

 "Wh-How..How did youse-... " His left hand was burning like he'd punched lava. 

“Best not to question the minor details. Just enjoy the ride!”

The man stepped closer and had the most sickening grin on his face. 

“Do you have any idea how long I've been trying to find you?” Yancy started to step backwards, his left fist curling tightly. This guy had the kind of face you just... couldn't trust. Bit of a douche...  "....wait.... y-"

"Oh?” the man grinned, eager to see if Yancy caught on that he'd met him before.  "Youse-.... Youse been looking for me?" Mark's face dropped. Wow what a dumbo. 

“Yes of course. Why wouldn't I wanna find the little "Golden Boy" that everyone's suddenly more in love with?”

".... more?" 

“Ahaha.. not to worry not to worry! We're all friends here at Happy Trails Penitentiary.”

"Yancy shifted slowly into a boxing stance, but kept his fists to his sides for the moment, ready to raise at a moments notice. "Who de heck are youse?" 

“Still talking like that? Youse? Its you. Eesh... Aren't you from Ohio?”

"Sh..shut up" 

“Hold on wait”

Mark pulled a script from his suit jacket and started flipping through it 

“What ending was yours? ... Life Sentence? .... No no....  I want to be free? That was it! Hm... Oh and Dance to the death too. You got a whole three videos how cute. Or was it four?....”

 flick flick.... "Wh-....what are youse even on ab-..." His left hand felt like fire, the skin turning red and he had to shake it off to the side, eyeing the lettering..... "....M... Mark?" 

“Aha! There you are! Took you a while but you got there! You almost remind me of someone ahaha!”

"Wh-....... " 

“Oh don't act so shocked. You already knew I was coming. They went and spoiled everything for you”

"Wh-Who? What? I didn't knows yous...." 

“your discord friends! They spoiled everything! ...Was really supposed to be a surprise but eh... Not like they can see you now.”

"_Yancy went wide eyed "H-.. Youse is on the discord?" 

“Of course I am! Why wouldn't I wanna chat to the wonderful, handsome, famous Yancy! The notorious killer! The brutal violent slaughter tiger! Such a cutie so precious so soft so sweet and so brutal oooof~”

Mark fanned himself and laughed, pacing around the room now. As he walked the floor seemed to change... Concrete turning to wood. Yancy stepped back and away from it, wary to touch it but eventually he ended up pressed against the mirror and unable to avoid it.

"You seem so afraid? Why? Where's all that gusto? All the bravado? the punch and the sweep!”

"Y-YOUSE KNOCK IT OFF"

"Oh calm down Yancy! ... Always the big softie. Youre supposed to be a brutal killer!”

"I aint any o dose t'ings youse callin me!"

"Oh? What about Ma and Pa? What about Frankie? What about-”

"DONT!"

"Oops touched a nerve!”

Mark paced slowly around him like a predator stalking prey. His reflection seemed to shake and show something different entirely.

"Wouldnt want to wake up that killer tiger now would we”

Yancy grit his teeth, stooping down to grab a left over stone from the floor transforming, making sure Mark was too in his own monologue to notice. "

“You're a violent and brutal villain, Yancy. Unlike that Illinois fellow. Or the captain! Both precious angels, heroes! Never did no wrong not to anyone! But you? You've killed FOUR people! FOUR!”

"St-STOP IT!" 

“And yet they fawn over you like a baby... Just like your mothe-”

The rock went sailing right at Mark's face with a fast baseball styled swing, he had just enough time to duck. The rock hit the glass of the mirror, leaving a crack. 

“Oooooooh!!! There it is! Tsk tsk Yancy! You gotta be more careful! Wouldn't want to make it five now would we!”

The mirror cracked and splintered, shards of glass falling to the ground and echoing through the dance space like crystalline wind chimes. It felt like the air was sucked out of the room for a few seconds, almost like an airlock seal breaking. Propped up against the wall was a humble broom that had seen better years. It had stayed in the same place so long that a spider had made its home in the space between the wood and the wall. Without warning, it fell forward, bouncing off the ground like it had been pushed roughly and it clattered with a sound that would be louder and more startling than a mirror cracking.. Yancy jumped and yelped at the crash of the broom. Backing up as far as he could go, his heart racing and his left hand burning like crazy.  "Y-.. L-Leave me alone!" 

“Oh but my dear, sweet, boy! ...... I came to help you~”

"Wh- h..help me?" Yancy's eyes darted to the fallen broom again, his defensive stance faltering, his footwork off, his fists barely tight. Fear gripping him by the shoulders. "I-..I dont want youses help!" 

“...buhuhaha.. You sure? What about poor Micheal?”he paused 

“Sorry.. Bambam. Cute name. Shame Evan and Sarah didn't get to be as involved but that's scheduling for you.”

"Wh-What de hell are youse on ab-.... G.. Go away! I MEAN IT!" 

“Nooooo you doooonnnttt~”Mark sing songed at him 

“Oooh! Nice acoustics in here! aaaaAAAAAaaaaaoooooohh~”

"............... J-...just leave me alone

"Oh alright alright ffffffine. Let Bambam die for all I care. Clearly you dont”

the squeaking sound of glass scraping glass as the mirror cracked just a bit more with every word out of Actor Marks mouth. The reflections seemed to blur and wobble just a bit like a layer of dew began to set in. As the mirror became harder to see through, the edges began to fog up, slowly moving to cover each mirror. The room was cold, unchanging in temperature. But it began to smell... wet. There wasn’t the sound of finger tracing a window, and yet Yancy could see in the mirror next to the mirror that shattered began to have the outlines of a word as if they had always been there.* L I A R

Yancy stared in horror as he watched the actor parade around his little studio. Mark leaned against the beam in the middle, placing a hand on it then watched as it proceeded to get a new lick of paint, slowly flowing over it top to bottom spreading out from where he'd touched. "W-wait..y..youse can..help?" He was watching Mark who..clearly wasn't leaving despite his words. Watching how he was changing his studio to be...better.... 

“We-hehe-ll of course I can!! Why else would I bother looking for you? Can't have previous baby Yancy all distressed now can we!”

Yancy's eyes traced the letters on the mirror that Mark hadn't noticed yet. Was Mark doing that too?  "Y-.........Youse can save Bambam?" 

“Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeelll...... Not exactly save BUT! I can bring them back. From what I can tell they're noit doing so hot right now. Heart beat's getting slower. Doesn't have long. I'd say maybe.. midnight?”

"Wh- NO!" Yancy rushed forward, paused and Mark grinned. 

“Course if they die, I can bring them back. No strings attached, no deals, no price, no currency, no favors, no nothing. how about it?” Mark held out his hand.(edited)

There was an eerie chill to the air as it seemed into his bones. The fog on the glass seemed to crystallize and freeze a little more. The mirror on the other side had the word.

C H E A T

But whoever was leaving messages didn’t stop at one.

M U R D E R E R

P O I S O N

F A K E

F R A U D

More and more as they began to clutter the available space. Something odd began to happen. The areas around Mark’s silhouette  became more crowded than the rest while the shadow remained unwritten, outlining him in words. Every single one of them being true. A crack from the mirror seemed to also, somehow, be on the wall behind it creeping below the frame... down almost all the way to the floor. Did he really throw that rock that hard?. Yancy couldnt move now as he watched in horror... Nightmare.. Just a nightmare. He got so many of them! That's all this was. He backed up to the wall singking down it and buried his face in his hands.  "N-None o dis is real.. Bambams fine.. I..I can wake up now.... dis is just..my head... ...m..maybe I am crazy" 

“Hey probably. I get told that all the time and yet it never really is true.... you on the other hand. All those murders? The fights? Eesh... How many times have you had a fight with Y/N now? Shall we check hang on”

Mark stepped forward, digging out a red phone.

"Lets see lets see.. how do we find you again...”

 Yancy was so confused, so stressed, he was shaking.

"Err... kay... guns blazing... chopper... rally... no deal.... aha.. 1,670,655 times! Wow! You're a real monster bucko- Wait what about the kills oooh the dance to the death how many kills now? 623,279 YIKES!”

"Wh-N-No I never.. I never killed dat many! I-I just.. deys was accidents! D-de ones I dids de-deys was-" 

“Oh buddy no no no no nooooo these are all documented on video. aha.. er... not that you'd remember them. You black out right? When the tiger hits. Happens.. time lines.. blahbalh wibbly wobbly. It's fine. Oooh that means we're approaching an ending! How about that! Means you get a choice bucko! Lucky you! So I'll make it simple for you" He held his hand out again 

“Deal or no deal? Green or Red. Left or Right. Take your pick!”

DarkiplierYesterday at 11:11 PM

*The Cracked Mirror launches itself off the wall like someone had fired it out of a cannon and against the back of Mark’s Head. It clattered around, shards splintering out and around his face like a helmet that would slice his cheeks or eyes if he moved too fast. The wall behind him had a large black crack, exactly the same pattern as what was on the glass.

You can say no to him.

Something only Yancy could hear even if he covered his ears. It was more than advice, it was permission. No glass touched Yancy, any that fell almost created a ring around his feet. The other mirrors followed suit, toppling off the wall creating a reflective floor of sorts. Broken glass everywhere, but none seeming to leave the frames. A hand shoots out from one just behind marks back, reaches up and pulls him down to the ground. Hard. The room goes black as soon as he hits the floor. The ringing from all the noise never seeming to fade or faulter. A low echo underneath it... stillness. Quiet. “I think that’s enough.” the man with no shadow said. Standing right under the crack in the wall that seemed.. to give off an unearthly glow.

YancyYesterday at 11:16 PM

Yancy cried out in surprise and fear as the world around him changed and altered again. His poor studio! He was curled up tight when the ringing started but when he saw who it was he quickly scrambled to his feet. Fists curling, not alone any more he could defend himself a bit better... Mark let out a growl as he hit the floor but it was quickly followed by a fondness 

“Daaaamieeeeen! Long time no SEE!”

The world around them pulsed, that red and blue stretching outward.... He'd gotten stronger... He was suddenly behind Dark.

"How long has it been? Two? three? ...... Four videos? ahaha~ Don't mind us, just a little chat between pals”

"M-Mr Ipliere?.... I-" 

“yes? .. huh.. oh youre talking t-.. OH! AhahahahahahAHAHHAHA! Really? Mr Ipliere~ cute”

Mark grinned at Dark viciously, dusting off his suit. 

“Ignore him Yancy sweetie. Your little Bambam doesn't have much time left. it's 11:15″

"Wh not it was just-" Yancy checked his phone still tightly held in hand. 11:15.. where had the time gone?

"You have 45 minutes to make a decision. Are you going to let him die and stay dead or do you want my help?”

DarkiplierYesterday at 11:23 PM

Dark’s image wobbled a bit. But he had gotten stronger too. He walked a little away from him and towards Yancy. “He does bad things to good people.” he said firmly. He looked at Mark. “Filling the mans head with more of your lies all to make his friend one of your little... pet projects. You’re lower than dirt.” he rolled his neck and continued walking towards Yancy. “There doesn’t have to be a war over this… His promise is an empty truth that will ensure Bambam’s demise...But... There is still time…Not much. But mayhaps enough.” He wasn’t in the mood for Mark shinanagins right now. He was a bastard and he nothing short of hated him. But there wasn’t time for petty squabbles

YancyYesterday at 11:28 PM

Mark gave an overly dramatic mock offended look 

O! Hey! I do NOT! Here I am offering this poor distressed man a deal of a life time. I'm here to help his friend from the inevitable fate they're spiraling towards. Look! Barely a beat now! They're hanging onto shredded threads!

 He gestured vaguely to the air as if Bambam was right there, but Dark would see that heart beat too...

"Shake my hand Yancy my boy. It's all you need and Bambam will come back fit as a fiddle

 "I-..." He back up. "I don't believe youse.... b-.... But I- I wanted t' speak wid youse again" Yancy put his attention on Dark "c-..Can youse help with Bambam? B-..before deys ..... before anyt'in bad happens?" he had the most puppy dog pleading look. "Y-..youse helped me before I-... Youse made a deal wid me that.. I collect at any time..w-..what if I do dat fer youse in retoirn?" "

Wait you two have met before?- Ohhhh of course you have, your stupid lil codes ugh..whatever... Doesn't matter. .... How do you put up with the dumb accent? The heck is that from.. New Jersey? Boston?

DarkiplierYesterday at 11:36 PM

Darks neck cracked. As he did, the floor beneath Mark cracked too with a loud boom. “Youre offering a vulnerable, terrified man a deal he does not understand.” he felt the heartbeat of the dying friend and frowned. “Yancy,” he said it correctly, “You are a man behind bars. The information I needed from you has already been used... what more could you have to offer-” he looked at Mark then back at him. “Time is creeping on us. Mark will let Bambam die and raise them. I... can stop them from passing. Long enough...” his nostrils flared. He wasn’t a charity worker. “Its his accent. That’s the long and short of it.” 

YancyYesterday at 11:43 PM

Mark rolled his eyes, childishly doing the mocking face and mouthing a copy of Darks words. 

Yes exactly. I can't stop them from dying but I CAN bring them back. Easy peasy lemon squeeze bish bash bosh hunky dory boom done. No fuss. No mess. No deals. No strings. No bargains. No reason of mistrust what so ever. Why is that such a hard offer to take!? I'm trying to help out a fellow Iplier here! Or is my name tattoos on your hand not a good enough reason to trust me!?

Yancy blinked, then his eyes shot down to his left hand. Still burning ridiculously hot. The areas around the letters felt like theyd blistered but they hadnt. Punching Mark square in the face might help.... "I-...." He frowned. Something about this guy. It felt off.. Bit of a douche.. no.. lot of a douche... The closer Mark got the more his tattooed fingers burnt. Kinda like that harry potter kid. "...Mr Ipliere...y-...youse can help Bambam? I dont..want dem to die at all... not evur... p-please..if..if deres anyt'in youse can do I-... I might be behind bars but I can gets out easy enough!"

"That's ilegal. You could go to prison for that

" "...... I-.. we-...." Poor Yancy. He shook his head "Please.. I-.... I'd do anyt'ing..."

"OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH no no no no nNOOO you do NOT wanna offer that right off the bat eesh. Make him work for it at least! Besides, you can't trust this guy! He's the villain here! Look at him! all...spooky" Mark wiggled his fingers

" That and have you any idea how much fuss this guy has given me? They burnt down my entire home!

Yancy frowned "Sometimes shit happens.. youse gotta forgive the past" 

I COULD NEVER FORGIVE THEM FOR WHAT THEY DID TO ME!!!!

Marks anger was explosive, the entire room rumbling and the crack in the wall daring to shatter again, it felt familiar... at least for Dark.

DarkiplierYesterday at 11:57 PM

Darkiplier listened, weighing his next move carefully. Markiplier was a terrifying man, but an easy to provoke one. One of those faces you can’t trust. Dark looked like he had done some bad things in his life too but wouldn’t lie if he was asked. “Im -your- villain Mark. You spun that fate for me long ago....” It was his turn to roll his eyes, but somehow it looked more dignified on Dark. “I hardly call an en mass extermination of thousands of undead you had created to serve your bidding is truly a crime. Last I looked, your house still stands.” Marks explosion was enough. “What I did to you.... that’s quite possibly the funniest thing you have ever said. And woefully not my problem.” He looked at Yancy. They held a moment together eye to eye. He had already agreed. And suggesting that he would do anything in return, there’s no better deal than that. The room became pitch black. “Im terribly sorry about your hiding place, Yancy... let’s see what else we can repair this night.” Out of the goodness of a changed heart? For the Iplier name?... spite? His motives were unclear. But Yancy would suddenly feel like he was being pulled backwards gently... slowly away from him. 

ITS TIME TO WAKE UP

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

Yancy staggered backward with a gasp, spinning on the spot, confused, dazed, looking around for any sig of the two men he was just with... He wasn't in the studio anymore??? What had just..happen-..... Had he been sleep walking? He turned and spotted Sparkles fast asleep on the upper bunk, an arm hanging down. Their pillow wet and clearly passed out from eventual exhaustion. Poor thing.... His heart was racing but slowly he began to relax. Just.... Just a dream? a nightmare? Sparkles was in his cell though so the ...news on Bambam still rang true?..... His own bed was still made and untouched from the morning. So.. no.. He hadn't been asleep.... Then wh-

"Oh... hey! What're you doing awake at this hour?" "Wh- Ah- I was- I-..er.... Bad dream?" Yancy sounded tired enough to make that believable, that and this was often a case so...  "Oh... you ok? you look exhausted buddy" Officer Free wandered closer "Try and get some rest yeah- oh and er- We were gonna save it for the morning but uh- since youre up. .... They took Bambam off the respirators about an hour or so ago? They say they're really improving. Got a good chance and.. might even wake up in the morning. They're hopeful"  "WH- AH!!" Yancy went wide eyed and rushed to the bars, startling poor Gavin who put his hands up to fight -dumb considering there were bars in the way- but Yancys hands going up in surrender had Gavin put his down again 

"so-sorry officer I j- youse..said deys..gonna be ok!?"  "Yeah! should be right as rain mate!" Officer Free grinned, happy to have been the one to deliver the news.  "er but er... maybe tell ole glitter guts the news in the mornin yeah? Poor geezer could use a good nights rest"  "y-..yeah youse is right.. m'gonna..... try n sleep myself" "Lucky" Gavin smirked and they fist bumped though the bars "No sneakin off. I catch you out I'll whap ya- wapow" officer free swung his baton around but it was in jest and Yancy knew this. Gavin was a good officer...  They parted ways and Yancy sat down slowly and quietly on his bunk .... 

Bambam....... 

They were gonna be ok............ 

 But now that meant he had a debt of anything to pay to the Man With No Shadow....

[hakuoki-dreams]

I seriously love your blog and always get super excited when I see you've posted something new! Anyway! I've realized that I am as tall/taller than most of the Shinsengumi members, and I'm wondering what they'd think about an SO that's you know... taller or as tall as them. What do you think? Love love love your blog, your hcs and your writing and can't wait to read more from you!

Thanks so much @inquisitorwinchester! This is such a fun request!! I’ve been wanting to write some HCs about this for a while now--we can’t all be Chizuru-sized (love u babe but damn girl u tiny) So here we go, for a random handful of the romanceable guys:

Toshi-

Will be really attracted to the confident way you carry yourself because of your height

If you’re also the type to be independent and do things for yourself, that combination would make him pretty weak

Finds it harder to boss you around when you can stare him down from the same level, which is quite enjoyable for you to watch him come to grips with

He’s usually pretty hands-off and professional with you in public, but will slip an arm around your waist now and then since you’re the perfect height for it

Sanosuke-

It’s definitely all an adjustment at first. He’s used to dating women who are at least a head shorter

Will realize his signature head-pat move doesn’t work as well when the girl’s almost at eye level

Kissing is finally comfortable for him though; he doesn’t have to bend down super far to reach you, which is sort of amazing and a new feeling for him

He’s very much a leg man, so even on a superficial level he certainly could appreciate being with a tall woman

You two also bond over being above average height for your respective genders, swapping stories about the difficulties of finding clothes that fit right and being expected to do the tall-person chores

He loves the thought of settling down with you and imagines with pride how tall all your kids will be

Shinpachi-

It really throws him off in the beginning

He used to think he didn’t really have a type, until he fell for you and realized he’d always gone for petite girls in the past

It makes him uneasy that you’re close to his level, because it means he can’t hide his expression as easily when he gets nervous or embarrassed around you

Still, he really enjoys that you’re tall enough to be a physical match for him

He’s super proud of his physique but tends to be overly conscious of the size difference between him and most girls, not wanting to come on literally too strong with anything

The fact that you’re taller lets him hold back less when you’re kissing or fooling around

Hajime-

He’s not a tall guy, so he’ll be fairly used to running into women who are near his height

Will appreciate that it puts you at perfect hand-holding levels with each other

Sometimes leans his head on your shoulder when he’s tired or feeling affectionate

Might seriously suggest on more than one occasion that you should consider taking up some kind of martial arts or kendo training, since you have a good build for it

It’s the highest of compliments coming from him

Keisuke-

It’s not really something that’s on his radar

He’ll definitely take note of how tall you are, but he won’t treat you differently or feel a certain way toward you because of it

Does like that you can sit and talk to each other eye-to-eye; it’s a little thing, but it makes him happy

Will sometimes ask you to fetch things for him from high-up places and then chuckle to himself at his own dorky joke

Souji-

He’s more into it than he wants to own up to

It’s part of why he gives you such a hard time about that particular feature of yours, poking some fun at your long arms and legs

When you’ve got him at your mercy with enough kisses and affection, he’ll reluctantly admit that it’s not so bad

Likes the way your bodies line up easily during cuddles and sex

Has a running joke that he misses seeing the top of your head and will sometimes pull you down with an arm around your shoulder so he can put a kiss there

Heisuke-

He’d be lying if he said he was 100% secure with his size. But he’s basically come to terms with it by now, thanks to many years of maturing and personal growth

Realizing he has feelings for a girl who’s taller than him might undo that a bit

Inwardly will curse his luck

At first, things like you putting your arm around his shoulders instead of the other way around will make him really chagrined, though he’ll do his best to keep it together in front of you and especially the other captains

He’ll definitely feel a need to prove his manliness to you, even more so than usual

Heisuke’s already the first one to dive into a dangerous situation, but once you’re together it reaches a whole new level

It’s not just recklessness on his part. He’s used to being underestimated by other guys, and part of him will wonder whether you have the opposite problem--that people assume you can take care of yourself because you’re tall and imposing for a girl

He definitely won’t make the same assumptions and in fact will work even harder to protect you, to show how much he cares for you

Susumu-

Thinks it’s pretty hot actually

Like Toshi, he appreciates how confident and self-assured you come off as because of your height

He’s mature enough that it wouldn’t really bother him if you were slightly taller than he is, except in the moments when he’d have to lean up a bit to kiss you

Really into your long legs, and though he’s shy about admitting it out loud, it’s super obvious to you

He’s also a fast walker and used to getting places efficiently when he’s on duty, so the fact that you can keep up with his pace without even trying is a nice bonus

[savrenim]

I'm so jealous of your gay elf murder bachelorette campaign that I now desperately want my own. Any recommendations on how to find people to play D&D with? I have several friends who are interested, but none of us have any questions experience (between my secondhand experience of reading about your adventures) so we don't know how to get started

oh gods so apparently I have A Lot Of Opinions and it got really long, so under the cut, also thank you for reminding me that I should probably properly type up the finale of Gay Murder Elf Bachelorette Campaign Book 1 because it was freaking epic and this is the one campaign that I can properly rant about on tumblr without worrying about spoilers

(I’m in three campaigns right now) (by complete accident) (on the one hand it’s a bad life decision in that I have zero free time anyways with grad school, but on the other hand it has become my sole social interaction with anyone ever and also coping mechanism for the stress and one good thing I do for me and, like, they’re not all weekly campaigns, so hours-per-week I’m devoting isn’t ridiculous) (and I miss my friends and it’s re-connected me with them and also has introduced me to upperclassmen in the department) (but sometimes there are character secrets and people who potentially follow me on tumblr so I can’t post the super long dramatic things about a character that I really want to)

OKAY SO HOW TO GET INTO PLAYING

I will be real, the three campaigns that I am in right now are the first time I’ve played DnD for anything that lasted longer than a week and a half at a summer camp type deal, like, arguably, this is my real first time playing DnD….ever. That being said, I’ve worked at gay theater camp for….six years now? And they do super intense super in-character LARPing that is far more roleplaying-heavy than mechanics heavy and has trained me to both have very good story instincts of, like, “this is how you make decisions that both fit with your character and support the narrative instead of oppose it, and either do not tear the party apart, or tear the party apart but for a very good and fitting narrative reason (i.e. if there’s going to be strife, make it mean something)” and in my opinion it is when you bring those sorts of instincts to a DnD game that you get the most satisfying story out of it. Character creation, team cohesion, and story and world development are all things that I do feel super comfortable speaking about because that is my literal jam outside of my math jam which is paying for me to be alive and stuff. So here we go.

There are a couple of questions that you need to immediately answer, the first being, “do you want to play Dungeons and Dragons, or do you want to start with a mechanically less complicated system?” Because there are a lot of pretty good systems out there that are high fantasy even (i.e. Dungeon World) that are a lot more streamlined in terms of “you don’t need to be as familiar with a set of rules in order to play.” That being said, Dungeons and Dragons is classic and is fantastic and I freaking adore it. (I will be completely honest, the only other two systems I know right now are Dungeon World, which is fantasy, and Mech Noir, which holy shit you are playing noir style detectives except in a SCI FI SETTING WHERE YOU PILOT MECHAS and the entire game system is around applying “adjectives” to people like, if you successfully roll against an enemy, you get to pick any adjective you can think of ever from “grappled” to “trusting” to “confused” to “located” and it just makes for such interesting storytelling)

which vaguely brings me to my first piece of real advice: you learn how to play best by witnessing playing happening. if you are a podcast person, I highly recommend either The Adventure Zone or Friends At The Table (or, honestly, if you have the time, both). The Adventure Zone plays DnD, 5th Edition, and it is a super quality family who are goofing off and having fun together and then the plot that arises is like “oh shit I am crying about a wizard named Taako, pronounced taco, how did this happen to me” and it’s great. The Adventure Zone is 100% the reason why I reached out to friends and was like “yoooo is anyone starting a campaign because TAZ has made me want to play again.” Friends at the Table starts with Dungeon World and it is some of the best storytelling and worldbuilding I’ve ever heard? And you will learn so much about how to set things up and go with the flow and the DM talks a lot about his process as offhand comments and you will learn so much. I’ve heard good things about Critical Role, but haven’t listened myself. But get out there, listen, and then don’t be afraid of copying things that you admire. Best way to learn.

If you’re going with Dungeons and Dragons, start with 5th Edition. 0th, 1st, and 2nd are all ridiculously unbalanced, 3 is “actually everyone uses 3.5,” or a combo 3.5/Pathfinder. While 3.5/Pathfinder is a great system and is what we’re playing both in gay murder elf bachelorette campaign and in the math grad departmental campaign, and was the game that I learned on, 5e is a lot more streamlined and they’re aren’t super picky exact rules for every tiny thing you could think of doing, which means you don’t need to be familiar with a vast system full of loopholes and counters and counter-counters to know how to effectively play the game. we don’t talk about 4th edition

Decide who is going to be the DM. There are sometimes comic stores that’ll run weekly or biweekly or monthly games of DnD, but those are almost definitely going to be less story-based and usually are one-shots? And if you’ve got a good group of friends, I recommend just playing with them and not trying to find an external group that you don’t know. I’m vaguely assuming that you’re volunteering to be DM because you’re asking? But if there’s someone in your group of friends who likes writing things or likes managing things or is interested, or if people want to take turns trying stuff out, go for that. The department group rotates DMs (and rotates games) just based on who has something written that they’re excited to try out.

You also might want to ask around to see if there are any people that you vaguely know, or that are friends of friends, who play. You’d be surprised how many people do. I’ve also seen blogs on tumblr sometimes going “hey, I’m running a Skype campaign and I need two or three more players, if people are interested fill out this survey and then depending mostly on times people are free but also what you say about what you’re looking for from a game I’ll pick the players?” or if y’all are in college there is almost always a DnD club somewhere, hidden semi-secret on campus, on the register to get club funding but under the radar because nerds. But you and your friends who are semi-interested will work just fine, as long as semi-interested means they’re actually willing to commit for a bit. So how do you get started?

Get the Player’s Handbook, and the Dungeon Master’s Guide, and read them cover to cover. If you’re playing and not DMing, eh, skip this step, and have the DM do it instead, but the Dungeon Master’s Guide especially will walk you through how to set up things mechanically very well and if you’re going in blind it will be good to have gone through and read it all once. I’ve read the 3.5 DMG cover to cover several times, haven’t read 5e yet, I know that I didn’t like their storytelling tips, but read through it once to get an idea of what mechanics might look like, it gives very good starting mechanical advice.

1. Speed and smoothness of playing are important, which means that sometimes, if you don’t know a rule, you want to make something up on the fly and deliver it with a completely straight face. Everybody does homebrew. Rules are great because they keep things from devolving into chaos and they can settle disputes, but also, sometimes you’ve just got to make a call, and if you make it while looking like you know what you’re doing, everyone will believe you. Similarly, don’t make the same rolls, or the same number of rolls, for NPC characters as you would for PCs. For example, in gay murder elf bachelorette campaign, when Iria was both directing a full assault on a hobgoblin fortress as well as had put herself on the special strike team that was going to sneak in and open the portcullis, the DM made ~one or two rolls~ to see how successful the Caedic units were at each of the points of Iria’s plan, instead of rolling a full battle between ~40 hobgoblins and ~80 elves. screentime is important; if you’re spending too much time on not-the-players, it gets boring for the players, so roll enough dice to decide what’s going on with a tad bit of luck and so it seems like other characters have rules that they have to follow, but you don’t have to let the rules dictate every single thing that happens in-world. you dictate that.

2. Character creation is how you set yourself up for success. Do not underestimate the importance of party dynamics. You don’t all have to be playing best friends or even people who get along–in Spelljammer, Marian and Djin had the character backstory of “ten years ago we were captain and co-captain of a vessel and for Reasons got into a huge fight over nothing and split and Marian took half the ship with her and she thought she’d never see him again but now oops they’ve both ended up jobless on the same station and Marian was already pooling as many resources as she could to try to put together a new ship and Djin arrived a couple months into this and needed the work so joined this ragtag democratic crew, but there’s a shit ton of tension.” This worked because we were snippy to each other in dialogue, when push came to shove, Marian is professional enough such that her whole deal is putting personal feelings aside always no matter what, and Djin takes the passive in passive-aggressive super seriously, so it never meant that the party was sitting around arguing for hours or refusing to cooperate. Meanwhile, I’ve seen and heard of campaigns falling apart because “there are two thieves and one really wants to get to do all the sneaking so they argue all the time over who gets to do cool stuff” or “the evil fighter literally just wants to murder everyone which means everyone else can’t get stuff done.” You can have intra-party strife and have it be interesting, but only if players are doing it cooperatively instead of being at each other’s throats irl. Rule of thumb: if the party dynamics are frustrating the other players, you are doing something wrong.

2.5 That being said, if a party starts to develop into bad dynamics, it is fixable without betraying character! For example, in the department campaign, I’ve been playing a super sheltered youngest child elf wizard from a super established Elvin wizard family (of, like, oh the arcanic postlines that let mail be sent around the continent? Grandpa came up with that theory. Schools of magic identified and classified originally? That was the Maewels) so Seraph is a tad bit privileged and a tad bit sheltered and is uppity sometimes. There was a fighter in the party who liked his alcohol, once missed a huge battle that the rest of us had to cover for him because he’d seduced two women at the inn we were hanging out at before the town was attacked, and typically did things like walk around in the morning with no pants on. And he proceeded to interpret Seraph’s increasing shock and disdain for him (or rather specifically, how upset she was the first time she saw him pantless) as “yeah all women go for me.” The party was vaguely splitting into “Seraph’s side and Silas’s side” so I decided to aggressively interpret one of the battles we went through together as a bonding experience and lo and behold Seraph’s feelings started to change over the next couple of weeks to “you might be an inconsiderate asshole but you’re OUR inconsiderate asshole so only we are allowed to rag on you” and she became one of his biggest supporters esp when they got to his hometown. All you really need is one super solid, proactive player in a party to make sure that things are resolved in a solid manner, so if you’re not the one DMing? Be that player.

2.75 Okay but if you’re DMing, have the conversation with your players as they’re designing their characters about point (2) because good party dynamics are easiest when you get it from the start.

3. Design encounters around the party. You don’t need a traditional setup of “a tank, a mage, a healer, and a thief” to have an effective and fun party. Maybe everyone wants to play a thief, great, design the scenario to be “you have all been contracted by the thieves’ guild to sneak into this party and assassinate this noble, you have three days to prepare and these resources, make a plan” instead of “this is a traditional dungeon crawl where you are fighting big scary monsters despite the fact that none of you are melee fighters.” Similarly, figure out what sort of stories and settings and aesthetics your players are interested in, and then play that game.

4. Make it personal. Ask people about their backstory and then incorporate stuff in. Notice what they become invested in and adjust your plans to include more of that. Give characters individual arcs that fit vaguely into the overall story, but also that they are the semi-protagonist of. Right now in Spelljammer, we’re all dealing with “so there are weird tears in the universe that Password, this Extinct AI we found and befriended, says are reminiscent of literally the entire universe ripping apart at the seams and are possibly why the Extinct went extinct, oh and some random lady gave us this artifact called the Eye and told us to hide it from the Blind King? And now his servants are hunting us? We are literally scav elves this is so above our pay grade.” Except going on as subplots, Algol is being hunted down by this evil overseer of whatever place in Echoside he originally escaped from, Leif got a stone that gives her prophetic dreams, Kimi has been super close to Password and Leif dreamed about them stitching the universe together, and Marian is dealing with an "oh shit I’ve accidentally adopted these three kids even though I don’t do personal” along with “oh god have I literally become the captain of this ship because I AM THE ONLY ADULT LEFT” along with some old friends from her past trying to reconnect just after we got a prophecy about how the last thing the Blind King would send to steal the Eye was someone we loved turned against us. So yeah, sure, there are big Adventure Plotlines going down that involve the entire party, but we’re not doing things just to do them, everyone is personally invested in this for their own reasons. So when you plan a big adventure, both plan places where individual party members get to start both for who they are and what they can do, as well as along the way keep an eye out for things that you can tie in for them.

5. Consequences matter. And not just stuff like “Iria got stabbed really bad first session and nearly died, now every time she goes into rage at the end needs to roll a fortitude save to not fall unconscious, and whenever she rolls a one same deal.” But also consequences like “you were really rude to this person and now they don’t like you and they are friends with the owner of the apothecary, who now also doesn’t like you and marks up prices behind your back” or "you let one of the patrol escape and now the whole army knows that you’re coming” or “you saved this kid’s life even though you were in enemy territory and now five years later he recognizes you even though you’ve been captured and is making sure that the party is taken prisoner instead of killed.” Make NPCs (non-player characters, ie characters the DM controls) recurring characters instead of people that you meet once, and have the way that the NPCs feel and then interact with the players change based on how prior interactions go. Have them care about things and have them remember. It makes the world feel a lot more real.

6. Preparing for a session goes petty much "how much do you like improv”. If you’re chill improvising, you want written down the stats of the monsters/enemies your players are potentially going to encounter, and probably a vague idea of goals, and then just play it by ear. Jeremy (the person running gay murder elf bachelorette and spelljammer) has I think at this point 13 “Books” written for gay murder elf bachelorette campaign, will write long descriptions of characters, settings, has maps drawn, has customized his own random encounter tables, has made his own homebrew system for how spaceship mechanics works specifically so that we could better piece together our spaceship with fantasy duct tape during the Death Races, and overplans every last detail all the way down to “has different musical themes that he’ll swap out and play at different times.” like, Iria has a Trauma theme that is played every time her wound starts acting up. He has collected music for books in advance. He has multiple different theme songs for each of the players in spelljammer. He writes notes about what NPCs are thinking so that he can reference it later. But that’s because he knows that he prefers the things he comes up with when he has time to plan things out, instead of when he’s surprised. He knows his own storytelling style. “eh, an outline and some monster stats” would not work for him the same way that I’ve seen it work for other people. You don’t have to put a ridiculous amount of prep work and writing time into being a DM, you need to figure out how much prepared material you need to run something comfortably, and then prepare that much.

6.5 Understand no matter what you plan, bits and pieces will probably be derailed, and be okay with that. Nothing is more upsetting than when a DM does not respect player autonomy and invalidates the clever things they think of, because it goes against their own plans. I think being a DM/running a story is sort of halfway “you’re writing a novel” and halfway “oh shit except this time the characters ACTUALLY have minds of their own” and striking a balance instead of dominating the narrative makes it fun. Also, it means you can throw in problems that you have no solutions for. During the Death Races in spelljammer, our battery started running out of plasma, which meant that the pressurization was getting all wonky, Leif immediately goes over and says “I have a spell called Reduce Object, can I cast it on the internal casing to try to up the pressure of what little plasma we have left” and Jeremy goes “uummmm sure if Kimi is over there to help you rewire the rest of the battery on the fly because you are SHRINKING HALF OF ITS PARTS” and then that held for three minutes until oh shit it was still low on plasma and Marian ran over and went “wait a second guys I have a Flaming Sphere spell except Jeremy, Jeeeeremy, I’m technically a plasma variety of Light Cleric, my ~god~ that ~gives me my divine magic~ is the collective of star dryads which live in balls of plasma, we’ve established prior in this setting that some of my fire spells are actually plasma spells, not fire, Jeeeeeremly can shove my hand into the empty battery casing and cast a flaming, 10-foot in diameter ball of plasma to try to give us a fuel boost” and Jeremy went “okay fuck it, stick your hand in the battery and cast a flaming sphere of plasma to give the ship a fuel boost, Leif, make another concentration check to hold the pressure.” and it did and we won the race the end we’re the coolest space elves ever. moral of the story: your players will come up with clever things. Sometimes clever things that mess up your plans. Let it happen, it’s more fun that way.

(Iris has come up with a truly heinous but potentially really effective military tactic that gay murder elf bachelorette campaign is actually a bit more delicate because it’s set in a larger world that Jeremy is running multiple other campaigns in and I’m still not sure if Iria is legit going to be a villain that I face off as a good PC one day, or if she’s a historical figure, or even whether or not this campaign is set in the past, but either way the history of this world matters? and the idea that I came up with has the potential to re-shape history? and I told it to Jeremy and he was quiet for a very long time and then thanked me for telling him and so Iria told Talvus in-character and we’re going to see whether or not in a couple of books this ends up changing the entire history of the world that he runs multiple campaigns in or something drastic like that, but hey, player wants to do something you haven’t thought of, “I didn’t think of that” is not a good enough reason to not let them do it.)

7. Decide if you want to write your own adventure, buy/find online a pre-written one, or vaguely do something in the middle. If you’re going for something pre-written, edits bits and pieces as you go to personalize it to your characters. I have a friend who just wrote and published something for DnD 2nd Edition? And it looks great? http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/229248/War-Wizards-of-the-Wasteland Even if you don’t play a pre-written adventure, reading a bunch of them will give you an idea of what preparing for sessions is like and what sort of information you should have on hand.

8. Don’t be afraid to make up home-brew mechanics, either for the whole party or for an individual player. Jeremy ran a vignette session called “Flight of the Kalla Tukal” in which we were playing a trio of orcs that had fallen through a tear in space and had just managed to get back and were searching for our tribe, which left without us. Except in his setting, orcs are a super psionic almost hivemind race? You meet orcs outside of radiation space sometimes, but they’re usually Not Coping Very Well with the fact that they’ve been cut off from their community. But the Kalla Tukal were still all linked together so we weren’t all going mad. then the other part of being psychic orcs meant that we could at any point attempt to do telekinesis or mind-control something, and the way that it was determined whether or not that worked is roll a d20, except we’re not trying to get 20, we’re trying to roll as close to each other in number as possible. There was one dramatic moment when two of us rolled 4’s or something and it was a critical success. but it was so cool to have that weird drift-comparability mechanic, and, like, the more people in our group that wanted to contribute, the more likely two people were to roll the same number. it was just?????? so cool??????? so if you want your party to all be psychically connected and be able to throw stuff with their minds I totally recommend that.

on a more personal/one-player level, in the department campaign, it has developed that Seraph really wants to be a research wizard like her family before her, and so the DM and I had a long conversation about the topics that she would want to research and a particular narrative impetus for her to start researching, and he came up with five or six new spells that Seraph will be able to invent over the course of the campaign, except because it’s experimental magic it’s going to start out with a 40% partial-to-total failure rate that will go down the more she tries to cast the spells, because hey, she’s working out the kinks. to me, it’s more than “oh this is a cool new mechanic,” it’s the DM cared enough to take the time to work with me and put what I thought was interesting into the campaign. and you have a lot of room to do that by adding your own rules and conventions and what-not. don’t be afraid to experiment, see what works, and then keep those mechanics around.

9. Start small. Don’t try to start with a whole huge epic campaign, you want to start by running a bunch of mini-arcs in different settings so that you get a feel for how to play and how to run things. This also gives you a chance to figure out how your group of friends plays, who is going to be the person that gives you the most scheduling problems, some of them might like the fighting parts more than the “come up with clever plans” or “interact with NPCs” parts, and this will give you an idea of who you actually want in a long-term campaign. Because long-term campaigns go on for years. Like, gay murder elf bachelorette is probably going to be a year and a half if Jeremy and I keep going at this pace? and that’s vaguely on the short side for something that Jeremy runs. A proper full epic campaign can be a huge time commitment, so start out with mini-arcs just to have fun and get used to stuff and because that is something that people will actually be able to commit time to.

I interrupt this long list of advice for another list of advice of potential ideas for miniature campaigns you could run for your friends. or one of your friends could run, if they’re interested in DMing:

COOL IDEAS FOR ONE-TO-FOUR SESSION MINI-CAMPAIGNS THAT I CAME UP WITH RIGHT NOW OR STOLE FROM FRIENDS WHO CAME UP WITH SUPER COOL THINGS

  —as mentioned in a previous bullet point, “you’re a group of thieves planning an assassination. this is how much money you have. each of your characters has one character connection in the city who can help you get items or forge a document etc etc. this is what the castle looks like. this is what you’ve figured out about guard shifts and security for the party. you have a week to plan. go” and then, like. somebody wants to try to pretend to be a noble to get in? fantastic. someone wants to try to seduce a guard? fantastic. sneaking in the traditional way? fantastic. all three at the same time. faaaantastic. it’s fun, it’s short, the way that you would prepare this is you would think about guards, defenses, patrols, maybe some of the nobles at the party are trained in magic or have weird special teams of guards and maybe have agendas of their own, and then what the actual ball itself would look like and maybe make a castle map, but the fun part of this scenario is the players get to be as creative as possible and I guarantee they will think of the coolest things and then you get to figure out how to react to those things in interesting ways to figure out whether or not they work.

  —okay this is a one-shot I have only heard legends about but everyone was playing a rock band of monsters who were about to give a super huge concert in monster city and I think someone had stolen a drum set or a guitar or something and they were trying to dodge paparazzi and get their instruments back but it was also ridiculous sex drugs rock & roll culture and a comedy one-shot that apparently was the coolest thing in the world, but you can’t go wrong if you start with “crazy monster rock band superstars”. during the sequel they went on tour to the human lands and I think wrecked a couple of cities.

  —this one is stolen from TAZ but fantasy WWE, the intro plot setup that is exposition in the first 10 minutes was “a friend of yours who is a famous wrestler just had her partner assassinated before the biggest match of the year, one of you has been asked to fill in for the match, another as the manager, and then the rest of you are trying to solve this murder mystery super quick because your friend is worried she’s the next target”

   —honestly any sort of “huge gladiator/fighting tournament but there’s drama and foul play going down behind the scenes” makes for a really good short arc. there’s a game that actually Jeremy invented that is played irl at gay theater camp called “bloodrush” which is such a ridiculous game, it’s….vaguely fantasy football except everyone also has daggers and swords and stuff and you are allowed to stab members of the other team but only when they’re holding the ball, although cheating is basically a requirement when the refs’ backs are turned, oh, by the way, the refs are vampires. there have been cases at camp where teams waiting in the bleachers for the next match enemy teams have crept up behind them and slit all their throats with foam daggers while the refs were watching the game, or poisonings, or just. anything you can think of, it’s gone down. my little brother once jumped on the biggest baddest counselor’s back, stabbed him in the shoulder, snatched the ball from him, did a front roll, and ran off, and scored a goal and that is one of his proudest moments of his life to this day, basically what I’m saying is you can’t go wrong with “bloodrush tournament” or whatever your own crazy fantasy sportsball game you want to make up and play.

   —“we are a bunch of archeologists who have a little bit of combat or magic training but not too much because mostly we’re archeologists and someone poked a button in a pyramid and oh god we’ve accidentally summoned an ancient race on monsters that feed on human souls, which also apparently there’s a secret military conspiracy that has been watching this site to try to stop these monsters and have come here to contain them but oops also are ready to murder ALL OF US because WE have human souls, now we’re trying to run and hide from both groups and figure out if we can find anything to banish the monsters again” (this is 100% stolen from a LARP written by a friend of mine) (I’m pretty sure same one who wrote the monster band one-shot, actually) (they’re a really good writer, okay)

   —PRISON ESCAPE. Think Guardians of the Galaxy 1. You can’t go wrong with a prison break game. character design will be so fun. I swear I thought of stuff like this separate from Jeremy. Jeremy’s writing a prison break game and has promised that I get to play Captain Jennijack, a genderfluid space pirate who totally woke up in this prison a week or so ago and doesn’t for the life of them know why they are here, there are, like, eight or ten possible things they could think of but they’re not sure which one they’ve technically been convicted of, and I am holding him to that.

   —Honestly, you have a book that you like? A movie? A TV show? One that you haven’t convinced your friends to watch yet? (or one that you have and they will recognize halfway through.) STEAL THAT, write and run a fanfiction game, it’ll be fun.

ADVICE PART 2: PREPARING FOR A LONGER CAMPAIGN ONCE YOU’RE COMFORTABLE DMING AND HAVE FIGURED OUT THE GROUP OF PEOPLE THAT HAVE GOOD CHEMISTRY AND DYNAMICS AND WANT TO STICK AROUND. I’m assuming you want advice for getting something vaguely like gay murder elf bachelorette to run, so I’m going to talk about broad story-based things that I think are important for setting up good stories?

10. Scheduling is key and what is most likely to mess you up. Pick your players carefully, pick people who are invested and who will turn up. If there are people who didn’t get along during your mini arcs, or who just had very different expectations of what the game should be like re fighting/mechanics and roleplaying balance, don’t put them in the same party. Picking a party isn’t about picking your friends, it’s about picking people who work well together as players, and whose playing style matches your storytelling style. You’re better off with less people but who are super quality players and share a vision with you and get along, than letting someone into the game that’s going to mess stuff up for everyone because of outside-of-game social politics. It’s just not worth it. Not when this might go on for years.

11. There’s something really powerful about a story that isn’t about the Chosen Ones, but instead you’re just a group of people who were at the wrong place at the wrong time and now oh shit it’s on you to save the world. Epic campaigns generally become epic, like, you invest that much time and energy into something and by the finale you usually are saving the universe, but be willing to start out not special. Let specialness develop.

11.5 There is also something really powerful about there sometimes being problems that magic can’t fix. Or that just aren’t fixable. If you haven’t read the Young Wizards series go read it and cry.

12. Write in arcs. This goes along very well with starting small, but have there be different parts of the campaign that are semi self-contained as you slowly build up to something bigger, this is also where you start dropping in personal arcs. Arcs also allow you to change up the feel of the game and keep things interesting and keep people on their toes. The Adventure Zone does maybe the best example of how to have self-contained plot-driven arcs that build to something eventually cohesive, all arcs with their own unique setup and flavor. (The Adventure Zone: Balance is a really great game and I really do advise you listen to it, it’s ~70 episodes but it will get you used to the mechanics of 5e, and holy fuck is it a story.)

13. Don’t be afraid to steal plot points from your favorite things. Hell, don’t be afraid to steal the entire plots of your favorite things. Especially if you’re worried about your own writing skills or creativity or whatever? Fanfiction is freaking great, and it’s fun; some of the best games I’ve ever played have been fanfiction of super obscure things that the writer has afterwards told me what it was fanfiction of and it was so freaking fun to go read/watch the original after I’d already played an even cooler version???? It’s also pretty easy to start out fanfiction and then through developing personal arcs and following party interest, ending up with a story by the end that is entirely original and you. So write fanfiction if you don’t have any ideas, or honestly, if your fanfiction ideas excite you more than when you sit down and try to write with a blank slate.

14. You’re not limited to a high fantasy setting. Honestly, standard high fantasy/dungeon crawl stuff has gotten pretty boring for me? (although the department campaign is pretty cool, but that’s only because it’s high fantasy but we slip in jokes like “Seraph marches downstairs in her pajamas and channels her mother to start yelling at the innkeeper about the utterly terrible customer service of getting poisoned, non-consensually, and that she would like to speak to the manager of the local thieves’ guild to lodge a complaint” because even though it’s high fantasy, it’s funny. TAZ does really good high fantasy too because of how they weave a whole bunch of other stuff in.) but, like, YOU CAN DO DND IN SPACE. you can do modern urban fantasy. you can go post-apocalypse. you can go post-high-fantasy-apocalypse. you can play a supernatural style game. it’s your world, make it whatever you want.

14.5 It is possible to play things that are mechanically the class in the book, but have a different interpretation in the setting. Or just to works differently in the setting. in spelljammer, elves don’t have gods, and I vaguely developed over the course of a couple of months an old belief system that was pretty old even when Marian was a kid that she just pseudo-learned and didn’t quite believe but is now revisiting, and the difference between divine casters and arcane casters is actually just “magic is vaguely a part of physics and most arcane casters are tinkerers who are doing it via weird cool gadgets or are pseudo-scientists/engineers in their training and approach to magic, while for divine casters it’s more of an internal, feelings-based thing.” I’m also very very excited because I have developed a super intense and specific lore that is canonically what elves used to believe and what Marian believes, but might not actually be how the world and death specifically works at all, so I’m bouncing up and down on my feet waiting to discover what’s going down behind the scenes with gods in that campaign, instead of it just being “oh yeah choose your gods from the gods in the book.” in the department campaign, Seraph is from a family of wizards and thinks that she is a wizard even though she is actually an arcanist, because the world doesn’t have words different types of casters esp niche types of casters yet. the DM and I are planning for it to be a huuuuge surprise now that she’s leveled up enough to have access to “arcanic exploits” which are at-will abilities that wizards don’t have, and it is going to be an in-character process of her discovering that she can do something that according to the known laws of magic she shouldn’t be able to do, and now oh shit she has to research it. even though mechanically, we’re going pretty much entirely by the book, the book doesn’t exist in the world! characters don’t know what players know! make it interesting to discover things that you as a player might otherwise take for granted!

14.75 make magic and fighting sound cool, and design how you describe it to be specific to the setting or the culture. in gay murder elf bachelorette campaign, the way that Caedic casting works is you first have to draw a rune in the air that then hovers there all glowy, and then you “thread the needle” which is projecting power through it in a very specific manner, I’m pretty sure that Surrians cast differently, magic works different in different parts of the world. having a melee fight scene? describe how people exchange blows back and forth or let them choose how their killing blows will look or just make them feel like badasses whenever they try to do a cool thing because it’s cool. I am used to playing magic/caster characters just because I generally am more familiar with magical mechanics than fighting mechanics and magic has always been more interesting to me but holy crud I have never had a fight scene so fun as the one when Iria had led a researcher from the Black Lotus Labs to a fae font that she’d found scouting in the woods and this seaweed creature eventually attacked them and she did a badass holding it off with her scimitar an then Vennikus, the researcher, tried to throw a cold iron knife at it but missed, and so Iria, who had been training in two-weapon fighting, saw the knife, did a front roll underneath the monster’s next swing, picked up the knife, exchanged a flurry of blows with the thing now two-handed fighting which eventually ended with her doing this super badass throwing both weapons in the air and catching them to switch hands, leaping on the things back, slashing so deep with her scimitar that it finally got through all of the seaweed and cleared it before it could get back to a weird, pulsating green heart, which then she drove the cold iron blade into all the way up to its hilt. which was so much cooler than “oh shit I rolled a crit on my scimitar hand and confirmed it and I guess that deals enough damage for this thing to die,” nah, I drove a cold iron knife into that thing’s pulsating heart and so that’ll be a scene that I never forget. Even when I miss Jeremy makes me sound cool because then when the enemies miss he talks about how good my footwork is or how well I’ve drilled to block these exact kinds of blows so the Surrian had no chance because my training kicked in type deal. it makes fight scenes more than just rolling dice, and thus easier to get engaged in.

14.8725 I swear I didn’t start out this essay as an “I’m going to sing the praises of Jeremy for several thousand words”

15. It’s always interesting when you have mechanical reasons for players leveling up. Or for what their classes are. That’s always a tricky one to balance, and it’s one that I’ve been doing aggressively as a player? And to be fair, if your players start out with young and fairly inexperienced characters, “I am gaining experience at doing a thing” is a perfectly good narrative reason to level up. You want to play an older character? One of my friends is playing a 150-year-old orc who was a Great Adventurer back in the day and retired to take care of great-great grandkids and is back in an adventuring party now but wheeee is starting at level 1 because they’re out of practice oh, and they have bad knees. There’s also always the option of “I hurt myself real bad and I’ve been recovering,” leveling up isn’t ~gaining new experience~, it’s slowly getting better through whatever your injury is. or just you can write this off as an unavoidable mechanical aspect of the game, eh, not that important, I just love it when tiny details match up. This isn’t actually an important point, I’ve kind of moved on to the “picky details that I care about” second of this advice rant.

16. Make the unexpected important. JEREMY GAVE ME THE MOST ADORABLE PET SPACE OCTOPUS AS A FAMILIAR AND I HAVE BEEN ASSUMING THAT VELO IS JUST VELO AND THEN JEREMY MADE SOME SORT OF A SIDE COMMENT ABOUT “YEAH VELO IS NOTHING LIKE YOU’D EVER HEARD OF BEFORE” AND YEAH DUH BECAUSE THE LIL’ BUDDY WAS SUMMONED THROUGH A MYSTERY SPELL IN A MYSTERY PIECE OF EXTINCT TECH BUT NOW I’M FREAKING PARANOID OUT OF CHARACTER THAT VELO IS SECRETLY AN EMISSARY OF RAT JESUS OR SOMETHING. but also just, like, nothing is cooler than “oh that tiny thing that happened when you were level 1 that you didn’t really think much of and it’s just been vaguely a thing you’ve carried with you for the adventure? turns out it was the most important thing in the world!!!!!” just. good foreshadowing. unexpected foreshadowing. it’s great.

17. Your players will invent stuff, either as a part of their backstory or as something that they’re interested in. Let them, especially if you don’t have a previously established canon opinion on the thing. This is 100% a self-serving thing of what I wants DMs to do when I’m a player of, like. I really love getting to write stuff into the setting, but also it’s because good improv means go with the flow. Someone says something? Work it in, oops, it’s canon now. This can be both on-purpose or accident; in the department campaign, I wanted to write in-character letters to an NPC in my backstory from the beginning, except goddamnit I didn’t want to have to deal with “and it’ll take a couple of months for the mail to travel across the country to get to them,” so I made an offhand reference in the email that I was sending the DM the letters of “can we say I just threw them in the arcanic postlines,” which then, like. After doing this about five times I sat down and wrote out the exact magical theory about how arcanic postlines should work considering how we’d said that they function in-game and the DM went “okay, sounds great, that’s consistent with how we’ve been dealing with these letters for the last two months” and that is why the fantasy world of the departmental campaign has a highly functional postage system. On the improv end of things, there is a beautiful moment in The Adventure Zone where the wizard just, in-character, teases another wizard about “ooooh, don’t want to burn your spell slots,” and the DM just went with it and suddenly it became canon that instead of spell slots being a behind-the-scenes mechanical thing that doesn’t exist in-world, it was a legitimate way that wizards referred to how much magic they could cast a day. Which I love so much, that’s so interesting for a high fantasy setting. Letting players add to the setting will bring in cool new things that you didn’t think of, and you should be open to it.

18. First priority is everyone should be having fun, and communication is key for that to work. Debrief sometimes after sessions. Ask people what their favorite parts are. listen to them chat about their theories. follow up on actively developing framework for the things that people think are fun. ultimately DnD is as much about friends getting together and having a good time as it is about telling a huge, epic, intricate, interconnected story, and the huge epic stories are a lot more fun if you’ve been having fun the whole way along.

All that all being said.

Don’t expect your campaign to look like gay elf murder bachelorette campaign, the way that I am playing in gay murder elf campaign is…..a bad way to play in a party? Being a conscientious player means being aware that the overall story arc isn’t just about you, it’s weaving together about everyone and there is always a part of me that is thinking about “is everyone getting equal screentime” and going “I AM IN LOVE WITH THIS NPC JEREMY SHE’S SO GOOD AT FIGHTING OH MY GODS THAT MURDEROUS LOOK SHE GETS WHEN SHE’S FACING OFF AGAINST SURRIANS AND SHE DOESN’T THINK ANYONE IS WATCHING JEREMY I AM IN LOVE” and, like, actively going over to try to talk with her any time I had the chance to ever and insisting on sparring with her any time we had free time and insisting on having a bunch of scenes with Talvus of “oh my god Talvus help she said three whole words to me what does it mean” which made all this the gay mess that it was would have been something that I wouldn’t have done if there were other people in the party with other agendas; gay elf murder bachelorette campaign gets to be gay elf murder bachelorette campaign specifically because Jeremy and I realized “….wait, there are only the two of us, we can get as ridiculous with this as we want” and have decided to commit. Fully. But that’s not the sort of shit you want to pull if there’s a whole other group of people who just kind of have to sit and watch every time you want to go over and flirt with your murder-rival-who-will-maybe-one-day-be-your-murder-girlfriend before they can do the stuff they want to do.

(As a secondary warning note if you’re doing any sort of roleplaying and are playing a fictional character in love with another fictional character being played by a friend of yours, you better be on the same page as your friend as, like, one of you not having a secret crush on the other in real life because shit gets messy and then real life and character stuff starts to blend and it’s just. I have been there and done that when I was a 17-year-old Gay Mess and I feel like it is my responsibility as a 22-year-old Slightly More Responsible Gay Mess to warn you against that. Jeremy and I know each other very well and have for years and know each other’s boundaries and talked about triggers and boundaries before starting this campaign, which to be fair was more because as a villain campaign dark stuff is probs going to happen but we have talked about fictional romance too , but I would not play this intimately with someone I didn’t trust intimately. So keep that in mind when designing things?)

ALSO THAT BEING SAID

if you want a gay elf murder bachelorette campaign, there is a game called Monsterhearts that I have never played but heard about friends playing and they all freaking love it and there are a lot of undertones about dealing with mental illness and being queer and in the closet and the entire setup of the game is y’all are monsters in high school having love life drama and everything I have heard about this game is how remarkable it is combined with stories about the most ridiculous teenage drama, sooooo possibly after I have ranted for 8000 words about how to set up a functional Dungeons and Dragons campaign which the party and DMing advice still I think applies to any game Monsterhearts might be the game that you want to start with.

BONUS: ADVICE FROM JEREMY.

[inevitably-johnlocked]

Hi Steph! I'm new to the fandom, could you please share with me the best Johnlock fanfics (in your opinion)? There is so much of them I'm lost... and I don't know which are the 'legendary' and 'must read' ones. Thank you so much!

Hi Nonny!

First of all, WELCOME!! I hope you are enjoying your time here!! OH GOSH, okay so funny thing, I’m actually currently making a list of ALL of my favourite fics ever, because someone else asked me ages ago, and now I have 5 other people asking me LOL.

As I explained in this post here, many people have already made great lists of “the best fanfics” in the fandom… But of course I’m stupidly picky about my fics.

Anyway, since I’m already working on an entire list of my biggest most fave fics ever in every place everywhere, how about for now, since I’m due for it, I give you my last bookmarked fics since I last did a list last month? I hope these will tide you over Lovely! In the meantime, you can also check out my ‘my fic recs’ blog tag, and I’ve a tonne of lists, some of which you can see here. 

I-J’s Last Bookmarked Fics (July 2017)

Upon Reflection, Tenable Frippery by emmagrant01 (T, 1,299 w. || John’s Beard, First Kiss, Fluff) – John was, inexplicably, growing a beard.

Gigantic by BubbleGumLizard (E, 2,135 w. || Size Kink, PWP) – John seems to avoid Sherlock seeing him naked. Sherlock wants to fix that.This is porn. Part 19 of Mystrade NaNoWriMo 2015

What He’s Like by magikspell (E, 2,919 w. || Love Confessions, Fluff, First Time, Inexperienced Sherlock) – Realistic first time. They love each other so much.

Straight Shooter by nefariosity (E, 3,249 w. || Est. Rel., Light Dom/Sub, Military Kink, PWP, Bottomlock) – Sherlock has a military kink. John indulges him.

The Prize We Sought Is Won by deathfrisbees (E, 4,610 w. || First Time, Mild D/S, Oral, Military Kink, Bottomlock) – Sherlock’s in love, or in lust, or both–unfortunately, the object of his affections is not only his completely oblivious flatmate, but said flatmate would probably run screaming into the hills should he find out. John’s been invited to a wedding–unfortunately, the groom used to serve under him back in Afghanistan, and requests that John wear a uniform he’s honestly not sure he fits into. Unfortunately for both flatmates, Sherlock’s got a military kink the size of Kandahar and John wants to know if he actually can fit into this uniform or if his eyes are deceiving him. It goes from there.

Facade by distantstarlight (M, 4,715 w. || Fluff, John’s Beard, No-Shave November, Grumpy Sherlock, Clueless Sherlock) – Sherlock is highly irritated with a challenge John has agreed to undertake. Why does he need to grow a beard anyway?

Telling the Bees by siennna (G, 5,174 w. || Fluff, Beekeeping, POV Sherlock, Love Confessions) – It took a beat of silence for the words to settle in, before both of them realized what John said. “You—” Sherlock started. “I—” John said at the same time. “Love me? You love me?” Sherlock asked faintly. Part 3 of sienna’s favorites

The Death of Doubt by Gingerhermit (E, 6,584 w. || Alternate Canon, BAMF John, POV Sherlock, Sherlock’s Mind Palace, Hurt/Comfort, Angst/Drama, Meddling Mycroft) – Mycroft asks for John’s help in rescuing Sherlock from his Serbian captors.

Illogical, even. by magikspell (E, 9,119 w. || Grey-Ace Sherlock, Character Study, Growing Up, Victor Trevor, Romance, First Time/Kiss, Sherlock-centric) – Five reasons Sherlock never believed in love and one reason he does now.

With This Ring by Quesarasara (E, 9,121 w. || Est. Rel., Marriage Proposal, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Idiots in Love, Embarrassing Hospital Visits) – Sometimes even the best of plans go wrong. And sometimes wrong turns out to be exactly right.

The Painted Man by jinglebell (E, 9,894 w. || Tattoos, Scent / Tattoo Kink, Rough & Tender Sex, Fluff and Smut, Obsessive / Jealous Sherlock, Touch Starvation) – Here stood John Watson – middle name, Hamish, ex-RAMC captain and field medic, favourite brand of jam: Duerr’s, preferred toothpaste: Mentadent. Loyal, steadfast, interesting John had just done the most unpredictable thing merely by being.John’s body was covered, neck-to-waistband, shoulder-to-elbow, in tattoos.

Confidential by sussexbound (M, 10,654 w. || Epistolary, John’s Journal, First Kiss / Time, Fluff, Self-Acceptance/Discovery, John’s Sexuality) – When John accidentally stumbles upon the Confidential file Sherlock’s been keeping on him he is both angry and curious. What he learns about himself, though–well, that changes everything.

At the Edge of Desire by philalethia (E, 16,375 w. || Post S3, Pining, Arse Worship, Humour, First Kiss / TIme, Sexual Fantasy, Awkwardness) – While helping John move back in to the flat, Sherlock discovers a strap-on among John’s things. He finds the discovery considerably difficult to move past.

Tomorrow’s Song by agirlsname (M, 24,645 w. || Post-TRF, POV Sherlock, Angst with a Happy Ending, Virgin / Repressed Sherlock, Love Confessions, Slow Burn, Pining) – How can he think a relationship with me would be a good idea? I am the sort of person to take a break from my life and when I come back after two years, I expect to find it exactly as I left it. In reality I find it shattered to pieces. (I actually equate you with my life. When did I start doing that?)

Where Else Would I Be? by cwb (E, 34,910 w. || Retirementlock, Domestic Fluff, Falling in Love, Parentlock, Fluff and Smut, Reminiscing) – John and Sherlock’s five-year-old granddaughter spends the weekend with them in Sussex. Sherlock happily indulges her whims, and John takes care of them while quietly revisiting the past thirty years of their lives together.

Left by lifeonmars (M, 45,153 w. || Magical Realism) – John Watson is left-handed. He’s tried not to let it affect his life, but as any Lefty knows, that’s almost impossible. {{for some reason this wasn’t bookmarked??? I’ve loved this story for years and apparently I didn’t bookmark it??? News to me.}}}

Bridging the Ravine by SilentAuror (E, 58,883 w. || Post S4, Couple For a Case, Bed-Sharing, First Times, Confessions, Awkwardness, Sex Trafficking) – Sherlock and John go undercover at Ravine Valley, a therapy centre for same-sex male couples in an investigation into a possible human trafficking ring. As they pose as a couple and fake their way through the therapy sessions for the sake of the case, it quickly becomes difficult to avoid discussing their very real issues. Set roughly six nine months after series 4.