#10 people you'd like to know better game

[startrekfangirl2233]

Thanks for tagging me in "10 People I'd Like to Get to Know Better" @hederasgarden!

Last Song: Divinity by Porter Robinson and Amy Millan

Fave Color: Violet

Last Book: My Lady Jane by Brodi Ashton, Cynthia Hand, and Jodi Meadow

Last Movie: Sonic the Hedgehog 3

Last TV Show: High Potential

Sweet/Savory/Spicy: Savory/Mildly-Spicy (I like spice but not too much of it). Sweets are special treats for the most part

Relationship Status: Single

Last Thing I Googled: My lady jane book (I forgot who wrote My Lady Jane)

Looking Forward To: Hanging out with my best friends sometime soon. We were supposed to meet up this weekend but it might not happen because of the snow.

Current Obsession: James T. Kirk (The Chris Pine one), Thunderbirds Are Go!

No Pressure Tags: @sarahsmi13s @horseshoegirl @desert-fern @sugarcoated-lame @a-reader-and-a-writer @cherrycola27 @teacupsandtopgun @withahappyrefrain @dakotakazansky and anyone else who'd like to join in!

[thebestsetter]

Thinking about Isagi Yoichi, the hero of Japan and biggest egoist on the field, being a complete loser when it comes to the girl he likes.

Like, he may insult the opposing team's players (and even his own teammates sometimes!) in the field, but gets all red and stutters when he needs to talk to you.

Isagi Yoichi who is absolutely delusional. If he holds a conversation with you for more than 5 minutes, you can bet he's gonna think about it during THE WHOLE WEEK. His friends can't escape his feelings either: he's always talking about you or associating things with you. Like: "Oh, she would like this!" Or "You guys won't believe it: we talked for almost 10 minutes today!" Please save Hiori and Bachira. They can't take it anymore. (Well, Bachira doesn't really care, but Hiori is really almost losing his shit.)

This absolute dork would listen to love songs while thinking about you and then get all blushy after, hugging a pillow while stuffing his red face on it and everything. And heaven forbids anyone enters his room after you compliment him! He's kicking his feet, screaming, crying and laughing all at the same time. SPECIALLY if it's a compliment regarding his football abilities. Say something along the lines of "That goal today was amazing, Yoichi! It was such a smart play!" and he's melting and thinking about it through the whole month.

Speaking of football, he'd LOVE to see you in his soccer games/practices cheering loudly for him. I mean, he's already absolutely smitten for you, but seeing you there screaming because of his goal or smiling because of a play he made just makes his obsession love for you grow 10 times bigger!!

He'd even ask his mom for advice on what to say to you! She thinks it's cute her little boy is growing up (even though he's already 17), so she tries to help him the best she can. But there's just so much mama can do. He tries to follow her teachings, but, as I said before, always stutters and trips over his words, which makes him feel really stupid and almost give up on love, since it's a "very hard and painful feeling that just hurts people" (his words).

When he finally musters up the courage to ask you out on a date (after a lot of insistence from Hiori, who is just really tired from all of this), he wants it all to go perfect. He has it all pictured in his head: he'll ask you to meet him in the back of the school after extracurricular activities so he can ask you out. He'll have flowers and everything, and then he'll say that speech he spent the last 14 days memorizing. You'll say yes with a smile in you face (he's already blushing just from imagining your smile, he really is down bad) and then you'll live your happilly ever after together.

Spoiler alert: nothing went as planned. First, the letter he wrote asking you to meet him in the back of the school got wet because he accidentally spilt water on it. So, he had to make a half-assed substitute letter to put in your desk.

Second, he forgot soccer leaves people all stinky. So, at the end of practice, he had to choose between taking a shower and showing up all drenched and late and showing up sweaty and smelly. He choose the former, after all, showing up late but presentable is better than showing up early but looking like you got shit on by a racoon.

Third, when he finally got there (you were almost leaving, thank God he caught you just in time!) and apologized for being late, he gave you the flowers. He thought nothing else could go wrong, but things can always get worse than they already are. But I don't blame him for not knowing that things could, in fact, get worse: how was he supposed to guess there were literally bees in the flowers? To get rid of them, he tried to shook the bouquet, but accidentally ended up throwing it at your face. With bees and all.

You screamed. He screamed. He grabbed the bouquet and shoved it away, looking at the ground and wishing it'd just swallow him whole. He messed up his chance, you'd never ever even look at his way again. You hated him, absolutely hated him. You wish he was dead, you were going to change schools just to never see him again, he's the worse person ever-

Huh? What is that sound? You're laughing...? You're seriously laughing?

You laughed. He got confused.

He looked up. You were throwing your head back while wiping away the tears that got out of your eyes. You were clutching your stomach because you were laughing so hard it was starting to hurt.

You laughed. He laughed.

You both looked like maniacs. Lunatics. Laughing alone in the middle of nowhere. You looked crazy he WAS crazy. Crazy for you. Not that you knew it at that time

He then decided to just shoot his shot and finally asked you out, without flowers or memorized speech. He didn't even think you'd accept, he just thought it wouldn't hurt to try.

Imagine his face when you said yes. Even with the shitty proposal and embarassing moments, you said yes. And he was absolutely delighted. You gave him your number so he could text you the details about the date, and he was seriously shaking. I'm being for real, his pupils were blown wide and he was almost crying from happiness.

He went home jumping and skipping from happiness. Now, he wasn't just a loser. He was a loser with a date, so that makes him less loserly (at least that's what he thinks).

You accepting his proposal didn't make him talk less about you. Actually, he was now talking about you more than before, if it's even possible. Hiori felt like killing himself (he was happy for his friend, of course, he just didn't want to admit it).

This fic has a "sequel", it's this one

Masterlist

[captain-huggy-bear]

Priorities

Pairing: Quinn Hughes x Fem!Reader

Warnings: Illness/comfort

Summary: When Quinn gets a text from you 2 hours before his game, he shows where his priorities lie when he drops it all for you.

Series: Teacher Reader series

Notes: I am not very well atm and I had to drive home dizzy from work the other day, the idea of Quinn being there to help has been stuck in my head so have some self indulgence from me.

A kind of sequel to In Sickness and in Health but you don't need to read that to read this.

Totally happy to take requests/ideas/prompts at the moment in my ask box :)

Writing Masterlist

He's already at the rink getting ready for the game in the locker room when his phone goes off. You don't actually ring him, clearly doing that thing you always do where you're trying to not bother him on a game day, instead you send a quick text message. He expects the usual:

'Good luck on the game today, baby!'

Instead, the text he gets has him picking his phone up and calling you back in an instant, worry clouding his judgement and making his hands shake slightly.

'Hey, so guess who's being sent home because she's dizzy and can't breathe? I had my head between my legs for 20 minutes, definitely can't stand and teach. Have a good game x'.

You drop the good luck at the end like he's not supposed to be worried, like you've just casually told him about the weather and not that you we're struggling to breathe.

It doesn't really matter that Tocc is giving him the look, the one he reserves for when he's annoyed at the boys, or that half the locker room have stopped their own pre-game, pre-warm up routines to watch their captain frantically call you. He's pacing back and forth, bouncing on the balls of his feet as he waits for you to pick up the phone.

"Quinn?" You sound so incredibly breathless its like listening to an asthmatic 80 year old who's smoked for half their life. Except you don't smoke and you're not asthmatic or 80 which makes the whole situation about 10 times worse because you shouldn't be struggling to breathe. You should be doing better today.

You've been ill, he knows this, a chest infection he forced you to get meds for on the weekend. Meds which should have started working by now, a heavy dose of antibiotics and steroids which were supposed to have helped. You'd felt well enough this morning to go in and give work another go, but he regrets letting you do that now. Clearly trying to stand up in front of teenagers and talk was not something you should have been doing, not when the school day had only started half an hour ago and you were already being sent home.

"Baby, are okay?" You're sitting on the front steps of the school with all your things when you answer the phone to Quinn's worried voice. You keep telling yourself you just need a minute, just a minute and then you won't feel so dizzy, won't feel so breathless. Just a minute and the tingles in your fingers will go and your hands will stop shaking so much. Just a minute and then you can drive home and get into bed.

"Y-yeah, I'm...I'm just breathless. I'll be okay...they're...they're covering my...my lessons and..." You stop for a minute, taking big deep breathes, you sound so laboured on the phone that Quinn can't help but clench his phone tighter in his hand, "and I'm going home now." Your breaths are wheezy, just like Saturday, in fact he's certain you sound worse.

"How are you getting home?" He knows the answer before you say it and he hates it before he even hears it. You're dizzy and breathless and there is no way you should be driving home at all, but he knows you. Self-reliant to a fault, a martyr, always pushing yourself past the point of no return because you think you're fine, because you convince yourself you're fine. Because you don't want to inconvenience anyone or cause more problems. You ask to little of people around you, expecting barely anything despite all you give.

"I'm...I'm going to...to drive."

"No. You're not. I'm going to come get you." You want to protest a lot more than you do if you're being honest. But, you're so tired and it's so hard to breathe and students wandering in late to school are staring at you like you're having a break down. So your protests are relatively lacklustre by your usual standard. That actually worries him more.

"It's...there's like 2 hours before the game...you've...you've got warm ups soon." You hate the idea of him missing warm ups or god forbid the game, all because you were too stupid to realise you shouldn't have gone into work in the first place.

"So, I'll get you, take you home and come back to the rink and play. I'll walk to the school tomorrow and collect your car so you don't have to worry about it. But, you aren't driving, baby. If you even try to get in that car I will being fucking pissed. I love you, you do not get in that car." You know he's serious in that moment, not just because he's very rarely angry at you or anyone but himself, outside of the rink, but because he's got that clipped tone he only uses when he's serious. This isn't a request, it's a direct order and you have no intention of disobeying it, not when you know he's right...not when it makes you feel warm and fuzzy inside that he's so insistent about your wellbeing.

"But, what...what if you miss warm ups?" He loves how much you support him and his hockey, he always will, but he hates that your first thought is that hockey should come first. His girlfriend can barely breathe right now and he quite honestly doesn't give a flying fuck if he misses warm ups. The team had to pull themselves together at some point and you came first. Always. If they couldn't manage warm ups without him then what was the point of paying them so much money?

"Warm ups aren't my priority, baby. You are. Do not get in the car. Do not drive. Do not move. I'm leaving right now, okay? Just sit on the steps of the school and take deep breaths." He's already grabbing his keys, not even bothering to change out of his gear other than putting some proper shoes on so that he can actually drive. He knows it'll spark some speculation and rumours, Captain of the Canucks storming out of the arena 2 hours before puck drop in full gear except his skates, but he doesn't fucking care about that right now.

"...Okay...thank you, Quinny. I love you." You say it because in that moment you have never felt so loved, to have someone drop everything, something so important, to come get you...Maybe its the meds, maybe its the breathlessness, the infection, but you feel like crying a little because of how sweet he is even when he's bossing you about.

"I'll see you soon, baby. I love you too."

He doesn't waste time once he hangs up, just turns straight to Tocc and tells him, "I'll be back."

The look he gets is a mixture of disbelief, frustration and confusion and he really can't blame Tocc for it. Not when Quinn is the captain, the player that seems to make a massive difference on the ice, and he's about to run out the doors 2 hours before the game? Yeah, he knows Tocc doesn't want to hear it.

"Quinn, where you going? We have a game in 2 hours?!" He knows he's going to be cutting it fine with Vancouver traffic and getting to your school, the apartment and back to the arena, but he's not letting you drive. He could live with missing a game, losing a game, but he couldn't live with himself if he let you drive home and something happened. His job was to look after you, if he failed at that? What was the fucking point?

"Tocc, I'll be back. I promise. But, right now my girlfriend is unable to breathe and dizzy and I'm not letting her drive home, okay? Sooner I leave, sooner I come back."

Maybe it's the insistence on Quinn's face, the reality that if he was forced to stay he wouldn't play well anyway. Maybe it's that you and Tocc get along and he can see a hint of concern in the other man's eyes or maybe Tocc just trusts him that much. But, he actually agrees to let him go. Not that Quinn could really be forced to stay. They'd have to tie him to the bench.

"Okay, I'm trusting you."

"Thanks."

Quinn ignores every single person he storms past, every employee, every fan outside, every person with a camera that starts asking him where he's going as he starts his car with one destination in mind. Maybe he seems rude, maybe he seems standoffish, but he doesn't really care because right now you are sat on the steps of a school struggling to breathe and he just wants to see you and get you home and into bed.

He doesn't even care that he knows Tocc is going to be questioned about his absence or that he can already hear his phone pinging with notifications from social media, most likely people asking where he was going and speculating.

'Just saw Quinn Hughes storm out of Rogers Arena in full gear, finally got fed up of his team?'

'Um, is anyone else panicking that Hughes just left the arena like 2 hours before puck drop?'

'Captain Lexapro has officially lost it with this team, just stormed out of the arena!!'

He tries his best not to break any traffic laws getting to you, despite the fact he has a lead foot that wants to press harder on the accelerator. But, he knows you'd hate it and you'd worry more about him getting a ticket, so he just grips the steering wheel tighter until he's turning into the school car park.

He doesn't try to park in a proper space, just pulls up as close to you as possible before hopping out. Your head is between your legs, shoulders rising and falling in laboured breaths and he feels like he's been punched in the stomach at how bad you sound.

"Oh, baby..." He's kneeling on the dirty ground within seconds and you try, through broken gasps to tell him he'll get his hockey socks dirty, but he doesn't listen to you, just reaches to pull you into a hug.

"Let's get you home, okay? Tomorrow we're going back to the doctors, okay?" You're leaning your head into his shoulder so heavily that he's worried you might actually pass out. It's like the moment his arms wrap around you, you just give up on holding yourself up. In truth, that's kind of what happens. You just want to lean into him, soak up the comfort of your boyfriend lighting petting your hair and whispering into your ear.

"Don't y-you have...practice?"

"I think I can fit the doctors in around practice, baby..." He doesn't tell you, but he'd forgo practice for you. He doesn't care about anything but how you're doing and you're not okay. Quinn can see that better than anyone.

"Alright, up you get..." He stands first, hands reaching for yours to help pull you to your feet. You sway before him like you're on a 16th century galleon in a thunderstorm, forehead plonking on his chest heavily, "Atta, girl. There we go." He just strokes your hair and back while you wait for the dizziness to pass, he knows each second will make him later to the arena but he's not going to rush you when you're struggling just to stand without fainting.

"Alright, let me get your stuff and then we'll take it one step at a time, baby, okay?"

"O..okay...one step...at a time." He tries his best not to let go of you completely as he bundles your work bag onto his shoulder. Quinn is as quick as he can be with it, before pulling you under his arm and helping you inch step by step towards the car.

It's slow going, every few steps you get a little dizzy and he waits for you to nod before he pushes you forward again. You're drained, dark circles under your eyes and skin losing some of its usual colour by the time you reach the car.

Quinn had purposefully pulled up the car with the passenger side facing you and you're thankful not to have to walk around the car as you brace yourself against the door for a moment. Quinn helps ease you into the seat, reaching over to put your seatbelt on for you and adjust the headrest so you can lean back. It eases some of the weight in your chest.

"Nearly home, okay, baby?"

You just nod, exhausted as his hands cup your cheeks tenderly, spreading a soft sort of affection through your already aching chest. He's so gentle as he looks down at you, fingers rubbing circles in your cheeks, but he looks so worried and you feel so guilty because he shouldn't have to be that worried.

"You've been so brave, baby, you're so brave...soon you'll be in bed and you can watch the game and sleep, okay?" He knows you'll want to watch the game if you're sat at home, mostly because you watch every game he plays even if its on catch up, but also because he knows it'll reassure you that he made it back in time.

You nod again, blinking up at him so tired that he can't help but frown.

"Atta, girl. My brave girl." The kiss Quinn presses to your forehead is short and sweet, not lingering but filling you with warmth and lightness even as he closes the door on you and gets into the driver's side.

You miss his comforting touch and as if he knows this, his hand reaches for your thigh at any given opportunity when it isn't in use to drive. The stability of it, the comfort of just having him there is so welcome and helps you to relax back into the seat as he drives.

It's just as hard work getting you into the apartment, thankful as ever that the elevator actually works, but once you're in, Quinn feels ten times lighter.

"Right, lets get you comfy, baby...you want one of my jerseys or a hoodie?"

"Jersey...the....the black one, please."

"Okay, sit down, there ya go, good girl.." He watches you the entire time from the corner of his eye, scared you'll lean too far forward from how you're hunched over on the edge of the bed. He tries to make the entire thing quick, reaching for his black jersey, the extra big one that he bought home because you liked how it dwarfed you and even dwarfed him.

"Arms up, baby..." He helps you out of your work blouse and your bra, slipping the jersey over the top quickly to avoid the shivers you start shaking with.

The worst part is getting you to your feet to get your bottoms off. Quinn helps you rise to your feet before kneeling in front of you, dragging your hands to his shoulders for support as he helps you inch out of the remainder of your work clothes. Your fingers grip his shoulders so tight that he's certain you might leave bruises but he doesn't really care, just happy to get you comfy and help you into bed.

You're bundled under as many blankets as he can find, plus the heated blanket you got at Christmas. A big jug of water beside the bed, snacks piled high because he is not having you try to go all the way to kitchen without supervision right now.

"You want the game set to go on?"

"Y...yes, please...wanna watch you play." He turns the television on, setting it to the NHL game set to go live in less than an hour now and he knows he's going to miss warm ups at this point. Tocc's probably blowing up his phone and he knows he's cutting it fine...but you look so small bundled up in bed and he actually hates the idea of leaving you alone. He hates not having his family near all the time as a general rule, but in that moment he hates it so much more. If his mum or dad had been near he could have asked Ellen or Jim to check in on you, instead you were going to be all alone and he hated it.

"I'll score for you, yeah? You can watch me score and maybe we'll win and then I'll come and make us dinner. That sound good, baby?"

"Perfect..." Quinn smooths your hair back from your face, tucking a strand behind your ear even as he uses it as an excuse to feel your temperature. Not unreasonably warm which reassures him a little that you're at least not feverish.

He just keeps sitting there next to you, stroking your hair and caressing your cheek to the point that as much as you're loathe to get him to stop and to leave, you have to remind him he can't stay here. He has a game he's already running late to.

"You...you have to go, Quinn...I'll be okay..."

"If you're not, you'll phone 911, right?" He smooths your hair back again, in truth he really doesn't want to leave you there like that. Even as you seem to be breathing a little better now you're lying down. He considers just not going, if they lose they lose...but he knows he can't. He's captain, he promised he'd be back...and you'd be unhappy with him. He might be your boyfriend but the Canucks were your team and you'd likely make him sleep on the couch for a week.

"I promise...just go win for me?"

"Okay, sweet girl." He presses a last lingering kiss to your forehead, before getting up to leave. But, he still lingers in the doorway for a moment until you push him to go.

Once he's out of the apartment he's rushing. Barely any time and honestly when he finally gets back to the arena and gets his skates on he's surprised he's just in time to go out on the ice for the anthem...cold, not warmed up in the slightest, not ready at all to play a game, but willing to.

Tocc stops him as he's passing the bench to get to the ice, "Cutting it fine, Hughes!" despite the gruff tone, Quinn can tell that Tocc is just relieved that Quinn's back in time. As are the guys who all look at him with varying shades of relief as if they'd been freaking out the entire time. Which they probably had.

"Told you I'd be back." Quinn says it with such confidence, even though inside he knows he nearly missed the entire game. To be honest if you hadn't forced him out the apartment then he'd probably have been late at best.

"How is she?" Tocc's voice is soft, concerned and Quinn appreciates it. He appreciates that as a coach Tocc doesn't just care about how much they cost or how well they play, he cares about them and their families too...and you're included in that, ring or not.

"Not good...but safe at home."

"You need practice off tomorrow?"

"Please, I need to get her to the doctors..."

"Done. Now go help us win the game." Tocc gives him a clap on the shoulder before pushing him out onto the ice and just like that Quinn slips into captain mode.

Locked in like he always is even if his legs don't feel as loose and his stick feels a little less familiar in his hands. Knowing you're home safe helps, he can put the thought of you to the back of his mind, knowing you're safe in the apartment, comfortable and surrounded by everything you need.

You find it hard to focus on the game, but force yourself to, determined to watch Quinn play and to see the goal he intends to score for you. Maybe it's silly, there's no guarantee he'll actually score, but you can tell from the moment he's on the ice that it's one of the few things on his mind. Shot after shot after shot, a determined series of attempts that remind you how important you are to him even as you lie wheezing in bed, eating as much chocolate as Quinn put out for you.

It's part way through the first period with one goal already to Vancouver thanks to Petey that the issue of Quinn's disappearance pre-game is raised.

"Quinn Hughes was nearly late to the game today, the captain missed warm ups but that's certainly not stopping him now!" Shortie's voice rings through the room, a familiar cadence that makes you feel comforted.

"No, it's not, Shortie, do we know why Hughes was late?" Dave responds and for a moment you can't quite comprehend that you've managed to cause this much of a ruckus.

"It hasn't been confirmed and you know I'm not much of a gossip..." You have a little giggle a Shortie even as you are the topic of conversation because it's not really much in the way of gossip and it's so silly.

"But?"

"Apparently he had a family emergency, his girlfriend is very unwell and he dropped everything to go get her."

"Well, that's just.."

"Romantic? Sweet?"

"I was going to say so unlike the Quinn Hughes we used to know, the one who only thought about hockey." You think back to Quinn when you first met, how everything had been hockey, hockey, hockey. You hadn't minded, your own love of the sport meant that you could handle it. But, it's true...Quinn had been rethinking his priorities ever since you started dating, where he might have prioritised hockey once, he'd started to prioritise you. You're not entirely sure at what point you became that important in his life, but it made you feel warm and fuzzy all over.

"I think it's a good thing, that's a sign of growth, just like Hughes' shot!" Shortie cuts himself off as you watch the camera pan to Quinn, following his agile movements across the ice as he skips past the other team's players as if it's as easy as breathing, "He's in past the defence, he lines up the shot and an unassisted goal for Quinn Hughes! Vancouver goal!"

You smile wide as you watch Quinn grin, celebrating with his team in a series of hugs before he finds a camera. There's a moment where you know he's grinning at you, for you, a cheeky little wink sent through the screen as if to say 'told you I'd score for you'.

"I suspect that one was for the girlfriend, Shortie."

You watch the entire game, trying not to nod off to sleep between periods. While you can't cheer and you certainly don't have the energy to celebrate too hard, every Canuck goal makes you feel lighter and brings a smile to your face.

The end result of a 5-2 win to the Canucks makes it easy for you to drift off as the game ends and the waiting for Quinn begins.

He's running off a high when the game ends, even more so when Boeser offers to take over press duties so Quinn can get back to you quickly.

The apartment is quiet when he comes in, "Baby?" not a sound comes back in response and he's careful to move quietly through the apartment to the bedroom doorway.

You're fast asleep, breathing heavy but nowhere near as bad as earlier in the day, you're surrounded by chocolate wrappers and he's quiet as he picks them all up and puts them in a bin, replacing them with the puck he scored with on your bedside table.

He tiptoes back to the kitchen quietly pottering around to make some dinner for you while you're still asleep, nothing fancy but protein, carbs and veg. The sort of thing that's definitely boring but also definitely what your body needs right now.

"Baby, time to wake up...I've made you dinner." He's gentle when he wakes you, soft fingers down your cheek as you stir awake, blinking up at him bleary eyed. Quinn helps you sit upright, the tray of food settling neatly in your lap.

"Where's...where's yours?"

"On the table, you want me to eat in here with you, sweetheart?"

He's moving before you finish nodding, grabbing another tray and his plate before joining you on the bed. He spends most of his dinner watching you eat, making sure you're not leaving large amounts and that you're okay.

He's happy about the win, happy about the score, but he's mostly just happy to be back with you and knowing that you're eating and you're okay, if not well.

Quinn's quick to tidy up your trays and even quicker to get back to you and get into a pair of boxers and a t-shirt, sliding under the covers with you and pulling you into his arms.

Your cheek rests against his chest, the steady thump of his heart a soothing sound that helps some of the anxiety about being off work ease off. Quinn's fingers caress circles and weird shapes across your arm and shoulder as he tucks you tight against him, legs twined together. Every so often he presses a kiss to your forehead, your cheek, the top of your hair, as if reassuring himself that you're okay and he's got you.

"You scored..." You mumble into his t-shirt, a small smile working it's way to your lips as his hand moves up to run through your hair, stopping at your scalp every now and then to scratch lightly until you feel like purring even if that purr is more of a wheezy rumble.

"Mmm, for you, baby." Quinn smiles down at you, another kiss pressed to your cheek.

"T...the wink?" His smile weakens slightly at your still stumbling breathlessness and the wheeze and crackle that accompany it.

"Just for you, sweet girl."

"I'm...I'm proud of you, y'know?" You smile up at him so sweetly that he can't help but feel certain in his choices today. Yeah, nearly missing a game was rough, and maybe the press are going to be dicks about it and maybe he would have felt guilty if he'd missed the game or they'd lost...but he knows he'd skip a million games if it meant you were being looked after, were safe.

"I know...and tomorrow you're going to show me how proud you are by letting me take you to the doctors again."

"Ugh..." You groan, hiding your face into his chest like that will stop him from dragging you to the doctors. Your stubbornness normally cute but in this moment less so.

Quinn cups the back of your head until your looking up at him, green eyes meeting yours with a pleading stare that makes your resolve tremble and shudder. "Please? I'm worried about you, baby...I was really scared when I got that text from you."

"Yeah?" You hate that you worried him...it's that worry that makes you concede that maybe you need to go back to the doctors and maybe as much as you hate it, you'll do it, for Quinn.

"Yeah. I can replace hockey, I can play another game if I miss one. But, I can't replace you. Let me take you to the doctors."

There's a beat of silence as he pleads with you, eyes soft, worried, gentle, thumb stroking soothingly across the base of your neck and you can't really deny him this. Not when you know you'd feel exactly the same if the roles were reversed, not when he nearly missed a game for you today and went in completely cold turkey to win it.

"Okay...as...as long as you keep cuddling me."

"I think I can do that, baby." You curl back into his arms like the spot was carved just for you and in that moment Quinn Hughes knows that you have fully hit the top of his priority list, no ands, ifs, buts or maybes. You could ask him to quit hockey tomorrow and he'd do it. He'd do anything for you and that should be terrifying, but it's not because he knows you'd never ask too much of him. If anything you ask too little.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

A Democratic media strategy to save journalism and the nation

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/12/12/the-view-from-somewhere/#abolish-rogan

As unbearably cringe as the hunt for a "leftist Joe Rogan" is, it is (to use a shopworn phrase), "directionally correct." Democrats suck at getting their message out, and that exacts a high electoral cost.

The right has an extremely well-funded media ecosystem of high-paid bullshitters backed by algorithm-gaming SEO dickheads. This system isn't necessarily supposed to turn a profit or even break even: the point of Prageru isn't to score ad revenue, it's to ensure that anyone who googles "what the fuck causes inflation" gets 25 minutes of relatable, upbeat, cheerfully sociopathic Austrian economics jammed into their eyeballs. Far right news isn't a for-profit concern, it's a loss-leader for oligarch-friendly policies. It's a steal: a million bucks' worth of news buys America's ultra-rich a billion dollars' worth of tax-cuts and the right to maim their workers and poison their customers for profit.

Meanwhile, the Democrats have historically relied on the "traditional media" to carry their messages, on the ground that reality has a well-known leftist bias, so any news outlet that hews to "journalistic ethics" will publish the truth, and the truth will weigh in favor of Democratic positions: trans people are humans, racism is real, abortion isn't murder, housing is a market failure, the planet is on fire, etc, etc, etc.

This is a stupid policy, and it has failed. The "respectable" news media hews to a self-imposed code of "balance" and "neutrality" that is easily gamed: "some people say that Hatians don't eat pet dogs, some people do, let's report both sides!" This is called "the view from nowhere" and it gets Democrats precisely nowhere:

http://archive.pressthink.org/2008/03/14/pincus_neutrality.html

Balance and neutrality are bullshit, an excuse that has been so thoroughly weaponized by billionaires and their lickspittles that anyone who takes it seriously demonstrates comprehensively that they, themselves, are deeply unserious:

https://www.techdirt.com/2024/12/10/la-times-billionaire-owner-hilariously-thinks-he-can-solve-media-bias-with-ai/

Press neutrality – the view from nowhere – isn't some eternal verity. In terms of the history of the press, it's an idea that's about ten seconds old. The glory days of the news were dominated by papers with names like The Smallville Democrat and The Ruling Class Republican. Most of the world boggles at the idea that a news outlet wouldn't declare its political posture. Britons know that the Telegraph is the Torygraph; that the Guardian is in the tank for Labour (and specifically, committed to enabling Blairite/Starmerite purges of the left); the Mirror is a leftist tabloid; and the Mail is so far right that its editorial board considers Attila the Hun "woke."

Writing for The American Prospect – an excellent leftist news outlet – Ryan Cooper proposes a solution to the Democratic media gap that's way better than the hunt for the elusive "leftist Joe Rogan": sponsoring explicitly Democrat news outlets:

https://prospect.org/politics/2024-12-12-democrats-lost-propaganda-war/

The country is a bleak landscape of news deserts where voters literally didn't hear about what Trump was saying he would do, and, if they heard about it, they didn't hear from anyone who could explain what it meant. The average normie voter doesn't know what a "tariff" is, and chances are they think it's a tax that other countries inexplicably pay for the privilege of selling very cheap things to Americans.

Ironically, this news desert is also a crowded field of hungry, unemployed, talented journalists. What if Dems funded free newsgathering and publication in news deserts that told the truth? What if these news outlets, by dint of being an explicitly partisan, party-subsidized project, refused to adopt all the anti-reader practices of other websites, like disgusting surveillance, intrusive advertising, AI slop, email-soliciting pop-ups, and all the other crap that makes the news worse and worse every day?

Cooper recounts how this was actually tried on a small scale, to modest good effect, when the Center for American Progress subsidized Thinkprogress, an explicitly leftist news outlet. This was going great until 2019, when corporate Dems and their megadonors killed it because Thinkprogress had the temerity to report on their corrupt dealings:

https://www.thedailybeast.com/thinkprogress-a-top-progressive-news-site-is-shutting-down/

And, Cooper points out, this isn't what happens with far-right subsidy news. Right wing influencers, personalities and writers can stray pretty far from the party line without getting shut down.

I love the idea of a disenshittified, explicitly political leftist Democratic news media. Imagine a newsroom whose purpose is to get its message repeated as widely as possible. It wouldn't have a paywall – it would be Creative Commons Attribution-only, allowing for commercial republication by anyone who wants to reprint it, so long as they link back to it. It wouldn't wring its hands over AI ingestion or whether a slop site that rewrote its articles got to the top of Google News. That's fine! If the point is to get people to understand your point of view – and not to attract clicks or eyeballs – other people repackaging your content and finding ways to spread it is a feature, not a bug.

Back in the Napster Wars, entertainment industry shills – like Hillary Rosen, who oversaw a campaign to sue tens of thousands of children before becoming a major Democratic Party power-broker – used to tell us that "you can't compete with free." That's not entirely true, but it's not entirely false, either. If your news is a loss-leader for a democratic society that addresses human flourishing and a habitable planet, then you can make that news free-as-in-speech and free-as-in-beer, and avoid all the suckitude that makes reading "real" news so fucking garbage.

For the past five years, I've been publishing a newsletter – this thing you're reading now – that has no analytics, ads, tracking, pop-ups, or other trash. As a writer, it's profoundly satisfying and liberating, because all I have to care about is whether people engage with my ideas. I literally have no idea how many people read this, but I know everything people say about it.

That's how the news worked back in the good old days that everyone says we need to return to. Writers and editors measured the success of a story based on how the public reacted to it, not based on clicks or metrics that told you how far someone scrolled before they gave up on it. The supposed benefits of "data-driven" editorial policy have not materialized – the "data-driven" part is the search for an equilibrium between how surveillant and obnoxious a website can be and your decision to stop reading it forever.

Outlets like Propublica have done well by adopting much of this program, albeit without any explicit leftist agenda (the fact that they seem leftist reflects nothing more than their commitment to reporting the truth, e.g., Clarence Thomas is a lavishly corrupt puppet of billionaires who've showered him with riches).

The fact that they've been as successful as they are on a national beat – and partnering with the scant few regional papers to do some local coverage – just proves the point. The Democratic Party doesn't need its own Joe Rogan – they need a nationwide network of local outlets, sponsored by the party, committed to never enshittifying, bringing relevant, timely news to a nation in desperate need of it.

[aethon-recs]

This Month (January) in Tomarrymort (1 – 31 January 2025)

So many wonderful fics and updates were posted in January! The Tomarrymort tag on AO3 is officially at 15,508 fics at the time of this posting — after hitting 15,000 only just in mid-December. That’s so many new fics in the last month and a half — congratulations to all the writers in our (no longer so) little ship on all their hard work! 

This post got a bit long and unwieldy since it’s been a few weeks, so I’ve split it up into two parts (Part 1 - completed fics + one shots; Part 2 - ongoing fics). Be sure to check the reblogs or click here for Part 2 (Ongoing fics). I’m going back to a biweekly update schedule after this, sorry to everyone for the delay 🤍

*

Tomarrymort Completed Fics

friend of the devil (a friend of mine) by @shyinsunlight (E, 28k, complete)

There’s something very unsettling about Tom Riddle. Whether it’s the way he moves, all long limbs and eerie fluidity, the dissecting gaze he follows them with, or the way he speaks, with an accent that doesn’t match his manners. Maybe it’s how he drinks in Harry’s presence like a religious zealot, or how his eyes wander over Harry’s body as if he’s seen the skin and flesh underneath before.

the horror and the wild by @boyneptunee (NR, 21k, complete)

Time travel AU where there's an antique shop that acts like a portal, a ghoul that behaves like a cat and an armchair that could possibly be a puppy. OR: Harry and Tom find themselves in the middle of a string of murders that threaten to pull them under. They must find the culprits before it's too late.

Lovely Bitter Water by @pagesinmylife (T, 30k, complete)

After stabbing the diary, Harry is haunted by the ghost of sixteen year old Tom Riddle. Unfortunately, he seems to be the only one who can see him. OR: Tom Riddle decides to haunt Harry Potter in order to fill his need for attention and validation. It goes about as well as you'd expect.

Time Stumbler by @wintumnly (T, 126k, complete)

When the enigma named Harry Potter stumbled into his world, Tom couldn't have been more unimpressed. That’s not about to stop Harry from adopting him and changing both of their lives. Harry's mission to stop a future Dark Lord’s murder spree and return to a better future and Tom’s pursuit to rule the world and achieve immortality inevitably clashes, and they’ll end up changing the world together. Hopefully, in Harry’s favor.

Touch of Death by @moontearpensfic (E, 9k, complete)

"I don't want to die," Tom informs Death. After a particularly harsh winter at Wool's, Tom Riddle wants to live forever. He calls to Death to bargain for immortality.

An Exquisite Tomarrymort Corpse 2024 by @exquisitetomarrymortcorpse (NR, 35k, complete)

A collection of 21 artists’ and writers' works spanning almost a year, seamlessly stitched together to create an exquisite Tomarrymort corpse. An Exquisite Corpse is a game in which each participant adds to a fanfiction in sequence by only being allowed to see the end of what the previous person contributed.

*

Tomarrymort One Shots

One Shot | strong-armed and dangerous by @duplicitywrites

One Shot | Eternal Hunt by @metalomagnetic

One Shot | pruning shears by @boyneptunee

One Shot | Kill his darlings by @sri-verse

One Shot | The Faculty of Sight by @duplicitywrites

One Shot | housewives' club by esotericmuse

One Shot | Tom Riddle And The Case Of The New Eye-Phone by anonymous

One Shot | say my name (and every color illuminates) by lilacscented

One Shot | 1 in 10 people you know may be an eldritch being by @izharmilgram

One Shot | 5 Reverse Tropes + 1 Trope (OR: The time Tom seduced Harry) by epi_tome

One Shot | tomorrow contains tom by @octoir

One Shot | Ravenous for the Ravishing by @bubbleversity

One Shot | all that is conquered (where we revel in our verities) by @inarticulateimbecile

One Shot | Sell the Sinner the Sins by @neurowriter14

One Shot | Stalker with Benefits by @unrealexistence

One Shot | The Pre-Flight Mile High Club by @moontearpensfic @duplicitywrites

One Shot | you chain me, i chain you by RajaMarika

One Shot | The Manor by @se7enriddles

One Shot | sulphur by @cealesti

One Shot | Beloved by @moontearpensfic

One Shot | How to lose your dignity in 4 steps: Tom Riddle edition by Hina_97

One Shot | I was born depraved (hungry) by lovelycatharsis

*

(These following fics updated December 20-31, but I wanted to include these here just in case anyone missed the updates!)

Chapters 66 and 67 of draw me after you (let us run) by @toast-ranger-to-a-stranger

Chapter 4 of Crush by @chiocchi

Chapter 2 of Of a Feather by @officialsporkintheroad

Chapter 2 of Reign by @syntheticsoulmates

Chapter 2 of Time Traveling Tomfoolery by @corpium

Chapters 42 through 53 of Terrible, But Great by @isalisewrites

Chapter 44 of Of Monsters, Of Men by @ca-xan-dra

Chapter 6 of Goodbye Evergreen by @v33r00

Chapter 21 of with eyes like these (who sees anybody else) by @cealesti

Chapter 1 of Anything You Like (Within Reason) by @ramabear

Chapter 65 of Holly & Yew by @lovely-lotus

Chapters 1 and 2 of Igual a morte by Limerencia_Obscura

*

[seiwas]

hihi sel!! for your blurb game... hawks + nose + slow burn

thanks for sending this prompt bitti!! 💗

hawks + nose + slow burn

contains: non-canon au, commercial model!hawks, childhood best friends to lovers, pining, hawks gets drunk, reader dates a guy at some point, kinda cliche but i am a sucker for that

keigo's nose twitches when he lies.

it's a tell you've known well all your life.

when he was 5, he used to climb up a tree to practice how to "fly". it was really just him trying to parachute down using his bedsheets, but you watched every attempt―cheered him on whether it was a success or failure.

and when his mother's voice echoed down the park, you watched as he answered, "no," when she asked if he was trying to launch himself up to the sky.

you first noticed it then, the delayed reaction a few seconds after he had just covered up the truth: his nose twitched twice, a quick crinkling of his nose bridge. you didn't think much of it until it happened the second, third, and fourth time.

at first, you'd felt betrayed, being pulled by your ankles down into the swimming pool when he promised you he wouldn't. at 10 years old, you held these things like an oath―

"i promise! won't even go near you. see?" he swims away from the ledge you remain hesitant of approaching, hands raised up in surrender as he laughs.

―compelling; believable. trustworthy. water weighs down his otherwise bird's nest hair, taming it slack against his forehead. with his eyes forming into crescents when he smiles, he looks like the very image of a good kid down the block.

you get better at spotting it as you grow up together, and soon enough, you realize, it suits keigo to be a liar. he's charming above all, drips down sweet words like honey to anyone gullible enough to believe it. they're empty promises most of the time, but a lot of people fall for it, you notice. you included.

"i’m not interested anyway," he tells you at 18, right after graduation. one of the girls in your class was brave enough to confess to him and you’re curious how he feels about it, if anything.

being keigo's longest and arguably even best friend means that you know him better than anyone else. you were there when he was ugly, puberty catching up to him slowly. you’ve witnessed him just woken up, groggy from a full night of studying, because despite the nonchalance he often displays, he does care about his grades more than he lets on.

you know when he’s happy, when he talks about his dreams; the excitement he felt when he was scouted as a commercial model for a prestigious agency. you know his heart, beneath all his playfulness, how he keeps the people he values close to his chest and cares about them more than anything.

(you remember every single time keigo has lied on your behalf, nose twitch after nose twitch—that time you spilled grape juice all over your carpet and keigo told your mother that it was all his fault; when you forgot a book for one of your classes and keigo gave you his, taking the consequence of detention in your stead.)

you know keigo well because you love all the parts of him.

so when his nose twitches after he tells you he doesn't care much for relationships, your heart breaks just a little bit. you begin to wonder if keigo has a type, and if that girl fits right into it.

.

getting over keigo while still being his best friend is a herculean, if not impossible, task.

his career skyrockets and you go to university; your schedules are always in conflict but he still happens to be everywhere you look―ads on your instagram feed, wallpapers on your classmates' phones. there are shorts of his interviews constantly recommended on your youtube homepage and the feeling is both weird and comforting watching someone you know so well be so accessible yet difficult to meet.

you could reach out, sure, but you know he's busy enough as is. you don't think it's his priority to―

"come over soon," he texts you one thursday night.

your heart hammers against your chest, fingers numbing as you nearly drop your phone. it's embarrassing how quickly you type out, "when?"

but keigo is a fast texter, somehow always beating you to your replies first.

"this sat?" he double messages.

and you're about to reply "down" when he chats again, his words leaving an ache in your chest that you can't help but feel guilty for.

"haven't seen u in ages i think i'm starting to hallucinate hearing ur voice or smth."

.

spending more weekends together makes it harder for you to get over him, sitting on his couch as you both eat takeout; earlier today, you'd stumbled upon some stupid tiktok gossiping about all the dating scandals he's been embroiled in this past year.

you stuff chow mein down your throat, swallow it in big gulps as you glance at your best friend across you; he remains lax and unbothered as his legs cross in front of him, eyes on the the movie you're currently watching. it's a slow and painful process trying to get yourself to be just as uncaring about the entire thing, but with how often keigo lies, you find it hard to distinguish whether his "playboy" image is real or just for marketing.

curiosity gets the better of you when the question slips out, awkward and clearly fabricated.

"one of my friends is asking if i can introduce you."

you avoid eye contact in fear that he'll be able to tell you're making it up. no one from university knows you're keigo's best friend; he's kept you a secret just as much as you've kept him one.

"tell them sorry, too busy to date," he shoves a handful of popcorn straight into his mouth, chewing exaggeratedly to conceal the fact that his nose is twitching. his arm is slung over the back of the couch as you nestle yourself on the other end of it.

the topic is sensitive for the both of you; keigo always shoots down any opportunity to talk about his love life and you're always conscious of the fact that you might seem too eager to want to know what the real score is between him and the girl at the bar, at the photoshoot, at the gala, at the―

"am sure uni doesn't give you much time either, right?"

he changes the subject.

.

keigo is linked to a lot of people in the industry; it's a consequence of the job, as they say. rumors are neither confirmed nor denied and you're just as clueless as the public is despite the fact that you've known him your whole life and spend your weekends eating greasy takeout on his expensive couch.

you should move on, you tell yourself.

it doesn't mean anything that the throw blanket on his bed is the one you crocheted for him when he turned 21. the picture that sits on his entryway isn't anything more than a memento of youth with his best friend. sure, he makes time for you despite his busy schedule, but that's what all good friends do.

.

so, you start seeing someone. and when you tell keigo, things change.

it only makes sense that you hang out with him less, but he changes more than the circumstances do and you don't think that's fair at all.

he's started replying to you late, which has never happened before. and he's begun cancelling plans with you at the last minute, only for you to find leaked pictures of him at some bar with a bunch of people hanging by his arms.

keigo hangs around alcohol, but he rarely ever indulges, so having him call you shit-faced drunk right after he cancelled hanging out on the same weekend is definitely something new.

you’re in rare form driving his car to pick him up, hoisting him onto the passenger seat as he passes out to sleep. it’s only when you get to his apartment that he groggily wakes.

the elevator ride has him clinging to the side railings, his groans filling the tiny space. an empty plastic bag is ready in your hand in case he needs to hurl—which he doesn’t, thankfully—but he crashes on the couch as soon as he walks in the door.

you ready a glass of water and painkillers on the coffee table in front of him before grabbing the throw blanket from his bedroom. when you return, he's tucked into himself like a baby, knees curled up and arms crossed around torso in an embrace.

it both endears you and aches; you'd hug him if you could. if only your feelings could handle being closer to him than you should be.

instead, you settle for tucking him in, draping the crochet blanket over him as he snuggles into it.

admittedly, you're still kind of pissed; he did flake on your plans after all. but when he mumbles your name in his sleep, you find all of that anger flushed down the drain immediately.

.

the first time keigo meets the guy you've been seeing, you don't expect the hostility.

your best friend is your best friend for a reason—he's the warmest, friendliest person you know. even the media portrays him that way: charming and a little too flirty for his own good.

"quit it," you tell him when your kind-of-not-yet boyfriend goes to the restroom. you're pretty sure keigo's the reason he needed to go in the first place.

keigo sips his tea, doing a complete switch-up when he smiles at you and asks, "quit what?"

you roll your eyes, "i'm pretty sure he pissed himself because of you."

he snorts, shrugging his shoulders, "not my fault."

it is completely his fault.

from the moment your not-yet-boyfriend shook keigo's hand, your best friend has done nothing but stare him down―a piercing glare like that of hawk’s hunting its prey. you'd liken his grip to talons digging into skin if you could.

"you're such an asshole," you shake your head resignedly, chuckling. the horrible thing about this is that you kind of liked seeing keigo make him squirm.

"it's my job," he lifts his cup up to cheers.

(you find out later on that this is when your kind-of-not-yet boyfriend realized it would never work out.)

.

you're not crying when you tell keigo about the kind-of-break-up. you don't even think you feel that sad about it.

"sorry things had to end that way..." keigo says beside you, legs crossed under half of the crocheted blanket on his couch.

you give him a side-eye and notice his nose twitch. you'd know that fake sad tone anywhere.

"i was starting to warm up to him, you know..."

another nose twitch. you kick his shin under the blanket, the half on top of you rustling on top of your lap, "yeah right, nose-twitcher."

"ouch, that burned," he pretends to be hurt for the theatrics and you roll your eyes, chuckling in return.

everything about this moment is everything it should not be―it's too comfortable, too familiar, too easy. your relationship with keigo is everything you want but can't have and times like this remind you especially of that fact.

he's your best friend―

"why'd he break up with you anyway?"

―and is the reason why you can't seem to make it work with anyone else.

"i don't want to get in the way," your kind-of-ex started. you looked at him, confused.

"you have feelings for him," he further explained, "and it looks like he feels the same."

your kind-of-not-yet boyfriend said he'd caught that moment at the coffee shop as soon as he got out of the restroom―you and keigo laughing as you clinked cups.

you blink away the memory, shrugging, "don't know, just said it wasn't working out or something."

keigo hums, a beat of silence passing between the two of you before he speaks up again.

"well, it's his loss."

you turn to look at him and find sincerity; you're sure he means it, just not in the way you want him to, an awkward "thanks" mumbled under your breath.

.

things with keigo go back to the way things were, but not exactly.

his schedule miraculously clears up on the weekdays too, and he begins visiting your apartment to take you out for brunch whenever he finds the time.

he also stops going to bars and a whole year passes for him without any dating scandal, except for when he attended your graduation.

you try not to feel too happy about it, but when he's asked about the nature of your relationship, he says that you're important to him. the answer is still vague, but it's infinitely better than the way he used to evade all the previous ones.

"i'm rebranding," he tells you when you mention something about how you haven't seen any gossip tiktoks about him lately.

you push down the hope that fizzes in your chest, even when the biggest change of all is the fact that you think he's gotten clingy.

"wanna stay over again?" he asks you on a tuesday night as you're having dinner, on the table this time. you've already been here for the past two days.

you eye him suspiciously, "are you scared of your apartment or something?"

"no."

"so why?" you take a sip of water.

"no reason," he copies you, bringing his cup up higher to hide his nose; it twitches before you can catch a look.

"well, i have an early day at work tomorrow," you check your phone, "so you have to give me a better reason."

you stare at each other for a while, the silence suddenly turning a touch heavy, like suspense building up to an important scene.

he blinks. you blink.

you watch him intently, see every thought that crosses behind golden irises. he juts his lips out slightly, as if contemplating what he should say next, if he even should. it's unlike any expression you've seen on his face before, and you'd say he almost looks nervous if you only had a reference of how that emotion translates on him.

then he takes a small breath, closing his eyes half a second longer than a blink before opening them again, directing his gaze at you.

"it's better when you're around."

oh.

you don't exactly know how to respond to that; you know you shouldn't read into it too much, but then he continues―

"and i miss you when you're gone."

your breath is on hold, a measly "oh," drawn from you. time feels suspended at this dinner table, your brain finding words to say.

keigo doesn't let go of his gaze and his nose has not twitched.

you try to push it further.

"i'm," you start, already stuttering, "i'm sure you'll survive a day without your best friend."

the chuckle that escapes you gives him an option to downplay this entire thing—to turn it into a joke and make it clear once and for all that you stand no chance feeling the way you do.

except, he doesn't return your laugh. his gaze softens as he holds his stare, the corners of his lips curling into a small smile.

"and if you're more to me than just my best friend?"

you search for any sign that this is some cruel trick keigo's playing on you, that he's lying to get some kind of reaction again. but there's nothing—his nose completely still as he awaits your answer.

a/n: mostly unedited, this is so long help. at some point i started envisioning gojo ngl 😭 anyway this is my first time writing hawks! i'm not so sure if i got his character right because he's complicated but!! i enjoyed writing this (clearly with how long it is 😭😭). he knows that his nose twitch is his tell (reader told him at some point), that's why he tries to hide it sometimes! also he never truly dated anyone haha man is unfortunately very non-committal 🥹 i think getting to this point with reader is a big step! he had feelings for reader early on too but i think he's very careful with it (which is also why it took him this long to do something about it!)

hope you like this bitti! 💗

[sobbingscripter]

Tags: [wlw][mdni][friends to lovers?][fingering][oral (f! receiving)][nipple play][nipple sucking][hickeys][omg, this is so scary to write ngl][strap-on mention]

"You know, you'd make a great vig—"

"No."

Your voice doesn't waver and your eyes don't leave the screen of your phone, fuzzy sock-clad toes wiggle when Barbara's foot nudges against yours playfully.

"You'd be so good though. Like.... We could be the only female vigilante duo." Barbara shifts, sitting back against the wall, watching the way your thumbs fly across your screen, undoubtedly slicing various fruits in half with one of those stupid, outdated games you collect like they're Pokemon cards. Too attached with your half-progress to even uninstall them and that's why you keep having to swipe away that notification to clear away space.

Barbara watches your brows knit in concentration, she watches your tongue brush over your lips before you speak.

"It'll be a warm, sunny day in Gotham where the crime rate is zero, when I ever decide to run around in tights and a gimp mask." You respond with a snort of laughter, unable to hide your amusement at the way Barbara's eyes narrow, brows knitting into a frown.

"Asshole." She hisses. "I'm doing good things in my tights. What are you doing, huh?"

"Playing Fruit Ninja, and going on Tumblr."

You respond like it's obvious, before shifting and sitting back against the headboard, resting your phone to your side, and you stare at Barbara.

Gingery strands fall gracefully past Barbara's shoulders, the milky flesh exposed by where the neckline of her sleeping shirt has been stretched and worn, silver rimmed glasses rest on the freckle-dusted bridge of her nose and leafy eyes narrow at you expectantly.

You never could say no. Even when you really, really wanted to.

"Well." You let out a petulant huff. "Sell your vigilantism to me."

Barbara doesn't wait, scrambling onto your lap like she has for the past 10 years whenever trying to convince you of something and by natural instinct, your hands move to rest on the cottony fabric of her night pants.

"You can save the worl—"

"I didn't know the world consisted of Gotham and only Gotham." Your voice is sarcastic and you don't miss the scoff that falls past her perfectly shaped lips.

"Stop interrupting, you're ruining the moment."

Clearing her throat, Barbara places her hands on your shoulders, manicured nails glinting in the dim lighting of your bedroom and you're half convinced she's doing this on purpose.

Warm breath fanning across your face as Barbara looks at you, spotted cheeks ruddy with the cold that seems to creep in through the cracks of your windows.

"You can make.... A difference."

It's not an appealing thing whatsoever. Vigilantism seems like something for people who have a lot of reasons to be angry, especially Gotham vigilantes.

But you can't say 'no' to Barbara. Even when your life might actually depend on it.

But her lips are so pretty and pouty, a delightfully prominent Cupid's bow and a plump bottom lip, so hydrated from that lip mask from earlier and you swallow, hands twitching on her thighs before letting out a breath.

"It does sound... Slightly more appealing when you put it like that." You lie. But only because watching the dimples in Barbara's cheeks deepen, makes you feel better about a lot of things in the world.

Like slow WiFi.

Barbara lets out an enthusiastic squeal before nodding her head, and before you even know it, she's under the covers beside you, her attention turned towards the TV.

"Okay, sidekick." She hums. "Put on a movie."

˚˖𓍢ִִ໋🌼🧺˚˖𓍢ִ🌿˚.

You're not sure what made you pick a sapphic movie but God, the way Barbara smells makes it all better. Her cheek pressed against your shoulder, an arm wrapped around your waist while one of her thighs are tossed carelessly over you.

Most of her attention is on the TV.

Focused on the black and white film, the youthful faces of Audrey Hepburn and Shirley MacLaine burning into those pretty, leafy pools of hers, and your fingers absentmindedly card through the strawberry strands that seem to be just about everywhere.

Manicured nails scratch lightly against Barbara's scalp, the sensation making her dark lashes flutter at the soft feeling and she glances up at you, eyes half-lidded and she scrunches her nose up. And you don't miss the way she melts against your side when you pinch the middle of her spectacles, carefully removing them and setting them on the bedside table.

"How'd you find this movie?"

Barbara whisper quietly, her attention alternating between the screen and your profile, her fingers absentmindedly tracing over the knit of your sweater as she waits for you to answer.

"I read the play when I had to do a report on it for school." You lie. Again.

You don't even know why you're lying. But you spend very little time on it when you feel the way Barbara shifts closer to you, her face pressed against the curve of your neck and her hand snaking underneath where your sweater had ridden up, warm fingertips tracing squiggles against the soft flesh of your ribcage and her nose brushes against your pulse.

"You smell really nice." She breathes out.

"You smell really nice too." You speak just as softly as her, hoping that she can't hear the thrum in your chest, that she can't see the wat your eyes flicker briefly towards her before ultimately remaining glued on the TV.

"Why won't you look at me when you're talking?" Barbara questions softly.

Her voice is as quiet as the barely audible raindrops that pelt outside, almost overshadowed by the grainy sounds of film and you swallow, before looking down at Barbara.

She stares up at you from beneath her lashes, green eyes reflecting the images from the screen as they flit between your gaze and your lips. The battle seems to go on forever before the warmth of her palm presses against your cheek, and her lips meet yours.

It's so... Sweet.

Barbara's lips mould against yours in the most perfect way, her fingertips brushing along the soft flesh of your cheek as she tilts her head, deepening the kiss.

It feels like the air leaves your lungs when you feel the way her body melts even more, pressing every inch of her form against your side and you can't help but shift, making yourself more comfortable.

She lets out a desperate and shaky breath through her nose before pulling away, her gaze fluttering open before staring at you with wide eyes.

And you watch mortification take over her expression and her lips barely part to push out an apology, before you kiss that spot between gingery brows, right at where her forehead makes that little crease.

"Don't apologize." You whisper softly. "I liked it."

You don't know when the line between friendship blurred. If it was that secret kiss you shared at your first slumber party, if it was when she had you pick out bras you thought would fit her best or if it was when she'd hop into the shower with you.

But God knows that right now, there's not a lick of friendship in sight.

Not with the way her hands cradle your face, her back against the headboard and her thighs around your waist as you kiss her, your hands resting just beneath the fabric of her shirt, thumbs brushing against the undersides of her breasts just to illicit those pretty gasps from her lips and Barbara swallows when you pull away, staring up at you with those pretty, doe eyes.

There's no way to describe how perfect she looks.

Hair just a bit messy, cheeks flushed and lips reddened by kissing, and lashes fluttering, each deep breath she takes causes her breasts to press even more against yours and Barbara lets out the shakiest breath.

"Wow..." She murmurs, a shy and awkward laugh slipping past her lips. "You kiss different from when you were 14."

And you let out a hum, thumbs continuing to caress the dip of the flesh before you brush your lips against the curve of her jaw, an action which makes her tip her head back against the headboard, letting out a shuddering breath.

"I read a lot more now than I did then." You respond softly. "I've picked up a few things."

Pulling off Barbara's T-shirt would most likely be the most accomplishing moment of your life, watching the way perky tits press together, rosy nipples pebbling at the slight chill in your room. You feel like you're on a completely different planet, and everything sounds like it's underwater until Barbara's hand reaches for the bedside lamp, switching it off.

And the only light, is the grainy movie that continues to play to an uninterested audience, the motion picture dimly illuminating the way your hands cradle Barbara's chest, thumbs brushing over her nipples and you listen to the way her breath hitches, getting caught in her throat.

Fingers card through your hair lovingly when your head dips lower, tongue darting out to swirl around the pebbled bud until your lips find purchase, tongue teasing and flicking until Barbara's letting out breathy sighs.

"Shit... That's..— keep doing that..."

Your other hand continues to adore the unattended breast, fingertips gently tugging before you raise your head, pressing your lips against hers again in a messy, almost desperate kiss.

Barbara smiles into the kiss, dimples popping as her hand dips into the waistband of your nightshorts and panties, manicured digits moving against your slippery folds as her free hand guides your available palm to her sopping cunt.

You can feel her throb through the cotton of her panties, slick forcing the fabric to cling to her sodden core before you tug the panties aside, carefully brushing your thumb against her clit. And she gasps into the kiss, before letting out a giggle, grin widening as she continues to tease against your own, sensitive nub, returning the favour sloppily.

"Don't stick a finger in..." You whisper softly. "You've got long nails.."

Her snort of laughter is nothing short of angelic, eyes crinkling at the corners before she whispers a lazy 'I know', and the way her lips form that shy 'o' when you slip a finger into her cunt is something that's euphoric.

Gummy walls spasm around your fingers, snug enough for you to feel each ridge and crevice as your finger continues to prod and curl, thrusting past the fleshy folds and you feel the way her own digits falter against your core. Clearly distracted.

"That feels nice...." Barbara whispers, deep breaths heaving and she pulls her hand out of your pants, instead, cradling your face in her palms and pressing her lips against yours.

The desperation in her kiss and the way you swallow each moan and whimper creates a hypnotic concoction of sex that lingers in the air. Tender and affection touches, hesitant and wanting all the same, and you can feel the way her heart pounds in her chest.

Your lips part, and her tongue brushes against yours, the taste of sugary fizzy drinks and candy lingers in her mouth, the sweet taste makes your head fuzzy and Barbara's body nearly freezes when you slip in a second finger.

And it's gentle when you fuck your fingers into her, your thumb pressing sweet circles onto her clit until she's letting out whimpers and whines, choked sobs slipping into your mouth alongside her tongue when she comes.

Slick pools on the sheets below her, puffy pussy lips glistening in the faint light from the TV and you pull your fingers out of her drooling cunt, before you shift.

Sock covered feet rest on your back, warm hands wrap around Barbara's thighs, blunt fingertips digging into the plush of her thighs and you nearly sigh when her fingers card through your hair, moving the strands out of your face.

The sight of her flushed face is something that makes your thighs clench but nothing makes your cunt throb like the way her pussy squelches, pushing out another trickle of slick.

When your tongue curls against her clit, Barbara's thighs clamp shut, the pressure against your head is intense and you push her thighs further apart, before staring up at Barbara through your lashes, head lifting the tiniest bit.

"It's the attempted skull crushing for me." You tease, watching the way her pouty lips curl into a shy grin before her hand moves back to the crown of your head, before gently urging you back down.

"Head pusher." You mock under your breath, before dragging your tongue through her velvety folds, satiny fluids painting your tongue in her taste, your nose occasionally bumping against her clit when your tongue dips past that tight ring of muscle, her cunt spasming around the wet muscle.

It's a heady feeling.

Warm, plush thighs pressed against your ears, cunt drooling messily and covering your chin in a glistening sheen before your tongue flits, lips wrapping around her needy clit before you suck at the sweet nub.

Feeling the way her hips buck, hands fisting in your hair and a shaky gasp leaves Barbara's lips, before her chest heaves.

"You—... shit...— use that strap-on in your nightstand..." Barbara shudders. "Please, God, fuck me."

Your head lifts, eyes narrowing in suspicion.

"Did you go through my nightstand?" You question, lifting your head just a bit, two fingers easing into her cunt as you lazily lick at your stretched hole, feeling the way she spasms around your digits.

"....maybe." She replies shyly, fingers carding through your hair, massaging your scalp like there's some sort of conditioner in your hair and she needs to thread it through your strands.

"But, why do you have a pocket—"

"Mind your business!"

Taglist:

@lucky-beheaded 🌻

@jasontoddswhitestreak 🌸

@anesthesia-4rizzle 🎀

@feral010 ✨

@blckbarbiedoll 🌷

@allycat4458 🪻

@custardpuddingprincess ⭐

@couldeatthatgirlforlunch 🦄

@theamazkngskye 🍄

[softerglow]

how to wake up earlier

sleep is a challenge for many people. after vacations or intensive projects or even a couple rounds of staying up late playing video games, we've all messed up our sleep schedules before. this is a guide on how to wake up earlier and get healthier sleep. please let me know if you'd like more posts like this. wishing love and prosperity to all <3

the night/day before:

choose a bedtime that's 9-10 hours before your wake up time. make sure you're in bed at this time. if you don't fall asleep immediately (which you won't, the first couple of times) read or journal until you feel sleepy.

turn your devices off or put them away at least 30 minutes (ideally 2 hours) before your bedtime. if you have any devices that stay on overnight, make sure they aren't within arms reach and notifications are turned off. if you're using your phone as an alarm make sure it's on the other side of your room, so that you have to walk to turn your alarm off in the morning.

make sure dinner is a light, satisfying meal. don't eat after dinner, as this can lead to acid reflux and interrupted sleep.

avoid caffeine and sugary drinks in the afternoon and evening. keep your caffeine intake under 400mg per day.

sleep with your curtains or blinds open. this will help adjust your circadian rhythm to the day/night cycle.

find a relaxing hobby you can do before bed. some ideas include crochet, knitting, reading, journaling or building puzzles. these are well known in helping with stress management and can help you unwind before you go to sleep.

create a relaxing night routine. make sure you feel clean and comfortable by the time you go to sleep.

make use of a lavender scent before you go to bed. whether it's a linen spray, incense, a candle or an oil diffuser. lavender is calming and can help you feel sleepy, especially if you learn to associate it with sleep.

in the morning:

get out of bed the second you wake up. you need to get up, turn off your alarm and stay out of bed.

make your first activity of the day one you enjoy. your skincare routine, cooking a nice breakfast, a warm shower or even sitting on the couch watching netflix is an option. there's no shame in what you choose to do first thing in the morning, even if it's not productive. if it gets you out of bed, it's the right choice.

expose yourself to sunlight as soon as possible in the morning. just 10 minutes could help your circadian rhythm adjust. if it's dark in the mornings because of the weather or the different seasons, turn your lights on.

other tips:

avoid pulling all-nighters or taking naps. staying up all night is bad for your health, full stop. lack of sleep weakens your immune system and ruins your focus during the day. taking naps regularly can impair the sleep schedule you've been working so hard to build. however, if you're really tired, a 20 minute nap is better than a cup of coffee.

make your mental health and stress management a priority. depression, anxiety and stress result in poor sleep. they can be managed with a well balanced lifestyle and professional intervention.

having a well balanced diet can improve your general health as well as your sleep. make sure you aren't skipping meals. have of each meal should be fruits and vegetables, a quarter grains (preferably wholegrain) and a quarter protein. eat as much variety as possible.

stay well hydrated. the common recommendation of 8 glasses a day is a good goal. staying hydrated can help you stay more alert during the day.

regular exercise can improve quality of sleep. exercise during the day if possible, but definitely not within 2 hours of your bedtime.

make a list of reasons why you want to wake up early. read this every night before you go to bed and first thing in the morning. make sure your reasons are important enough to motivate you.

if you're struggling to adjust to a new sleep schedule because your current sleep schedule is so far off, adjust your bed/wake times in 30 minute increments. this can make the adjustment more comfortable.

stay as consistent as possible. try to keep the habits you've built, even over vacations or exam seasons. discipline will eventually become a habit.

only drink in moderation, alcohol can do serious damage to your circadian rhythm. alcohol generally is bad for you and should not be overconsumed.

if you're having persistent issues with sleep, reach out to a doctor or a sleep specialist who can help you.

finally, be kind to yourself. you can't force yourself to sleep, and stressing about it will only make sleeping properly more difficult. change comes gradually, and you can achieve anything you set your mind to as long as you're consistent.

~*

i hope you're having a lovely day. if you have anymore tips for achieving a healthy sleep schedule, please let me know. i would love to hear it.

[danieyells]

care to spoil any interesting dialogue Haku has when you reach higher affinity levels? Would love to know!

Haku's so. . .normal, it's kinda cute? Lol. But yeah I'm pretty down for that! I wanted to share one of these things but held my tongue lolol but since you're asking here're some of the ones that were more interesting or otherwise appealing to me!

I've amended this post to be all of Haku's home screen lines. Enjoy!

Hello: (the first time the game is opened after that character is set as home screen NPC. Only happens once per day, unless the character is switched out and back.)

"Oh, finally here, huh? I'm not really ready for you yet though... Ha ha. Wait over there for me, would you?"

You've Got Mail: (whenever there's something in the inbox, usually Arena rewards)

"Oh, looks like you've got a letter. If you don't open it soon, I might sneak a peek."

Default: (requires no affinity, has no time constraints)

"How's the search for clues about your curse going? Don't put too much pressure on yourself. If you ever want to talk, I'm happy to listen."

"Most people in Hotarubi have something they put their heart and soul into. That doesn't really work for me though. I lose interest in things way too easily."

"What are you doing here? Don't tell me you've gotten yourself mixed up in something again."

this is a very funny one to have him say when i use the sinostra casino as my home screen bg

"Haha. Don't expect too much from me. Ghouls are just glorified street magicians, really. Let's keep it light, huh?"

'glorified street magicians' is a hell of a way to describe. . .a lot of the stigmas we've got going here lmao

"Boo! Ha ha, didn't think you'd get that scared. I was just getting rid of the shadow imp that was sticking to your back... I'm kidding! There was nothing there, I promise."

Affinity 1: (between 5am and 11am)

"...So, how about we take a walk? This dorm's seen better days, so it's tough work checking all the places that need repairs."

Affinity 2: (between 11am and 4pm)

"You've adjusted to life at Darkwick pretty well, haven't you? Not that anomalies and missions are something you'd want to get used to..."

Affinity 3: (between 4pm and 8pm)

"Today doesn't really work for me... I'm going to be getting back to the dorm pretty late, so can we do tomorrow instead?"

Affinity 4: (between 8pm and 5am)

"...Hate to be the one to tell you this, but there's something untoward lingering behind you. Don't look! Hah, I was just kidding. It was just a little dust, see?"

Affinity 5: (between 8pm and 5am)

"Twilight has been a lot quieter than usual today... I hope that's not a bad sign."

Affinity 6: (between 4pm and 8pm)

"Subaru's just too nice. Keeping all the eccentrics in Hotarubi in check's gotta be rough."

Affinity 7: (between 11am and 4pm)

"Everyone here comes from different backgrounds and has different gifts. There's no reason you should feel out of place."

'we're all unique, including the most ordinary among us.' good lesson!

Affinity 8: (between 4pm and 8pm)

"Looks we're going to make it through today without any disasters. At least I hope so."

Affinity 9: (between 8pm and 5am)

"What are you doing out here? You shouldn't walk around at night with your guard down. Don't come crying to me if you get possessed by a fox spirit, you hear?"

Affinity 10: (between 10pm and midnight)

"Your parents ever tell you ghosts would get you if you don't go to bed? For some reason Zenji's the only one who gets spooked when I say that..."

after the reveal that zenji is a ghost this is so funny actually I LOVE THAT ZENJI IS A GHOST WHO'S AFRAID OF GHOSTS AND THE DARK.

Affinity 11: (between 5am and 11am)

"All these geniuses and their lectures are giving me heartburn. Wouldn't mind hearing the woes of someone long-suffering instead every once in a while."

(this sounds cruel but from what i can tell in Japanese he says he'd rather hear stories about hard workers/people who struggled from the bottom than prodigies. Basically he's more interested in, y'know, ordinary folks than people who're really special.)

Affinity 12: (between 11am and 4pm)

"That video I took of Zenji today? I'm just going to do some quick editing and post it. I don't know why he doesn't just focus on content that's more his style..."

Affinity 13: (between 4pm and 8pm)

"I saw Tohma a little while ago. Been a while since we last had a real chat. Sounds like he's got his hands full, as always."

so i initially left this one out of this post because i didn't think much of it but. . .the way Haku regards Tohma is so much more casual than Tohma regards Haku in retrospect, it seems. To Haku, Tohma's just the usual hard worker. Someone he'd actually enjoy having a conversation with. But Tohma speaks to Haku almost as if with suspicion or disdain. . .then again he speaks kind of coldly to Jin too. Maybe that's just how he is with people he kind of knows or views as more on his level. Or it's something more sinister. Who knows.

Affinity 14: (between 5am and 11am)

"Mornin'. You've got a sleep mark on your face. Yeah, right there. Good to know you got a good night's rest."

Affinity 15: (between 5am and 11am)

"You haven't collected all the papers that were supposed to be submitted by today's deadline yet? Who are you waiting on? Got it. I'll go get them for you."

Affinity 16: (between 11am and 4pm)

"I don't mean to scare you, but... be careful with your right leg. Especially when you're in the main building."

Affinity 17: (between 10pm and midnight)

"Getting cold feet when you try to jump into the deep end is just proof you're a normal human being. We're the crazy ones."

Affinity 18: (between 8pm and 5am)

"Can't sleep? In that case, let's go for a little walk. There's actually something I want to talk to you about."

pretty high affinity to be having chats on night walks. . .i wonder what he wanted to talk about.

Affinity 19: (between 10pm and midnight)

"Just having someone you care about at your side is all you really need... Ha ha. That was a little out of character, huh? My bad."

Affinity 20: (between 5am and 11am)

"Oh, you're awake. I was just about to make some tea to wake myself up. Want some?"

Affinity 21: (between 11am and 4pm)

"It's not very often I get to kick back like this in the middle of the day. Maybe I'll take a nap."

Affinity 22: (between 4pm and 8pm)

"None of us wanted to become like this. Living an ordinary life, and dying an ordinary death— why go after more than that?"

He just wants to be normal. And he can't. It's kinda tragic lol

Affinity 23: (between 8pm and 5am)

"(Yawn) Oh, didn't see you there. Haha... Guess I've been letting my sleep debt build up. I'm going to bed."

Affinity 24: (between 10pm and midnight)

"Being cursed really sucks, huh? You can't help but ask yourself, "Why me?" all the time, even when you know it's a question with no answer."

Affinity 25(max): (no time constraints)

"I know I'm being selfish— but sometimes, I wish you'd just forget about me..."

WHY. . .ARE YOU THE SUS ONE AND YOU FEEL BAD THAT YOU'LL BETRAY THEM? DO YOU JUST FEEL LIKE YOU'RE TOO LUCKY HAVING HAD FALLEN FOR SOMEONE NORMAL WHEN YOU KNOW YOU'RE NOT NORMAL ANYMORE? DO YOU FEEL LIKE THE PC DESERVES SOMEONE NORMAL AND TO BE ABLE TO GO BACK TO A NORMAL LIFE BUT BEING WITH YOU GUARANTEES THEY WON'T? WHY DO YOU WANT THEM TO FORGET YOU. . .he's so interesting to me simply because of how much he tries to keep himself apart from his being a ghoul(and, y'know, seeing spirits and shit--) so he can try and just be any other guy. . .and he can't lol his surroundings, who and what he is, he can't go back to being normal! It's a charming way to have a boy next door sort of personality i think lol

Spring: (March-May) (between 5am and 11am)

"I've been noticing more birds in the garden lately. Is that a bush warbler? A white-eye, maybe? A lot going on during spring in Hotarubi."

Boy knows his birbs.

(between 11am and 4pm)

"Heading into another nice, warm afternoon. Maybe I should take a nap...? Oops, nearly forgot I promised Zenji I'd film him."

(between 4pm and 8pm)

"Must be nice being a ghost—no hayfever, and no hangovers. Spring really is the embodiment of human weakness."

How drunk did you get last night buddy. . . .

(between 8pm and 5am)

"My family home is pretty famous in our area for its cherry blossoms... When I was a kid, my friends and I used to go exploring through them at night."

Summer: (June-August) (between 5am and 11am)

"It's so humid... Days like this make me miss Frostheim..."

He's former Frostheim! Maybe that's why he and Tohma seem to have some history. There's also Jin's friend who left that Tohma helped to switch houses. . .but Haku was a second year then so would he have needed it?

(between 11am and 4pm)

"Today, I've got to go round and check the stalls for the festival Hotarubi is holding— wouldn't want any dangerous charlatans sneaking their way in."

(between 4pm and 8pm)

"Zenji's off roaming around somewhere again... People are more sensitive this time year, so I wish he'd just stay put..."

AGAIN, BEFORE WE LEARNED HE WAS A GHOST I READ THIS AND THOUGHT PEOPLE HE MEANT LIKE. . .SENSITIVE EMOTIONALLY TO NOISE AND ZENJI'S BIWA PLAYING. I DID NOT REALIZE THAT HE WAS WORRIED PEOPLE WOULD REALIZE ZENJI WAS THERE.

(between 8pm and 5am)

"You're not going to wear a yukata? Eh, I just thought it'd be cute to see. That's the kind of thing guys think about, don't know what else to tell you."

It reads like he's a little disappointed the girl he's into friends with isn't gonna wear something he thinks is cute lol

Autumn: (September-November) (between 5am and 11am)

"They say fall is the season of the arts, but I'm a really mediocre flute player. I'm about as uncultured as you can get."

funny thing for an ex-frostheimer to say.

(between 11am and 4pm)

"You can hear the biwa, right? He's been going for three hours now. People are going to start getting pissed off, so I'll go tell him to stop soon."

(between 4pm and 8pm)

"Nightfall can catch you unaware this time of year. It'll be dark soon, so let me know when you're planning to head home. I'll walk you back to the cathedral."

(between 8pm and 5am)

"It's a stunner of a night. Maybe I'll grab a drink and do a little moon gazing."

don't drink too much you're trying to quit smoking, the solution isn't to replace it with another addiction--

Winter: (December-February) (between 5am and 11am)

"You'll catch a cold dressed like that. It's already pretty chilly out there, you know... Here, take my coat."

(between 11am and 4pm)

"Winter rain really chills you to the bone. Sorry, walking through the garden must be rough for you this time of year. Come a little closer."

I'm a bit of a sucker for huddling together in the cold lol

(between 4pm and 8pm)

"It's cold again today. Now that I think of it, Subaru said he wanted to make hotpot with everyone. Guess I'll go grab some things and make it happen."

(between 8pm and 5am)

"Your hands hurt because of the cold? Let me see. Oh yeah, your fingertips are all red. Here, stick them in my pockets."

Is that your flute in your pocket or are you completely unaffected by the cold

His birthday: (July 26th)

"Wait, you got me a birthday present? You're so conscientious. Oh, I didn't mean it in a bad way. Thanks, I appreciate it."

Your birthday:

"Hey, come over here a sec. Here. It's nothing special, but I got you a something. Today's your birthday, right?"

why is this worded like he's asking you to come into a shady alley in secret to give you a birthday gift lmao

New Years: (January 1st)

"Happy New Year. I know it's a cliché, but I hope this year's a good one for you."

Valentine's Day: (February 14th)

"Whoa, chocolate? I didn't think you'd give them to me too. Guess I better think of something good to get you in return."

White Day: (March 14th)

"Here, for the chocolate you got me last month. I wasn't sure what you'd like, so I got the ones I remember you said were good."

April Fool's Day: (April 1st)

"A bunch of spirits have been following you around all day, are you okay? Psych, just kidding. Seriously, I was joking, I swear."

Halloween: (October 31st)

"Looks like you've had your fair share of tricks today. I'll narrow down your options and just make it a treat, then."

Christmas: (December 25th)

"You look like you're having fun. Do you have a present for me, Little Miss Santa? Haha, I'm just kidding. Here you go. Merry Christmas."

Idle: (about 20 seconds without interacting with the game) (below 13 affinity)

"...Hey, you alive? Not much point me just standing here waiting around. Guess I'll take off."

(13 affinity and above)

"I know I look like a slacker, but I do have stuff to do. Guess I'll nap till she gets back."

Absent: (logging in for the first time in 2 or more days?)

"Hey there, stranger. Everyone's missed you, you know. ...Even I was starting to get a little worried."

Those're the ones that're most interesting to me I think! 'u' there are some that aren't up there though, like some of the ones that show him being responsible and worrying about his teammates haha. Hope you don't mind my little commentary here and there!

A while later and I've amended this post to include all of the home screen voicelines, not just the ones that appealed to me most in that moment! Haku's interesting in how. . .normal he is. Aside from the seeing spirits and things anyway lmao. He's just a casual flirt who wants to escape the abnormality that his becoming a ghoul got him. I feel like his lines don't really reveal anything about him. . .but also 19 in particular feels. . .a little lonely? Maybe because of how he had to leave Frostheim, he doesn't really feel as connected to the Hotarubi ghouls yet, compared to how he was with Jin before? Or, if he is the spy, he feels like all of his relationships are fake. . .and man that 'I wish you'd just forget about me' line is sad but also SO SUSPICIOUS. WHO SAYS THAT IF THEY DON'T PLAN ON LEAVING YOU OR STABBING YOU IN THE BACK.

[hyperfixiation-station]

Hi!!

I am totally obsessed with your fics!!! Your writing 🤌💕

I just wanted to request a fic where the reader is new to the task force but she's experienced and tough. Vibez similar to Ghost to elaborate she's more scary than Ghost cuz of her past maybe she was experimented on or trained brutally....

Reader is working hard to prove herself even if everyone knows she's the most lethal person. So one time she gets injured badly while protecting someone from the 141( probably Ghost 👉👈) and she wakes up has an emotional moment Ghost comes know about her Trauma . More like hurt/comfort....

Happy Writing 💝

Guilt-Tripped

CW: Mentions/references of kidnapping, torture, canon typical violenece Part 2, Part 3 Hiii Anon!! First off, thank you! Secondly, I am so, so, so sorry for how long this took😭 I did make this a two parter, the first part is kinda like backstoryish and the second part will be the actual story. I was gonna wait until I finished both to post but you have been waiting for way to long so I'll give you the first part now instead of waiting, again I am so sorry! I hope you like it :)) Summary: F!Reader was a part of a special program(LMK if you can guess what it is) and once she was released she joined the military.

WC: 1467 As always, I didn't proof read so lmk if there are any mistakes :3

Life had not been kind to you. Ripped from your family at a very young age, you had never known the type of love and safety a nurturing home could provide. Instead, you grew up in the confines of a Russian base, with cruel instructors and a dwindling group of girls as your only companions.

From the moment you could walk, you had been told you were a weapon. A lethal force to be honed and trained, nothing more than a tool for others to use to further their games. Brainwashed, tortured, and trained into submission, a perfect puppet. Both your brain and body were sculpted into absolute perfection, a rigorous process most people did not survive. By day, they trained to be a lethal force, an unstoppable, unnoticeable, killing machine. At night, you were handcuffed to your bed, listening to the screams of students who did not make the cut.(to this day you sleep handcuffed)

You watched, at first in horror, then with a sense of detachment, as your friendsrivals bit the dust, unable to keep up with what the program demanded of them. It got better as you got older, less girls died from their tasks. But in some ways it got worse. It was a competition now, a fight to see who would remain victorious, to see who would come out on top. It was not a place for friendship and comradery, and you learned that quickly.

You stopped trying to make friends with the other students when you were forced to shoot your best friend in the head after giving her some of your dinner when she was being punished. You were 8. And you stopped trying to even just be friendly with the other girls at 10 years old, when the instructor broke every bone in your hands after your bunkmate framed you for something you didn't do. To this day your hands are not the same, always hurting and forever scarred.

Your world was kill or be killed, and you'd be dammed if you didn't come out on top.

And come out on top you did. You graduated top of your class, a position you had fought and killed for, won through bloodshed and pain. If you had a conscience, it would have been screaming at you for the things you had done to get to the top(You laid awake every night consumed by guilt and grief)

The program was disbanded(re: destroyed) when you hit 18, just two weeks after your 'graduation'. You were given two options: Join the American military, or face a life sentence in prison. 

You had a lifetime of sins to atone for, and knew there was only one way to even begin to ease your guilt. Two days later your background was sealed up and you were shipped off to boot camp. 

And you excelled. This was nothing to you. What was a six mile run when you used to run until you passed out, then wake up and keep going? What was surviving on four hours of sleep when sleep deprivation had been the norm your whole life? What was any of this compared to what you had been forced to do everyday since you were five? 

You scared your instructors. And the other recruits. And everyone else you came into contact with. And you were fine with that. You didn't like when people got close to you anyhow.

Love got you nowhere in the world. It was a lesson you learned hard and fast. You did not care for others, they did not care for you. And you liked it that way. Until you met the 141.

A woman named General Laswell came to you one day with a job offer. Well, not a job offer exactly, but more of a…transfer of positions. A small, (mostly)four-man team that she oversaw.

You had gotten disciplined for beating the ever-loving shit out of a recruit the week before, and Laswell had watched it all unfold. She went back to her office, read your full file, and decided you would make a good fit for John's team.

You took a look at your bunk, at the trunk that held zero worldly possessions, realized there is nothing for you here, and said yes. 

Price had not wanted a new recruit, and told Laswell as much. She simply said he had a penchant for picking up strays and left your file on his desk. It took him a week to actually get curious enough to read it. A paper copy, the only one in existence that had your full, undisclosed background. He pretended he didn’t see her smug grin when he hit accept on your transfer application. 

You had been trained since youth to fight and to kill, yes, but your true purpose was espionage. You were trained to study those around you, to lie, to mold yourself to the expectations of those around you. You excelled at fitting into your surroundings, at assimilating perfectly with your peers. It was all you were good for, in your opinion. So you asked Laswell for files on your new teammates. And she gave them to you. They were full of gaping holes and redacted information, but there was enough there for you to profile them. 

Soap would be the most receptive to you. He most likely would also be the one to not give up in trying to get you to be open with them. Gaz would be receptive as well, but you know that your sealed background would put him on edge, Ghost, well…Ghost was a lot like you from what you could piece together. Yet another person who learned that the world was cruel and unforgiving, who had learned the lesson that love does nothing but hurt. And because he was like you, you knew he would trust you the least.

You felt a small pang in your chest when looking at this masked photo that you hadn’t felt in years. Not quite sadness, but…pity? No. It was different, it was sympathy. It weirded you out. 

It was hard at first, joining the 141. You had court-mandated therapy you had had to attend, and you had slowly come to realize that some trust was good, necessary even, for life. You knew you wouldn’t be able to open yourself up to them, that you would never be able to feel the sense of brotherhood you had seen amongst other soldiers, but you wanted to try. 

It was harder than you thought it would be. Hard joining men who already had comradery, who had a bond that had been forged with blood, sweat, and tears. men who weren't sure how to fit another person, much less a female, into their group. 

As you suspected, Soap was the most receptive. He was fun, you thought. His Scottish accent and affinity for filling the silence made him a very pleasant conversationalist. You didn’t have to do any of the talking.

Gaz was wary of you, but did a good job of not showing it. As you suspected, he stopped inviting you out after you said ‘no thanks’ for the third time. 

Ghost didn’t like you. You could see it in the slight tensing of his muscles when you walked in the room, the way his eyes pinched when you spoke. 

It was a rough, rocky start, full of distrust and misunderstandings. Everything about you set his senses on high alert. They way you could sneak up on him completely silent, the way you could hold your own when you sparred with him, even the way you moved had his hair standing on end. It wasn’t until a mission that would have ended with Soap's death if you hadn’t risked your life to shove him out of the way that Ghost began to trust you. 

And then he began to notice something else about you. And the more he noticed, the more concerned he grew. He noticed the way you threw yourself into battle, what little regard you held for your own life. He noticed how you never instigated conversation, never gave away the slightest bit of information that could be used against you. Noticed that you always wore gloves. In fact, he's never once seen your hands.

His constant observations of you had an unintended side effect. The longer he watched you, the more he realized you were a lot like him, the more he was drawn to you. And vice-versa. 

You found yourself willfully seeking Ghost out, willingly sharing information with him. Nothing about your past, no, you would never tell anyone the things you had done. But little things, how you liked the food served this week, how your mission went, that your new pants were really itchy. And he told you things too. Told you really bad jokes, told you Soaps stupid Scottish saying of the week. And slowly you branched out, agreeing to go to the bar the next time Soap asked you, telling Gaz that you liked his new sunglasses. 

It was nice, having people who looked at you like you meant something to them. Having people who didn’t know what you’d done, people who didn’t look at you with disgust and distrust. It was nice to have…friends. 

So of course everything had to go downhill from there.

End scene :3 let me know what you think!!6 and be on the look out for pt.2, I hope you're ready for a buttload of angst >:) Also requests are open <3

[nekrosmos]

10 things for 10(ish) people you'd like to know better

Thank you @lialucis for the tag! Hope you don't mind me making a new post with the game !

Last song: Hey I don't work here by Tom Cardy. Just love this guy's music so much

Favorite color: Black ? Gold ? Not sure

Last book: I'm trying to read The Watchers by AM Shine currently but I'm struggling a little, I'm not liking it as much as I thought I would

Last film: Nosferatu 2024, which was amazing !

Last tv show: Kaos ! It was so so so good and I want to rewatch it. Just, Poseidon man.

Sweet/savory/spicy: Savory !

Relationship status: Single and unlovable ✌️​ But I stay silly ✨

Last thing I googled: Nosferatu imdb, so I could check the actors :3c

Current obsession: Call of Duty, especially NikPrice <3 Biggest brainrot I've had in a long time. Making these men kiss make my brain go brrrrrrr

Looking forward to: I'm going to see a band I like next Sunday + can't wait to start my new job and have money again lmao

Tagging (don't feel pressured <3): @on-a-lucky-tide @gomzdrawfr @panchulien @a-driftamongopenstars @cod-thoughts @jgvfhl

[obae-me]

Folks... *clap*.

I'm all done with the Nightbringer story. And for whatever reason, I feel the need to share my opinions on it as a whole. So, to simplify the churning spaghetti mess of thoughts in my brain, I'll be following a Great, Good, Bad, Ugly sort of format.

Disclaimer: I'm not a professional game designer or writer or...anything really. I just write a lot and play a lot of games. This is purely my opinion after being hooked on Obey Me for... five years? Jeez....

Is this really analytical? Not really. This is quite literally me just saying what I did and did not like in such a way that I hope makes me sound somewhat smart.

Let's get into it!

Warning: Spoilers for Nightbringer ahead!

Music Design:

The Great- Some of the songs are so good unironically! Most of them fit the characters so well. I remember when they first were coming out, so many people wanted Satan to have a heavy metal song, and when his song was one of the softest ones, I remember the entire fandom cried. "We also judged him based on just his anger when he's so much more!" the people wailed. I know, I was there, I was one of them. Do not cite the deep magic to me, witch.

The Good- Some cringe and heavy autotune aside, I can tell they all improved every time a new song was released. They are just so fun, and I can tell that most of them had fun singing them. It's just a good vibe all around. There's something especially fun about the holiday ones... If only it had been around long enough to maybe do a Valentines....

The Bad- This one and the Ugly opinion kind of tie into each other, but I feel like there's a lot of missed potential here. I've played a few rhythm games here and there, so I wouldn't call myself the most knowledgeable about them, but I'm so surprised they only relied on new songs. Meaning character songs and the like. Some of the OST slaps! I don't understand why they didn't take some of the already existing songs and remix them into playable levels? Maybe the songs just couldn't transform into something catchy enough? And mentioning that, I'm going to immediately lean into the Ugly.

The Ugly- Oh....my god...it gets so repetitive after a while. Not even a while, it gets repetitive FAST. And maybe this is mostly just a 'Me' issue, because even with other rhythm games, I usually only have about an hour in me before I have to move onto something else. There's no way to pick the song you'd rather listen to, and like I said before, they ONLY use the character songs, nothing else. Some lessons have three or four of the same song... I love them, and I often have my songs I listen to on repeat for hours, but even I have my limits. I've played each song so much, I kid you not sometimes I can play with NO music on, and be able to tell which song is playing just based on the level.

Overall: The songs? So cute, even if a little cringe. And for something that used to literally just be tapping game sprites after a few seconds to "battle", making a whole rhythm game is such a step up. And for the VAs to not only work on voice lines for the game, but also work on podcasts and songs at the same time? I can only hope they are paid better than... most VAs here at the moment. And because for some reason I love ranking things? Obey Me Nightbringer's music gets a 6/10. I subtracted one point because I CAN'T FIND the OST for that very specific one music box background song!

Game Design:

The Great- I thought the UI looked so much nicer in Nightbringer! Moving around, even just basic swiping felt a lot more fluid. They added a lot more shortcuts to get to places faster. The chats looked better. The little details and the backgrounds were so cute! (Although my one stipulation is that for a while I thought the Ruri-Chan backgrounds correlated what was happening in the lessons and I was very disappointed when that was... not the case). I loved that some of the cards had moving wallpapers for the app. The moving background for Akuzon? Mwah, love. Aesthetic is very important to me, and they pulled off demonic but modern well in my opinion. The design team, may your pillows stay cold.

The Good- If I remember the first game compared to this one, I think Nightbringer had more chats and phone calls in total? Which I enjoy (let's not talk about the 30 dollar one). I love little flavor texts, it makes the world feel a bit more alive, and helps add to characterization. The addition of the occasional audio message? So good! I wish there were more chats that we as MC could participate in, but that's just a personal preference. The new emojis/stickers are also so cute! It's just a damn shame they came out shortly before the game wasn't going to have anything new. I wanted to see and use so much more of those...

The Bad- Now, some of these complaints of mine are based on my experiences with other otome games. Which, I realize, is quite like comparing apples to oranges. But....seeing that it's all I have since I've never played any of the other Solomare games, we'll have to make do. The Gatcha aspect is SO expensive, in my opinion. I'm used to other games where there's some kind of pity system for pulls? To my knowledge, there's no eventual guarantee for the one you want? Well, until they added in the ticket system, but that came so late in the game... If I recall, 100 tickets allows you to pick the card you want. 100 feels like SO much in Nightbringer. A lot of the best bundles are hidden behind VIP, you don't get a lot of bang for your buck, and a lot of times 50 bucks only really gets you like 30 pulls (don't quote me on that). Yes, that's part of the gambling, and I recognize that, but other games seem a little more forgiving. Even if only by a little. And if I'm totally wrong with the pity thing, that's my bad. I don't ever really see anyone talking about it, only ever if they got the character card they wanted or not.

The Ugly- Now, this might sound spoiled of me. But... there's just... not a lot to do? Yes, it's a rhythm game, so most of it is music levels, but like I mentioned before, it doesn't feel like a full rhythm game. Farming the hard levels is... sometimes torture. So, then they added that minigame for farming for card materials. It was cute the first five times I played it, and then I never touched it again... The Fab Snap videos? Cute for the first few days, and then I haven't touched it since, and I haven't even seen anyone else talk about it. The Wanderer Whatever (I forget the name) cute for a while and then hardly touched it. At some point too I think the game just...stopped adding those as well. I haven't seen a notification for it for ages. Not to mention most of the events/interactions are locked behind a paywall. Normally like...four to five American dollars for a 45 second scene. Extra calls and chats and 3D model scenes are stuck in cards behind skill levels, and with chats especially, they don't even always talk to you! If I spend extra Grimm and materials leveling up the skill just to get to a chat and it's one I can't even make a chat option in?? What are we doing here, am I not the Main Character? Sometimes it feels that way. Although that particular take is nuanced, and one I will dive deeper into with this next one... my white whale...

Oh, but rating first, I give the overall Game Design a 4/10. Looks super nice, lacks a bit of substance. I could've given it a 5, but based off of other games I've played, it needed some more substance to keep me around more as a player.

Writing Design:

This one is gonna be a doozy, folks.

The Great- I'm gonna be honest here. Most- if not all- of my praise is directed towards the first season. Was the writing perfect? No, of course not. Was it revolutionary? I would not say so. Did it keep me engaged? OH yeah. I sat there every week or so waiting for the new lesson to launch like I was waiting on the next episode of my favorite anime. It had me kicking my feet and giggling. It had drama, it had love, it had curses, magic shenanigans, goofs, gaffs, but most of all- what do we say, class? It had, yep, that's right, commitment. I'll explain that more in detail when we descend into the ugly, but just to give you my favorite examples. Lesson 12, when MC was affected by the curse of the reapers cave or wherever that was, after Lucifer attacked us because of the grimoire. That whole scenario was SO good. Finding out we were human, Belphie and Solomon being angry at each other, running away, all of it! And then again when Lucifer was taken prisoner and brought down into Cocytus, bound in chains away from his family. That is what I came here to see!

The Good- I love that a few characters had very distinct differences being that far back in time. Satan being so new and sounding so... clumsy and confused. Barbatos just having some absolute vitriol towards Solomon. Seeing Solomon having a lot more jealousy and anger and vulnerability than we had seen before. Diavolo needing much more validation and guidance than usual. Wonderful, I love it, it's not very often in media that we get to see character development devolve. I only wish they would've played around with that a liiittle more, and maybe for all the characters. But what we got was good! Good delicious characterization soup.

The Bad- Alright... let's start to crack this bad boy open a little, huh? This is just the bad and not the ugly yet, so we'll just go over my surface level complaints, along with some acknowledgement of why I assume most things are the way they are. I get that translation might be an issue. I get that censorship might also be an issue. Even sheer workload, pumping out lessons and cards and events oh my. Which is what I will be covering in The Bad... the events. Now, don't get me wrong, I know there was a lot to fully be desired in the first game when it came to the events. I remember the Paw Panic and the Halloween Mask event really sticking out to me, and then the rest... I doubt I could even pick one out and describe it. When you have SO many events to make, ideas start to sometimes run low. Some of Obey Me's events sounded like some sort of plot a Mad Lib would come up with. (YET WE STILL NEVER GOT A MERMAID EVENT). So, unfortunately, a lot of events fell short. Just a little pause of entertainment we got to have while we tried to grind for those beautiful cards.

The Ugly- Quickly moving into the ugly category, it's time to get into the meat and potatoes of what I'm really here to talk about. That's right. All of what you probably skimmed through before was just the last minute free ramble I put together to essentially throw a bit of spackle and glitter on this rant I'm about to go on. Why am I so keyed up about this? I don't know, life has been hard lately and it feels good to channel some irritation and anger into something I'm passionate about. Because clearly I love Obey Me, right? The characters feel like old time friends and even after my many hiatuses (hiatai? Hiatusees?) opening the game feels like coming to a comfortable old home.

That being said, there seems to be plenty of cracks in this old home that no amount of caulk will fix.

Let's start with my first problem. The length get your mind out of the gutter. It felt as if every event got shorter and more pointless. I would do one, sometimes two, rhythm courses, only to get five or so lines of dialogue before it ended. Let's play a game. One of these two scenarios is from an actual in game event that workers got paid for, while the other I came up with in two minutes. Guess which one is which, okay?

A)

Leviathan: Wait, you can't sing?

Belphegor: Sounds like a cry for attention if you ask me.

Mammon: I swear! Why would I lie about somethin' like this?!

MC: >Are you okay, Mammon?

Because you lie about everything.

Mammon: MC is the only one who cares! Take notes, ya jerks!

Lucifer: I'm assuming this must have been something to do with the light we saw earlier.

Leviathan: His throat started to glow when he wrote down his song on the form, right?

Which means...

(End Scene)

B)

Satan: This is...

Asmodeus: A boutique! I get to sit down and buy outfits?! This must be the hidden paradise after all!

Satan: Hold on, we don't know if it's safe yet. He's already gone...

Simeon: Ahaha!

MC: We were scammed!

>What are you laughing at?

Simeon: No matter what my expectations are, the Devildom continues to catch me by surprise.

The map leading us to a secret store is so simple, I can't help but laugh a little. Ahaha!

Satan: I'm not so sure we can write this off as simple just yet...

???: Eeeeeeeek!

(End Scene)

Place your bets, folks! Put in your entries now for the scenario you think is the real deal? Ready for the answer?

The correct answer is A!

Scenario A is from the Marine event, while B I came up with on my own.

For the record I reeeeally wanted to pull a B99 "they're both your locker" on everyone, but then I was curious to see if I had what it takes to come up with something so similar it might fool people. Well, did you win? If you picked my scenario B, you are tasked with letting me know in the reblogs or replies that I would make a good Obey Me writer, thank you /j

I also spent a well earned LD Ticket to find that scene, thank you very much.

Anyway, I hope that helps emphasize my point. It can take up to sometimes 4 minutes to get to a scene like that! And then it ends! And you have to play more rhythm levels! I think honestly this particular problem exacerbates the feeling of repetitiveness that I mentioned earlier. It takes longer to wait to skip an ad on YouTube than some of these scenes last. Nightbringer is a rhythm game, yes, but it's supposed to predominately be a visual novel. So when you have what feels like only part of a rhythm game and only part of a visual novel, you get overall a game that feels incomplete as a whole.

I didn't feel that way in season 1. Only with the events, which I ended up mostly skipping or skimming anyway. I didn't really notice it.

But then when Season 2 came?...

Boy howdy...

What is the best way I can describe my feelings towards Season 2 of Nightbringer?

Season 2 of Nightbringer was some of the worst padded infuriating nonsensical filler I've seen from a game in a long time.

And with the announcement of Nightbringer ending, I can tell from Season 2 that they've been planning on ending the game for a while now. It's the written equivalent of "we lock the doors in five minutes, start closing now!"

I got over the brothers not knowing that MC had disappeared to the past. I sighed but shrugged my shoulders when they started the Science Fair Festival thing. I had a twinge of hope when it seemed focused on Simeon turning into a demon.

And then the lessons kept going.... and going.... and going... and... nothing was really happening.

And I started to notice a pattern. One that really- UGH. Sorry... I am zen, I swear.

Let me ask you this? How many times did you notice the lesson ending on a cliffhanger, only for it to immediately be resolved by the beginning of the next lesson? Some of the time we didn't even get to experience it happening, the game had to tell us. Because I noticed it. And it happened A LOT. One of these that I noticed made me so frustrated, I had to put my phone down for a bit. It's the very end of lesson 56 going into 57.

We're supposed to be at some real juicy story. Raphael can't handle that Simeon is turning into a demon. He disappears. Everyone gets sucked into Babel. We find him, and he starts having such a mental breakdown, Babel is collapsing. Lucifer calls out MC's name frantically!... Then to wait for lesson 57.

Yes! Lesson 57 is here! Time to get back into the action! A small recap. Everything is about to crumble. We call out Raphael's name. We reach out!

Then get sucked into a vision? One of Raphael and everyone in the Celestial Realm, leaving one by one till he is all alone. In the back of our mind, we hear someone trying to call out our name...

"MC, thank goodness you are awake. Do you not remember what happened? You fell out of the tower as it collapsed."

Then wacky music starts playing as the brothers with wings complain about carrying everyone else.

Huh?

The action and drama? Over in an instant. Flattened.

Raphael isn't freaking out anymore and I think we find him standing off alone somewhere away from the group and convince him he isn't alone. I can't remember, it didn't feel very meaningful or memorable.

And that right there is my biggest issue! Remember what I said before? What was the word? Commitment. It felt like every single plot that was created had no satisfying follow through, if it even had a follow through at all! Nightbringer? Who is he?! Why did we get sucked back into the past? I don't know! Simeon turning into a demon? He decided for himself he wasn't ready to leave the Celestial Realm yet so Levi helped make a potion that drew out some sort of chromosome so he could become fully human again so maybe he could be an angel again in the future. And that's really how Season 2 ended!

And something about the moon crashing down but us trying to stop it and shield the whole Devildom but it didn't work and one of the brothers of our choosing falls into a coma but suddenly he wakes up again and the moon is fine and the exchange program is ending hurray!

All in like two lessons, just so you all know. It was so random and quick it made my head spin, and was over with so fast I didn't even have time to maybe be upset that my favorite brother was in a coma.

My biggest issue with Obey Me is the lack of follow through, and even in the first game I've always felt like we are more observers than like an actual character in the game? The first and second season of the last game and the first season of this one felt involved. This other one? We didn't really do a whole lot. And I know that's a personal preference. I know people in this fandom can get really upset when something happens to MC because they don't like that. Me? I want to be in the action! I want things in the world to happen to ME too. Even in the events, it's always like, "oh no, I guess because I'm a human, the curse only affected you guys? And Solomon? Well because he's a unique human, it affected him too". That's why lesson 12 stuck with me so much. We were finally affected by the world! Instead of having some sort of godly plot armor.

I don't even know what else to say, really. Only that I hope they end up making another game? Maybe the rhythm game aspect couldn't be sustainable for too much longer and so they're setting something else up? If they aren't working on this particular story anymore, it's very unfulfilling. And I understand that sometimes circumstances force things like this to end before they would like to? Maybe if I'm filled with enough stifled rage, I'll write an alternative ending to this like when I wrote The Reunion we Deserved?

Closing Remarks?

My biggest pet peeve I see in bad writing is commitment. The "it happened in your head", "it was a dream", "do you not remember", "they didn't actually die" (revival or fake deaths can be done properly, but it's difficult to pull off) loophole is so cheap, and it makes me so sad. Because then it softens the blow of what you just spent time to build up.

Nightbringer season 2 had good moments, it's just that the good moments were so abrupt, cut off by ending a scene really quick or interrupting it with something wacky. And trust me, I love wacky shenanigans, but there's a time and a place! I loved Diavolo catching MC when they fell off the train, but nearly as soon as he caught them, the scene ended! I loved Simeon getting mad at Lucifer, Solomon, and Diavolo. It only lasted for three little scenes, and the three of them doing something so dangerous for something with very little threat felt very out of character.

Somehow the story went in about a hundred different directions, and then ended up really going nowhere.

Again, these are my personal rants. If I were smarter, I'd probably be able to critique this in a much more clever and enlightened manner, but I'm just a fanfic writer writing all of this at 2 am running on fumes and a weird amount of spite.

Writing rating? Season One gets a 7/10. Docked one point for denying us hugs and tears when we got back to our own timeline. "oh, it'll destroy the timelin--" ITS FICTION. Get that out of my face and give me my hurt/comfort!

Season two: 3/10. Maybe harsh, I know. I struggled getting through it, especially when the first season had set those really good expectations.

I still love the characters. Love the world. Love this fandom. The brainrot is still real, who knows if it will ever let me go.

If you read this whole thing, wow! Why?... Genuinely impressed. Take a Happy Mammon as your gold star!

[tododeku-or-bust]

https://www.tumblr.com/tododeku-or-bust/744837858426339328/yes-nonblack-people-can-reblog-id-appreciate

i apologise if i come off as rude and i know it’s not black fans’ responsibility to educate white fans. but as a white fan, what do you think white fans can do to fight racism in fandom spaces? because even when i stumble upon something that reads to me as racist, i don’t know if it’s my wrong interpretation as a white person and if i should say something or be quiet. /gen

I have a reblog in that post that answers this question, but that post is now at least 150k strong with only half really getting the point and I'm not scrolling that long so 😅 I'll just say it again.

(the post was about BLACK PEOPLE. So I'm going to discuss antiblackness, bc that's who I was talking to)

1. Actually share community with Black people!

Half the reason people "don't see" antiblackness when it's happening is because you're not around any Black people in your fandoms to begin with. So when you see what is inevitably racism, you probably dismiss it as "drama" because that's what the racists (!) around you are framing it as. If you actually saw the responses from the party being wronged, you'd learn what to look out for when it happened. And even if you weren't confident, someone that IS confident could use the support- bc they're gonna be far meaner to that Black fan than they'll ever be to you! But ofc you don't see racism when there are conveniently no Black people around you to point it out. Bc trust, there is no fandom space- no space period- free of it. So... Try listening to the Black people that ARE in your spaces! Support their voices, so that you can start fighting that fight on your own!

2. Think about how much antiblackness you let slide, and try to be active about not doing so!

One of the hardest things for me to swallow is not usually the OG racist poster, but the thousands of people who usually agree with them, and then the tens of thousands of others who might not agree, but continue to support that person otherwise because antiblackness is not a deal breaker for them! You might think you're a friend to Black people, but based off the people you hang around... probably not! And we see that!

So you'll watch someone be mask-off antiblack, but "oh their art is so good though" or "but I love their LGBTQ/fandom takes" yeah okay so I see that I am not a part of the safe community that you value or picture, got it.

You have to actually ask yourself, consistently- because antiracism is an active thing, it's decisions you make- "is this thing I'm participating in worth the antiblackness I'm allowing?" Sometimes you're gonna say yes. But if you find yourself saying "yes" far more often than you're saying "no", it's time to admit that you're not being antiracist 😅 and if that identity actually means anything to you, you'll have to start making some better choices!

So, is this person's cool art worth them being a whitewasher? Is this video game series worth the creators being racist? Is this musical worth the racist stereotypes it's perpetuating? Is this person's otherwise cool politics worth them treating Black people like shit? Is being seen as a racist worth keeping me safe in this fandom (that would treat me horribly if I didn't? Are they really my community, then?)? Is my temporary entertainment worth more than someone's humanity?

I think when we choose to be honest with ourselves, and are willing to ask ourselves questions like that, we might recognize just how much control we have over our own racism, and at least how we can minimize our own harm. Bc you can only control you! And you don't have to do or allow the things you allow!

3. Call it out!

I don't think everything warrants a call out. But, sometimes y'all got to be willing to say "hey, this isn't cool, dude". The whole "1 Nazi, 9 patrons, 10 Nazis" thing. I have a post about it somewhere on the CBC page 😭 But yeah. Sometimes things will be right in y'alls faces and you say nothing. And all that does is encourage others with those same beliefs to show up and think that you're okay with them. I really do wish that when you were confident, you spoke up. Or at least told your peers in private "hey, such and such did this antiblack thing and it made me uncomfortable so I'm not going to support them anymore". SOMETHING.

[throneofsapphics]

against the contract, chapter three

poly!Feysandriel x f!Reader

summary: If they were genuinely bad people, it would be so much easier to kill them. Signing a special contract to work with Azriel, Feyre, and Rhysand turns out nowhere near expected. You were a bit of fun that became their solace and escape, they were supposed to be an easy assignment that turned into your living nightmare

warnings: d/s dynamics, guided masturbation, nightmares

word count: 2330

a/n: if anyone wants on the taglist please let me know!

<<< prev. chapter | series masterlist | next chapter >>> (coming 10/15)

That night, you laid up in bed, daydreaming about earlier that day, about the future, about them when the call came through. Your throat closed as you read the caller ID. Had you been sold out?

A shaky thumb hit the green accept button, convinced your neighbors could hear your heart thundering. 

”Hey babes,” you put on your best cheery voice. 

”Hi gorgeous,” she said with her signature sigh, as if everything was an inconvenience. “How are you?” 

It sounded like genuine care in her voice, but you knew better.  Knew what it meant when she dragged out the last syllable in a sentence. Genuine care meant she would’ve truly been there for you when ... you shook your head at the memories, refocusing on the conversation. You could play the game, if only to delay whatever news she was bringing. 

“Great,” you replied. Because you were, truly. Besides this call,  you felt fucking fantastic. Several more minutes of small talk passed, and you knew something was up. Her answers grew shorter, words sharpening into knives. 

”What is it, Ianthe?” You finally asked. 

”I'm calling in your favor,” the voice on the other end of the phone wasn't your childhood best friend anymore. She was all business. 

Three days later, back in their house - if you could call something this large a house - you knelt on a cushion and thought about the package and message you'd received the night before. The contents quickly made it clear exactly who it came from.

Folded neatly, the small piece of paper contained a handwritten note.

Tomorrow, as soon as you step through the door you'll be in scene. Kneel to the left of the door, there will be a cushion waiting for you. Wear your gift.

Looking forward to seeing you xx

You figured it was Feyre, Azriel and Rhysand didn’t seem the type to leave kisses at the end of a note. 

A black box with a silver ribbon, tied better than you could've done yourself. Inside was a butt plug, complete with a sapphire gem at the end, one you suspected might be real. You'd inspected it enough to know there was no remote control to turn on randomly, it was a pure and simple mark of ownership. You and your body liked the idea more than you should've. This was temporary, after all. 

A text message from an unknown number had come through two minutes later.

It's Feyre, save my number. Looking forward to seeing you tomorrow!

Three pairs of feet, walking nearly in unison interrupted your train of thought. 

”Right,” Rhysand tilted your chin up, mouth indenting at one corner, smiling the way rich people do. “Get yourself off for us, darling.”

-

The flush of your cheeks was pure gold to him. He wanted to strip you down to your barest layers, push you to your limits, and leave you with his mark. Since you'd signed the contract, they'd done enough research to make any spy blush. He'd figured out you had a track history of being watched, but only with others touching you, never anything with you touching yourself. Where there was a gap, Rhysand usually found something to exploit.

It wasn't hesitation, but a moment to process, he could tell the difference. Your teeth dug into your bottom lip as trembling fingers reached down between your legs. Concentrated effort kept his own eyes from rolling back as yours did. Feyre didn't have his same control, a breathy sound escaping her lips.

Azriel, on his right, had his arms crossed, expression neutral. Rhys was half tempted to have all three of them kneeling, but this was about you right now.

”It's not going to work,” you said after a little while, hand pausing. “It never does.”

Rhys glanced at Feyre, she nodded.

Feyre circled and crouched behind you, not touching but hovering enough that if you shifted your body weight you would collapse into her. Lips just a hair's breadth away from your ear, Rhys couldn't hear what she was saying but watched the fruits of it. You tugged at one nipple with two fingers, rolling it back and forth, your other index finger stroking your clit more firmly this time.

With Feyre's words, Rhys watched your movements grow more confident

Rhys watched as your head fell back, the elegant arch of your neck showing, Azriel going very still next to him, one of the man's only tells.

Legs tensed, your hand slipped from your nipple to slap against the stone tile, your back arching. 

This, Rhys knew in that moment, was going to work beautifully. 

-

After that first scene, they took you on a tour of the manor, this time showing you more of the rooms as you struggled to commit them all the memory. It would take time for you to learn your way around this place, especially the grounds. Feyre mentioned she’d give you a tour of them tomorrow. 

You met them for a perfectly normal dinner, where they’d discussed a few more details. 

“We ask that you do not wander the grounds alone at night, our security detail doesn’t know you yet ...” Rhys let the end of his words drift off, and you understood the implication. Here, you didn’t want to be treated as an intruder.

“I won’t wander the grounds at night,” you confirmed. 

Rhys’s grin seemed a little easy, as if it was designed to put people at ease. It worked on you. 

You’d thought there would be something else to the night, especially considering how much they were paying for you to be there but that had been it. Looking at the giant, ridiculously comfortable bed in front of you, it was all too easy to dive right into it, burrow yourself up, and collapse into sleep. Another day, you’d think your way out of the situation Ianthe put you in. 

“I never loved you. You were a burden I didn’t need at the worst time in my life,” she sneered at you, hands braced on her hips in that very mom-like way. 

“Mom,” you - squeaked? Glancing in the mirror behind her, you couldn’t be more than ten years old. She’d always loved you, it had always been the two of you against the world. Why would she do this to you now?

“Get out,” her voice grew deeper, her face transformed. White stones - no, teeth - clattered to the floor from an open maw. Drop. Drop. Drop. Eyes turned black, and sticks reappeared where her teeth had been. “Leave. Out. Out. Out.” The last word broke through in her natural voice, cerulean blue flashing where black had been, a pleading and broken look. “While you still can,” the demon that had taken over her whispered in a sing-song voice. A door locked behind you and it tutted. “Too late.” 

You shot up in your - where the hell were you? 

Glancing around, you familiarized yourself. Elegant canopy. Black walnut furniture 

Right. Contract. 

The recurring nightmare had disappeared for the last few months, but you supposed a change in scenery could bring it back. Nothing strange, nothing abnormal, you chanted to yourself silently. 

A look at your side table told you your glass of water was empty. 

Earlier, they didn’t say anything against wandering the halls at night. 

Wrapping a silk robe around you, a gift from them, you tiptoed out of your room, the cold tile soothing against your bare feet. You’d woken up in a sweat, you realized. Unsurprising. 

A giggle escaped you, what would they say if they saw you wandering the halls naked at night? Probably send you back home, you sobered. That’s not what you wanted. Letting the moonlight drifting through the large windows guide you, you trailed a hand along the walls. 

Gorgeous. Beautiful. Serene. 

It was like that here in daytime, but you thought the night tended to bring out a special breed of person, yourself included in that category. 

You made it to the kitchen without seeing a soul, one hand firmly clutched around your glass. 

After you’d filled it nearly to the top, you slowly turned and spilled half of it on you at the sight. 

Azriel, in the doorway, looking like a shadow of death 

“Am I breaking a rule?” You tilted your head. A genuine question, not sass. At least you hoped it came across that way. 

”Not technically,” Azriel muttered, “just common sense.” The words would have stung if you hadn't seen how his mouth briefly curved up at one corner, a slight squint at the corner of his eyes. Sarcasm, or amusement. Maybe something about the night took away some of his stoicism.

He stalked across the space, his form crowding yours as he plucked the glass from your hand, shifting behind you and dumping it down the -

“What are you doing?” You squeaked. 

“We have filtered water,” he lifted it above your head when you tried to grab it from him. 

“Sink is fine,” you insisted. 

He ignored you and made his way to the fridge instead, placing the glass on a small shelf, and pressing a button. 

“I’ll take you back,” he said once he finished filling it. 

“Okay,” you trailed him cautiously. 

You could’ve done all of this on your own, and might have snapped back at him for it another time but you didn't want to push too far. If anything, you knew the least about him. 

“Why are you awake?” He asked, and it felt wrong to lie to him. 

“A nightmare,” you settled for the simple explanation instead.

“A nightmare,” he echoed. “I get those sometimes.” 

It surprised you to hear him share something so ... personal with you, but you wouldn’t take it for granted. It made you want to share with him. 

“It was about -” 

You stopped. No. That was too personal. Too much. The only living person who knew about it was currently trying to turn your life into a nightmare. 

He shot a curious glance your way, but didn’t push you any further on the subject. Why did you want him to? 

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[two-dolla-bills]

Top 10 mechanisms songs that you can get away with playing at a retailers without too many side eyes

I got a job in retail and I felt inspired lol

Disclaimer: this is not a list of the best mechanisms songs/the ones I think deserve to go "mainstream", they're just the ones that would blend in the best

1. Sirens

This song is probably the mechanisms' least "centered" song. It doesn't mention any characters, it has no narration, and out of context it just sounds like A Song that you might hear on the radio. Sirens is to the mechanisms as you're the one that I want is to grease, you know?

2. Trial by song

THIS one. It's in the same category to me as Sirens; you can listen to it by itself and not suspect much. Unlike Sirens which can be completely separated and still make sense, this one is more like a whole new world from Aladdin. There are parts that make it obvious that it's from a larger whole, but if you just so happen to catch the "safe" parts you won't suspect much.

Points were deducted due to Mr. Soldier's unique vocals. (Unique as in not very common in mainstream music)

3. Empty trail

This is no offense to Dr. La Cognizzi, but sometimes when she sings it's hard to make out what she's saying, which works in her favor in these circumstances. It sounds country/rock, which help it blend in with some dad rock songs. If I remember correctly, the melody was actually taken from a Led Zeppelin song, so if you aren't paying attention to what's ACTUALLY being said you can get away with claiming it's a cover.

4. Ties that bind

Although this one does mention many plot points, many fans have stated that they had no idea what the fuck was being said until the have looked for the lyrics (myself included) this, combined with it's jazzy rythm, make it able to blend in with other songs, similarly to empty trail

5. Odin

The most "normal" song out of the entirety of The Bifrost Incident. This song made it to the top five because it has similarities with Roam by the B-52's, but had points deducted due to it clearly being about an awesome space train

6. Lost in the cosmos

This might just be personal opinion, but it sounds like a church song. You can pull off the effect of it being about earth Jesus and not space robot Jesus if you have particularly bad quality speakers and a busy store w/lots of noise. Again, the lyrics kinda give it away as to not being entirely main stream

7. Stranger

Look it's a banger, ok? Many of the lyrics could be taken as just being metaphors, but I feel like you have to squint to "see" it. Pay too much attention and shit gets a little weird. Also, points deducted because it's two men singing together and not a man and a woman, which throws a wrench into the works. At kohl's it might raise some eyebrows but in like hot topic it'll blend in a little better

8. Redeath

You would think a song about a sphoenix (space phoenix) would be lower on the list but you'd be wrong. It's a really pretty song with a good original melody, and it's something that can be drowned out by a particularly rowdy crowd. Like Stranger, it would blend in better at a hot topic than at kohl's, but only slightly.

9. Elysian Fields

The melody in Elysian Fields is taken directly from the song wayfaring stranger, which has been coverd by Jonny Cash, Ed Sheeran, Poor Man's Poison, and The Longest Johns, AS WELL HAS having been featured in the movie 1917 and in the video game The Last of Us II, which make it very recognizable. Because of this recognizability, people who know the original song may be caught off guard by hearing it in a Walmart with completely different lyrics. It was originally in 7th place, but the popularity of the original takes off many points

10. Once and future king

It's a banger, don't get me wrong, but it also very heavily and clearly mentions plot points from the album, which itself is heavily base on Aurtharian mythology; something very well known in the western world (also the names are not common at all and most haven't been in fashion in centuries). In a crowded, busy space with not very good quality speakers it could potentially blend in, but one or two names might sneak out. The only reason it's on the list is because of the instrumental outro, which sounds normal enough

[istharoth]

In love with a 2-D Character?! Mortkranken Edition!

Blurb: In which you are a character in a popular game the Tokyo debunker boys are coincidentally in love with.

↪ Yuri Isami:

Boy oh boy, he does not play games but it's a game which includes anomalies? Something his occult (in this AU) self is intrigued by? He's definitely picking up the game

Obviously, at first glance he knows you're a great doctor, just like him, so he selects you.

You like Classical Music too? Hello?! He's longing for the day you become real because you're everything he needs.

Someone he can speak to on an intellectual level (and possibly learn from?) he's not going to let that chance go!

He also probably likes Jin's favourite character but you dislike them. So what? He likes them so that doesn't matter. (though he's a bit curious to know about the animosity)

He's the kind of person who would slowly change his habits into yours

Oh, that brief mention of your coffee/tea order? Yeah, that's his daily drink now.

Oh you like chemistry? Guess you and him have chemistry *wink wonk*

Isn't big on merch I feel but also gives collector vibes.

Let's go with the latter, he's a collector. Merch? He's going to get it.

He likely started the game later, so he missed out on some official merch. He's looking everywhere for that limited merch

HE NEEDS TO GET HIS HANDS ON THEM

If not, you'd be disappointed, and he'd be disappointed.

Intensely in love with you, definitely has a shrine of you.

Was squealing when you and he held hands. HELLO?! BEFORE MARRIAGE?!?

Has mediocre luck overall but calculates how much he needs to get you and efficiently gets you. (by not pulling on other character banners)

He's trying to get your SR maxed out, also will not listen to people who say a certain set is better for you. No. whatever goes with your colour scheme is best for you.

↪ Jiro Kirisaki:

Does not play games. Even if he does, forgets to log in.

Very easygoing, and likely doesn't have the story completed but feeds on fan stuff.

I feel like he wouldn't like the entire nurse x doctor thing in fics because it reminds him too much of his own job and he wants to relax. (To all the doctors and nurses out there, we appreciate you in this household.)

Coffee shop AU? Possible. "And they were roommates?" Maybe. College AU where you both have different majors but come across each other one too many times and have the same friend group but you're intensely awkward around him? YES. (but that's my preference)

Selects you as his first choice!! YEAH and pulls on all the banners cause he literally couldn't care who he gets.

*Cue SSR* "...okay, anyway." *does a 10 pull on the other banner*

Goes to cons only to come home with a thousand less bucks than he started with.

Generally likes your voice, and has a playlist of the songs your voice actor has covered. He's hoping they can cover some of his favourite songs.

You know that one Turning Red scene where the MC is drawing herself and that guy at the store? YEAH. THAT'S HIM.

Except his yume is faceless, and he doesn't post any of it online.

Definitely respects you, even if you're just a character in a game. Also! Has a fan account, but he rarely ever uses it. It's just there to retweet fanart of you + official pictures cause he loves you.

Prev [Obscuary] [Case Closed]