#Guys I did a full working outline for a short thing

[larissa-the-scribe]

Writing Room Updates

I have successfully started Just Passing Through, my Inklings Challenge story, and have a good outline worked out. I am getting such a good grade in Inklings Challenge--

I am probably going to change the name, however, since I feel like it doesn't really fit the vibe of the story or characters. Don't know to what yet.

Hopefully I'll have some sketches of Mrs. Abigail "Gail" Goffrey and the ghostie soon, but we'll see XD

[pussymasterdooku]

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[eldritch-spouse]

Giving Cero a handjob while reading to him our marriage contract and fawning over him

Can I also just say your blog is the love of my life I love your characters and content you put so much heart into it so just thank you and hope ya basements always full of bagels😭💞💞🫶🫶🫶

[Girls, guys and ghouls give it up for the biggest brain in the basement! Also, thenk you so much, that means a lot to me. :'7 <3 Fem reader.]

Cero expected a couple of outcomes when he slid the marriage contact your way and sat at a certain distance as you read.

You could be intelligent, come to the conclusion that he's offering you a better life than you'll ever have otherwise, recognize him as the savior he is and sign it. You could sign it out of fear, not ideal but he'll take it. Or you could throw a little baby tantrum and force him to use less appealing methods of making you reconsider.

He did not expect this however.

Maybe in his fantasies. The type of thing he'd sooner be caught dead than admitting he wastes energy conjuring in his mind.

You liked that contract.

In hindsight, you liked a lot of things, not just the contract. The demonlord had simply been far too busy trying to predict everything at once to notice the way your eyes would sparkle up at him whenever he said anything, how he basically didn't even have to tug you along to this room, how you exuded raw admiration watching every new room of his mansion revealed to you. Typical that, in his own magnificent intelligence, he didn't even stop to gouge your reactions. Regardless, the contract must have been the straw that broke the camel's back, because the moment you signed it-

-By the Rings, Cero didn't even get the opportunity to gloat about the fact that you signed it- You fucking signed it so fast! So readily! So willingly! You're so docile-

You threw yourself at him like a bitch in heat.

Normally, he wouldn't stand for this. Cero doesn't want to encourage this lack of self-control and discipline in his future Queen, it would be disastrous and cruel of him to allow you to behave so beastly. But, perhaps it was the sheer infectious glee in the air, the euphoria, the anticipation, the feelings he's never felt before being so quickly returned in spite of the minuscule speck of doubt that kept rearing its head... It all sparked together in one horrifically uncouth explosion of base urges gnashing their teeth.

The monster tried to keep his composure when he offered you a drink and dragged your chair closer to himself.

Several glasses of Gluttony's finest wine later, he's standing by your side, panting quietly, sharp yet slightly fogged eyes watching your small hand stroke languidly along his twitching length while you read several sections of his written work -It's a fine contract. A bit rushed, but a product of raw talent and passion he's well and truly proud of- Both of you tug at your own clothes to combat the heated friction in the air, and Cero has to hand it to you, your diction is commendable for someone so incredibly drunk on their first taste of Hell's crimson.

" This is marvelous... " You utter after a short pause when turning the page.

Cero schemes the outline of your tits through the shabby rags you call clothing, hips rocking ever so slightly as he considers dragging his cock between them, size difference be damned. You respond by squeezing around him a bit harder, delightfully so. " You expected less from me? " The last word dips into a poorly concealed moan.

Your grin is lopsided. " ... No. "

Cero will deny it with all his strength later, but his eyes rolled a little at that timid confession.

" Very good. " His clawed hand comes to guide your harmless one more efficiently, letting you know how he likes to be worshipped. After all, it's relevant to the next part you're going to enunciate. " Continue. "

The Icon pays close attention to the reactions in your face as you re-read this particular section. Because, while some parts were left deliberately vague, he knows you can pick up on the insinuations behind much of his professional language. He took care to make it tread that thin line between perfectly adequate, easily defensible, yet deviously secretly filthy. How could you ever miss the meaning interwoven in his phrasing when his dick hovers dangerously close to your face?

The more you read, the more you seem to buzz with arousal. Cero doesn't need to be a concubus to understand those clenching thighs and hasty breathing. He bites his lip for a moment, his own excitement beading at the tip of his member, used by you to further slick things along, a lewd sound now accompanying that trembling speech. You're almost picturesque like this- With your rosy lips, that flustered blinking, reduced to a mess by the mere terms and conditions he crafted. Cero would tease you about likely making a puddle on his chair's cushion if he wasn't already biting back snarls of pleasure.

" G- God, I- Fuck... " You whisper, whatever it is that you're imagining bringing a bead of sweat to your visage.

Unable to keep himself straight for much longer, Cero bends to loom over your figure, one hand bracing his weight on said chair's top rail while a boot rests on of the stretcher.

" I'm sure you must be dying to get started, no? Why, you're already practicing! " Some humor bleeds into his poisonous tone, though the King is much too turned on to make it sound as playful as he wished.

A shiver that looks more like a death rattle makes its way down your back and, adorably, you find your tongue tied in knots. Cero all but chuckles cruelly when you can't find the voice to continue reading, mind muddling into blind want.

" I'm... I'm sorry I- I can't... "

" Hush. You're forgiven, inamorata. " There's no shortage of jubilation in the Icon's toothy sneer when you effortlessly allow his digits to beckon your head closer, turning it.

He swipes the pristine pages from the table, the tip of his cock parked at your lips. You kiss him without being told to, already showing a lot of promise, and he casts you a slightly softer look while he buries as much of his length down your throat as you can handle.

" I'll do the reading for us now. "

[literaryvein-reblogs]

A Writer on Writing: Italo Calvino

Italo Calvino:

A fine thing it is to have a distant friend who writes long letters full of drivel and to be able to reply to him with equally lengthy letters full of drivel.

The poet turns in on himself, tries to pin down what he has seen and felt, then pulls it out so that others can understand it. But I can’t understand these things: these discourses about the ego and the non-ego I leave to you. Yes, I understand, there’s the struggle to express the inexpressible, typical of modern art, and these are all fine things, but I …

I’m a regular guy, I like well-defined outlines, I’m old-fashioned, bourgeois. My stories are full of facts, they have a beginning and an end. For that reason they will never be able to find success with the critics, nor occupy a place in contemporary literature. I write poetry when I have a thought that I absolutely have to bring out, I write to give vent to my feelings and I write using rhyme because I like it, tum-tetum tumtetum tum te-tum, because I’ve got no ear, and poetry without rhyme or meter seems like soup without salt, and I write (mock me, you crowds! Make me a figure of public scorn!) I write … sonnets … and writing sonnets is boring, you have to find rhymes, you have to write hendecasyllables so after a while I get bored and my drawer is overflowing with unfinished short poems.

I’m still too ignorant to write articles and as for my output of short stories, a famous summer of overproduction has been followed by years of crisis. … All the ideas currently in my head are subject to a strange phenomenon: while I work on them and perfect them continuously from the philosophical point of view, they stay rudimentary and barely sketched on the dramatic and artistic side. In my creativity thought has the upper hand over imagination.

When you’re working you get buried, drowned under things. You’ve no more friends nor art. Only when you’ve an evening or afternoon free can you roam the streets or court a girl. That’s all. In short, working is pointless. I mean, from the point of view of education. But it’s essential. I cannot — and I don’t want to — live the writer’s life, that is to say write for a living. The novel I was writing, which for months and months had sucked all my blood (because, stubborn as I am, I was determined to finish it even though I no longer felt it was going anywhere), is dead, awful, full of wonderful clever things but desperately bad, forced, it’ll never work and I must not finish it. And I must not write for some time now otherwise I’d make more mistakes. I hope that Einaudi will publish my short stories eventually, they’re the only thing I believe in and which I believe are useful.

For seven or eight months now I’ve been mucking about with a novel that I began in a moment of weakness and it’s turning out to be very bad, causing me to waste lots of my time. But at least it’ll get rid of my desire to write novels for four or five years, which is what I dream of doing, and will allow me to study kind of seriously and learn to write decently.

To write well about the elegant world you have to know it and experience it to the depths of your being just as Proust, Radiguet and Fitzgerald did: what matters is not whether you love it or hate it, but only to be quite clear about your position regarding it.

My problem today is how to escape from the limits of these books, from this definition of me as a writer of adventures, fairy-tales, and fun, in which I can’t express myself or realize myself to the full.

The fact is that I already feel I am a prisoner of a kind of style and it is essential that I escape from it at all costs: I’m now trying to write a totally different book, but it’s damned difficult; I’m trying to break up the rhythms, the echoes which I feel the sentences I write eventually slide into, as into pre-existing molds, I try to see facts and things and people in the round instead of being drawn in colors that have no shading. For that reason the book I’m going to write interests me infinitely more than the other one.

One should never have taboos about the tools we use, that as long as the thought or images or style one wants to put forward do not become deformed by the medium, one must on the contrary try to make use of the most powerful and most efficient of those tools.

You can imagine how slowly my fictional output has been going this summer, you who know how much labor, dissatisfaction, irritability, uncertainty this work costs … However — and this is the point — it is worth it. Or rather: one does not ask if it’s worth it.

We are people, there is no doubt, who exist solely insofar as we write, otherwise we don’t exist at all. Even if we did not have a single reader any more, we would have to write; and this not because ours can be a solitary job, on the contrary it is a dialog we take part in when we write, a common discourse, but this dialog can still always be supposed to be taking place with authors of the past, with authors we love and whose discourse we are forcing ourselves to develop, or else with those still to come, those we want through our writing to configure in one particular way rather than another. I am exaggerating: heaven help those who write without being read; for that reason there are too many people writing today and one cannot ask for indulgence for someone who has little to say, and one cannot allow trade-union or corporate sympathies.

Even more annoying are those who theorize that the novel has to be like this or like that, that one must write the novel, etc. Let them go to hell! How much energy is wasted in Italy in trying to write the novel that obeys all the rules. The energy might have been useful to provide us with more modest, more genuine things, that had less pretensions: short stories, memoirs, notes, testimonials, or at any rate books that are open, without a preconceived plan.

Personally, I believe in fiction because the stories I like are those with a beginning and an end. I try to write them as they best come to me, depending on what I have to say. We are in a period when in literature and especially in fiction one can do anything, absolutely anything, and all styles and methods coexist. What the public (and also the critics) require are books (“open” novels) that are rich in substance, density, tension.

As a young man my aspiration was to become a “minor writer.” (Because it was always those that are called “minor” that I liked most and to whom I felt closest.) But this was already a flawed criterion because it presupposes that “major” writers exist. Basically, I am convinced that not only are there no “major” or “minor” writers, but writers themselves do not exist — or at least they do not count for much.

I found this letter that I had started to write yesterday evening and I reread it with interest. Dammit, what a lot of drivel I managed to write! In the end it’s impossible to understand anything in it. But better that way: the less one understands the more posterity will appreciate my profundity of thought. In fact, let me say: POSTERITY IS STUPID Think how annoyed they’ll be when they read that!

[suzy-queued]

DVD Commentary: Out of Nowhere

I got a request from @doshiart for behind-the-scenes commentary from Out of Nowhere. @shamelessdvdcommentary

Give us some stats - (when you wrote it, word count, how long it took to finish, is it a one-shot/multi-chapter, etc) 86,511 words, 15-chapters. I wrote it between November 2022 - January 2024.

What was the initial inspiration for your story? I love murder ballads. I love graphic novels. So when I saw the book In the Pines at my local library, I snatched it up. This book takes old murder ballads and turns them into short stories, told in graphic format. My favorite one was "Where the Wild Roses Grow," based on the Nick Cave song.

I took some very loose elements from this story: A secluded property, a guy escaping from prison, a person protecting their family's gold. The prisoner wooing the gold protector in order to get close enough to rob them. Doesn't that scream Gallavich?

In the murder ballad there's, well, murder. The prisoner dies by the end. Boy, was I tempted to do that in my story.

What was your favorite scene to write? In each story, there's a scene that pops in my head early on that I base the whole setup around. It's the one that I'm gleefully waiting to write. For this story, it was the "cleaning guns" scene in chapter 7, when the sexual tension is high and Ian tantalizes Mickey as he works.

How did you come up with the title? My favorite murder ballad of all time is "El Paso" by Marty Robbins. There's a line in that song, "From out of nowhere, Felina has found me."

The placeholder title was "Gallagher Gold."

Are there any little moments or references you hope readers will notice? I made this note early on: "Ian has a high PHYSICAL IQ. Mickey has a high VISUAL IQ." I used that to make character decisions throughout. Ian was good with his body and his posture. He was good at carrying things and balancing things, climbing and shooting. Mickey was obsessive about patterns and puzzles and solving challenges.

Was there anything you struggled to write? If so, how did you overcome this? Chapter 13, oh my god. That's the hardest thing I've ever written. I was dreading it for months. It's a tense culmination of everything the story has been building to: love, betrayal, physical and emotional pain. The land gets torn up, and so does their relationship. I overcame it by taking lots of deep breaths and writing small chunks every day. I made sure that every sentence was exactly what I wanted to convey, without letting the prose take its own (lazier) path.

Favorite line in the story? “I’m not a fucking Viper.”

Did the storyline change in any way as you wrote the story? When I started this story, I was sure that I didn't want to do another long multi-chap fic. I outlined it as a 5-chapter short, maybe 30,000 words. Then the "what if" whispers started happening, and it grew to a full 15-chapter outline. Most of the chapters had very short descriptions. One was just "fun and games on the land." One was just "This wasn’t supposed to happen, Gallagher."

Other possible settings included: an abandoned church with a small cemetery, and old hospital, a forgotten amusement park. I wrote "somewhere old-timey that would have land."

What are you most proud about in the story? (plot, characterization, dialogue, twist/cliffhanger, etc) The art! I had so much fun with it. I based the style off the old Penguin classics, like the Grapes of Wrath cover below. (Where they had the little penguin, I put the double-triangle Viper tattoo). I'm also showing my concept sketch for chapter 1 art.

Are there any ‘behind the scenes’ info you’d like to share? I hand-wrote the story first, and it filled two notebooks:

Here are some research shots on the land and the equipment:

I took this photo while I was working. Welcome to the inside of my brain:

Reading back the story now, is there anything you’d change or add? I was itching to dramatize more of Ian and Mickey's lives while they were apart. It would have been fun to have 5-6 chapters of them learning to be whole humans again. But ultimately, that wouldn't serve the story. I did a time jump instead.

Are there any ‘easter eggs’ in your story - e.g. references to other stories you’ve written, a trope you often use etc? The story is set in Fox River Grove. This entirely happened because @lalazeewrites introduced me to the town in their comments on Estate of Blood and Trust. So the events of EOBAT and OON are taking place in neighboring towns!

Did you have a beta or a friend who helped you as you wrote? @mzshko helped me figure out the best way to structure chapters 2 & 3. She was patient enough to read an alternate fully-written version of both chapters and tell me which option worked best.

Anything else you’d like the readers to know about the story? Three months into writing this story, I stopped and did a self-analysis because it wasn't igniting. I wrote, "Could it be that I haven't put enough of myself into it?" So I re-evaluated and dug deeper and made it as personal as I could.

I can't emphasize enough how interwoven details of my own life were in this story. I helped my dad install that big aluminum gate in the woods. I used 5-gallon jugs of water to brush my teeth and sponges to bathe. I washed clothes by hand and cooked on a propane stove. I hauled and stacked logs from fallen trees. I had a love/hate relationship with my family's land and ached to be back in civilization, like Ian. My dad used to tell me bedtime stories about escaped prisoners (Mickey?!) roaming the woods and killing small children.

This story is a love letter to my dad, who was dying the entire time I was writing. He passed away in May of 2024.

This is open to all writers! Pick your favorite story you’ve written or your most popular or the one you think deserves some more love! Or ask your followers to suggest their favorite fic of yours!

[onboardsorasora]

Renovation AU

Ok I tried to stop but I couldn't stop thinking about Renovation AU (especially considering I was literally going to write it then got derailed by Enchated AU: Christmas). And then when I wrote this little snippet it was like floodgates. so here it is Renovation AU in all its outline glory all 2k words of it 🥴🥴🥴I'll just put it under the cut

Max is a handyman/contractor. I know I know. We know how his hammer skills are and how he looks holding it and an axe. But let's just pretend he actually learned this skill and he's fucking hot about it and it triggers every competency kink.

He's built, he was able to grow into his stockiness and he's strong (I'm thinking like that tree splitting tiktok guy but not as Thor thick)

Christian hires Nyck as an interior designer and Nyck hires on Max and his small team. They get shit done. Geri wants to redo the whole cottage and they have until the start of the riding season? to get it done. (Don't question me. I know nothing about riding)

So anyways– they’re behind and Christian doesn’t think Nyck can manage the scope of the job so he fires him and hires on Daniel. Daniel’s a little bit more eclectic than Nyck– but he came highly recommended by Lewis and Seb and Geri loved what he did with their house in Switzerland so she had no problems changing directions a bit.

The problem becomes clear because Max and Nyck work well together, they know each other. Max doesn’t like big change and Daniel is a big change. He’s also good looking but that doesn’t matter. He’s annoying and picky and refuses to go by Nyck’s old plans and his laugh is funny and endearing and his face is pretty and his tattoos are cool.

But none of that matters. None.

Daniel is excited to get working, but he thinks Christian could have been a bit more forthcoming about how far behind they were. Daniel was expecting that maybe he’d be starting on some walls or something, he came with with swatches and tiles and everything. But no….the house is still pretty husk-like. And he’s annoyed cause now he’s standing there in his shorts and sneakers looking like a dick on this construction site.

Anyway, it doesnt matter because he comes prepared! He has like overalls in his raptor. So he grabs that and changes right there in full view of god and everyone. Why yes he is wearing his hot pink hot pants, thanks for fucking noticing. The creative juices always flow when he’s wearing them!

So he goes to Max– who is fucking hot– and also very angry with him. And Daniel gets it, because he and Nyck were friends and there's nothing worse than seeing your friend get fired for things out of their control.

No matter, Daniel is profesh. He can work in almost any environment and he’s not going to embarrass Sewis like that. They’re long time clients and friends. And their recommendations are always highly regarded.

So Daniel gets to work, first he’s helping this guy named Simon update the bricking outside, Geri wanted a whitewash on the southern side so the garden doesn’t get too hot and it’ll match with the new patio going in. Then he’s helping a guy named Genty inside the bathroom– a couple of the pipes needed updating. There weren’t any leaks but no one uses lead pipes anymore for reasons. And then he helps GP lay some new tiles in the bedrooms so that the floors are heated in the winter.

So this is going on for a few days, Daniel helping members of the team, building a rapport– keeping a wide berth of Max. Because Daniel knows when to not ruffle feathers. But he can’t avoid him forever, so finally when all the walls are up and the electrical is done. Daniel goes to Max with the new plans– because his part of the show is about to start.

Max…isn’t happy. Sure the changes aren’t that major, and it's not like they’ll be undoing anything his team has already done. But how dare this guy with his hot accent and laugh come in and befriend his team?! If Max had to hear one more inside joke that he has no clue about or hear his crew talk about Daniel this and Daniel that, he was going to throw a hammer.

So when Daniel comes to him one evening to go over plans, Max doesn’t really want to hear it. He’s come here in his shiny truck (untrue, the truck is dirty as fuck– they work in a construction site), in his tight fucking pants (ok true, Daniel’s work pants are a tad on the skinny side), and his fucking city boots (it was one day the first day. And Max will never let it go), and his gelled hair (ok fine, he makes sure to use his curl cream. Daniel is vain), and tries to take over Max’s job site.

So Max lays into him, letting out all his frustration and pent up sexual tension for this guy that he’s barely interacted with but hears all the time and sees his team– his friends enjoy his presence and maybe he also feels a little left out. And Daniel just stands there and takes it, doesn’t interrupt him, doesn’t fight back. Even when Max is saying blatantly untrue things– but he got a good rant going and Daniel wasn’t stopping him so he was just gonna keep going.

“–and your fucking hot pink–” Max cuts himself off because there was no reason to finish that thought. And Daniel gets this smug fucking grin on his face that Max just wants to kiss off.

“My hot pink what now?” Daniel raises a brow in a challenge that Max is so not going to take. But Daniel is nothing, if not a little shit. “Were you checking me out when I was oh so privately changing that one time Maxy?”

“You stripped in the middle of the driveway while everyone was working. That was hardly private, I think Daniel.”

“But no one else has mentioned my hot pink underwear Maxy Max. Did you like what you saw?” Daniel is dragging a finger along Max’s shoulder at this point and Max is just..frozen in place because how did we get here????

“I– well–You are changing in the middle of a site Daniel. You, of course, cannot be crying modesty now!”

“You wanna know what other colours I wear?”

“Don’t be silly Daniel.”

“Of course not Maxy, yesterday when I was tiling the guest bedroom with GP, I wore my favourite bright green pair that has some smokey black watercolour pattern. And when I was outside doing the patio I was wearing this pretty yellow polka dot ones.”

“I think that's enough Daniel, maybe. I do not–” Max is trying to push him away because when did he even get cornered by this wall? Who put a wall here??

“Oh but I think you’ll like the pair for today, you’re Dutch right? Do all Dutchies like the colour orange?”

“That’s enough Daniel I think! We–we can do the plan your way! It should look great–Geri will love it! I–I think I should go. Have a good night Daniel!” And Max manhandles Daniel out of his way and gtfo’s. He does not think about how Daniel’s waist felt under his arms because why did he even grab there??? He does not think about the fucking hot smirk on Daniels stupid face and kissable mouth and he absolutely does not think about Daniel’s ass in orange hot pants. Nope. He doesn’t.

That changes everything of course. He’s way more aware of where Daniel is in the house now. And its not like Daniel is going anything different. They speak now, and Daniel teases him with tool puns and very bad jokes and Max laughs at every single one because he’s down so bad. And everyone knows it.

Daniel makes random comments when they're alone, pouring over the blueprints and notes, about how Max’s thighs look like they can crush things and the he’ll make a loud offhand comment to the guys about having thighs wrapped around his face when they’re all making increasingly lewd sex jokes at lunch.

Daniel tells Max that he likes his thigh holster and Max internalizes the implications. So what if he’s blushing while they install the kitchen– he’s exerting himself!

Anyway they’re getting closer to the deadline, they have furniture delivery coming soon and there's still so much to do. Daniel has the team painting and wallpapering and Genty is doing the crown moulding and GP is finishing up the fireplace in the den and Max and Daniel are arguing about a chandelier that Geri wanted last minute. 

“We can extend it a little lower by three maybe four inches, c’mon Max it’ll really change like the look of the room. If it's too high then it’ll look too small and throws everything off.”

They're standing in the middle of the formal dining room, surrounded by chaos. Everyone is tired and a bit cranky because they’ve truly been going non-stop to meet this deadline. 

“It’ll be too low Daniel and the weight distribution will be off." Max sighs because he’s tired of arguing about this.

"Well if your guys installed the fucking beams–" Max had enough, he was tired, he was annoyed and he would not have Daniel complain about his team and fucking beams so late in the build. He sees white and he pushes Daniel’s chest. He’s mad, you don’t talk about his guys. He’s mad and Daniel is annoying and fuck. Max presses Daniel up against the wall and kisses him hard. And Daniel grips his shoulder and kisses him back.

And literally no one bats an eyelash because fucking finally. They can get shit finished now.

So they compromise on 2.5 inches lower. And Max is now wired because now he knows what Daniel feels like under him, pressed against him. Now he knows how his lips and mouth taste and what Daniel’s stubble feels like against his jaw.

It's late another night, the guys have all gone home and Max is with Daniel in the finally finished kitchen, going over what’s left to be done. Daniel’s team would be coming with the furniture install in 2 days so they needed to have everything done for them to take over.

Their time together is coming to an end and Max can’t stop looking at Daniel’s focused face while he makes a list and tries to figure out the best way to make things work. He’s staring at Daniel’s lips, at his nose, at the furrow of his brows.

Daniel looks up at him like ‘what?’, eyes wide and owlish? They really haven’t spoken about the kiss– not about it or what it meant or anything.

And then Max is kissing Daniel again and Daniel is all in. And it’s a push and pull between them and it’s hot and messy and they fuck right there in the kitchen. Daniel sucks Max’s dick in the nook that the stove’s supposed to go in and Max bends Daniel over the countertop (which they had argued about whether it was the correct height–it was).

Anyway so the house is finished, Geri is in love. Christian is happy with it all and life goes on. Max and Daniel go on a few dates, they fuck a lot and when Daniel got hired for another big job, he hired on Max as his contractor. 

It kinda went that way for a little bit, them doing jobs together, their teams merging until they make the leap to start a business together. Which incidentally happened before they took the step to move in together. Which is funny because they technically already did. A lot of Daniel’s stuff– clothes, plans, swatches– are already strewn around Max’s place and the cats know to leave the tiles and swatches alone. But moving together is a big step. Starting a business together is just smart. Anyway, they love each other and are grossly in love and their guys tease them about it daily. And Daniel now starts every job in his hot pink hot pants.

[vicsy]

maxiel wrestling au ✨ 2.7k words that boinked me in the head cause i miss the good old days.

The new guy is way too green to be fit into a match right before the main event and Daniel voices his genuine concern with zero hesitation. It's his reputation at risk. Christian claps him on the shoulder assuredly, paints the guy — his name is Max and he goes by Super Max until creative will have something to do with that, fuck's sake — in the brightest colors. Tries to make a sell, a corporate rat in and out of the ring.  

And the thing is, the new guy is sort of gloomy, doesn't smile much even when Daniel offers his signature greeting. He's not a fucking asshole, he won't tell a rookie to go to hell for that. They've all been there, first day jitters and all. But, man, this new guy. Something is off about him. 

His ring gear, for starters, and Daniel shouldn't be the judge since his mom made him his first ill-fitting set back in Australia when Daniel was seventeen and scrawny, fresh-faced with crooked teeth and the energy of three hundred power plants. So, yeah, it's bad wrestling etiquette or whatever but the outline of a lion in the middle of the rookies' — sorry, Max's — ass is… something. The blue and gold shorty shorts fit alright, though, Daniel does give them an appreciative look. He prefers pants and shin guards, that's all.  

And, shit, looks like this Super Max, for crying out loud, designs his gear himself, judging by this very self-indulgent print. People are gonna tear him to shreds, like vultures; crush his spirit, knowing how this biz works when you're twenty-five and still wide-eyed, full of dreams of making it big, becoming the next Shawn Michaels or The Great Senna. 

Max is surely no wrestling royalty, no Rosberg or Flair or Schumaher. His dad was some midcarder in the late eighties back when FWF was at the cusp of breaking viewership records. And, surely, Max is a texbook continuation of his father's unfulfilled hopes. Daniel can read it in the way Max held himself, in the way his arms fidget when he talks and beside him Christian nods, proud, like it was his son making his big screen debut.

Daniel wonders, why him. Putting Max against younger guys would have been more plausible. Putting a company rookie against an established champion definitely seemed like a choice. 

"Don't forget that I make the calls, Daniel," Christian says, the finality in his voice clear as day when Max steps away to put his signature on a contract for the night. Then the suit-and-tie fucker gives him a cunning little smile and Daniel swallows a witty response stuck on the tip of his tongue. "Besides, he asked very, uh, insistently to pair you two up. How could I have been in the right mind to say no to the future of wrestling wanting to take on one of the crowd favorites?"

Well. Fuck. Daniel would know how, being an absolute gem on the mic but nobody's asking, so he's shit out of luck in that department. And currently booked in match with a guy who apparently admires him. Same height and, what? Eight years younger? Daniel tries not to read it as a sign for retirement. 

They settle on a cage match and, surely, it means essentially throwing Max into the deep end from day one but his eyes shine eagerly and he goes on a tangent, dissects the match step by step as if he's been running with the FWF for as long as Daniel did. Ten fucking years, thank you very much, and he knows damn well how to put on a show without some jobber — alright, sure, Daniel isn't supposed to squash him but still — running his mouth with a wrestling for dummies kind of talk. But Max didn't look like the same person who glowered at Daniel minutes before. He seems like someone who loved wrestling with all his being, lived and breathed the craft, came alive with the sound of the bell, the boos and cheers; the bruises and tore muscles, broken bones and bittersweet victories. 

"We doing the spot?" Daniel interrupts but in good nature, stretching his shoulders one by one, wearing a lazy smile to hide his annoyance. He half expects Max to refuse, back out of it. Wouldn't blame him, really. "Top of the cage, before the bell."

"Of course," Max answers too quickly, voice croaky, his chin lifted high as if Daniel offended him. Doubted him on the spot; doubted his hunger to make a name in the biggest wrestling federation known in the world. "It's a cage match after all. We have to make a good show."

We, huh? Perhaps the kid knows a thing or two. 

"Yeah, cool," Daniel tugs his Beats on, cues a special playlist in a pre-match ritual. "See ya in the ring, Super Maxy-Max."

He walks off to warm up as the show begins but not before noticing a sudden blush on Max's pale cheeks, his chest puffing with a response that he breathes out in a language Daniel can't place. He bounces around backstage, high-fives miserable-looking Charles on his way from the ring. His chest is streaked with red lines. Poor guy took the brunt of Fernando's chops. Daniel could still hear his music playing as he celebrated a win accompanied by heartfelt boos of the crowd. Eh, fucking marks. 

Daniel makes a point of not acknowledging Max at gorilla position, adjusting his shockingly colourful ring gear instead, slinging the FWF championship belt over his shoulder. It's childish to use it as a shield and Daniel is the nicest guy to his core, cross his heart, but the wrestling biz is cutthroat. And even Max's music is not on par with the standarts when it plays after Daniel finished making his way to the ring, greeted the crowd and sent the shirt he wore flying towards the grabby hands of his faithful fans. They are, truly so, booing loudly along with the generic entrance song, letting Max feel their disdain from the start, not letting him mistake it as a warm welcome. Not against their favorite Badger. 

And yet, Max's face remains blank. The way he slowly removes his own t-shirt and neatly leaves it on the side of the ring pulls a chuckle out of Daniel. God, he's so spectacularly green. 

Simply on the grounds of Daniel being a fucking face, he reaches his hand out after the bell dings and the metal cage above them descends agonizingly slow, inviting Max to lock up; a class act. Max knocks his hand away, expression scrunched in a mask of disgust. Daniel takes every assumption he made back; they're about to have a grand ol' time. 

Max's style is a bit choppy but he doesn't strike Daniel as a high-flying type. Mostly old school moves, orchestrated to a precision not every rookie has. They exchange a couple of blows and Daniel takes initiative for the time being. He ducks away from a spear and Max hits the turnbuckle shoulder first, turning with a grimace of pain. He doesn't oversell, a great fucking sign for them both, and Daniel bounces off the ropes to deliver a flying knee to the side of Max's jaw. He takes it magnificently, falling to his knees completely unbalanced. 

Maybe, just maybe, he owes Christian the benefit of the doubt. At very least, their styles are a match, perfect opposites to elevate each other's strengths. Max's brawler against Daniel's technician; a study of contrasts between the brawn and the showmanship. 

He ends up putting Max in a figure-four smack dab in the middle of the ring so he can’t reach for the ropes to save himself and, shit, he sells so wonderfully that Daniel's mind wanders. There is something in the bend of Max's neck, in the strength of his entire figure — built but limber, writhing under Daniel's scrutiny, completely at his mercy. The give Max's body begs to be molded in his hands and, suddenly, a startlingly clear image surfaces at the back of Daniel's mind. Tag matches turning into tag titles, titles turning into a betrayal to feed the storyline; and then the redemption arc.

Then, a reunion. Full circle. Squared circle.

It's breathtaking, in truth. The easy push and pull, the synergy buzzing in the air between them, Max struggling out of the submission hold to pin Daniel's shoulders against the mat. A brash fucking attempt for a pin; he kicks out at one and rolls some distance away, eyeing Max to add to the dramatic of their unlikely clash. 

The crowd goes wild. Daniel stretches his lips in a smile, sharp like the jagged edges of the glass they pour out for hardcore matches. He catches himself thinking that he'd go for one with Max. Maybe just to see those lips bloodied, returning his smile tenfold. 

Time's almost out, the referee lets them know discreetly. Daniel lets Max turn the tide, drive him head first into the wall of the cage, hitting through the ropes with a clang. Daniel's head gets beaten against the turnbuckle, his back slammed against the mat with a perfectly executed chokeslam and the crowd gasps with sympathy. Max busies himself with prying the gate of the cage open, acting the heel part eerily well as Daniel catches his breath, sells Max's beating appropriately, without an overkill. 

He pulls Daniel outside of the cage, outside the ring, dragging his face against the barricade towards the commentator table. Max makes sure to interact with the crows, give them an opportunity to hate him, call him names. Something akin to adoration swells in Daniel's chest; he doesn't understand where it's coming from and then Max clotheslines him hard and he crumbles onto the floor lined with thin mats.

Good move, that. Suits the set up right.

Max almost throws a middle finger to the crowd and starts climbing the side of the cage with a single intent, much to the horror of the arena. Yeah, real fucking marks but Daniel wouldn't have it any other way. He counts to thirty in his head, sprawled flat on his back near the commentator table, having one of their tiny screens jammed in his midsection before by Max's enthusiastic efforts. He counts and follows the lines of Max's body, the broadness of his shoulders and the paleness of his skin. It makes Daniel's mind wander anew, in a direction it shouldn't, not in the middle of a high-risk match. 

The crowd gets antsy, urging Daniel to get the hell up, and so he does, Max halfway up on the cage, unknowing, with a sinister plan of his own. His muscles protest but it's hardly anything new. Daniel manages to catch up to Max in a flurry of adrenaline-addled motion, reaching up to hook his hand in Max's ridiculous shorts. Max looks down at him, expression purely shocked to satisfy the crowd and Daniel counts again as he tugs. Once, twice.

It's never pleasant, plummeting down and straight onto the commentator table. It breaks with a horrible sound under Max's back and he lies there, unmoving, the commentators standing not far away, still doing their job. Daniel hangs onto the slippery metal of the cage, listening to the crowd yelling and frothing at the mouth for him to do the thing they all came here for. He raises one hand and pumps his fists in the air twice, eliciting a reaction that makes his mind go into an overdrive. 

He takes a breath, bending his elbow for his signature move and jumps.

The Ricciardo Special lands beautifully on Max's midsection, making him yelp and seize from the pain. Daniel is so used to hitting the ground this way but the calmness that comes hand in hand with the fall is forever unsettling. Max breathes raggedly underneath him, limbs akimbo and his eyes half-shut, eyelashes fanning his splotched cheeks. From Daniel's point of view he looks like someone gave him a fuck of a lifetime. The sight makes Daniel's heart skip.

In the wreckage at the ringside, the perpetual hunger Daniel left unsated stirs impatiently, awakening from a famished slumber.  

Max's body under his own feels like it belongs; feels like a missing piece finally fitting. It hits Daniel like a freight train, the all-encompassing normalcy in the midst of controlled chaos.

He squeezes Max's wrist twice in a silent question, their limbs tangled together on the broken bits of the table. Max's fingers twitch against his hold — yes, I'm okay. 

And the show goes on towards the long-awaited climax. 

It takes Daniel thirty seconds to peel Max off the floor by the back of his neck, squeezing tight and roughly hauling him back inside the cage, rolling them both into the ring. It's a whole ordeal, his body exhausted and Max matches him there, too, playing the beaten to the pulp heel as if he's been doing it since he learned how to walk. Daniel drags him to the middle of the mat again, admiring the pliancy with which Max follows. There's a persistent ringing in his ears and an electric shock wracks through him when he gets his hand's on parts of Max's body he managed not yet to touch, no resistance as he bends him in half, Daniel's palm sliding against the sweaty skin under Max's knees. The referee appears next to them, slamming his palm against the mat.

One. Two. 

And when Max eats the pin like he's supposed to, like they've settled in the pre-match booking with Christian, Max's prominent mouth pressed into a thin line making Daniel think who the fuck does this jobber think he is, all the sounds of the packed arena rush into his ears as the bell rings and the cage finally lifts, freeing them. The crowd erupts and Daniel rolls over onto his back, gulping air, Max's arm pinned under him, sweaty skin sticking together. His music hits like a fucking tornado; another win sequred under his belt but all Daniel can muster at that moment is to turn his head against the stiffness in his neck, catching Max's gaze already trained on him. Mouth open, chest rising up and falling so rapidly Daniel seems to lose his breath again. 

Or perhaps it's the shine in Max's eyes, their color clear-blue like the spotlights above. Daniel finds it hard to look away and he desperately needs to drag himself to his feet, clutch the championship belt to his chest, an assurance of his stature; something solid to hang on to.

Max asked to wrestle him first. Daniel grasps at the foreign feeling blooming behind his ribcage.

His win doesn't feel like one. Not with Max suddenly so close to claiming a space for himself, claiming what's his and he's so damned good it scares Daniel momentarily. But the fear dissipates as quickly as the pain does when someone lands a chair shot just the right way. A satisfying kind of pain. With a slight twitch of his mouth, Max is the first to move away, further to the ropes. The skin of his back is angry red, the mess of moles speckled with blood where the impact from the commentator table scratched and tore into his flesh. 

Max rolls off the ring and limps up the ramp, holding his ribs gingerly. He turns when the referee raises Daniel's hand and he manages to straighten the other one with belt in it, showing it off as you still got it echoes in a thousand voices. For the first time he doesn't revel in the outpour of love and adoration, the crowd clapping and chanting his name. He doesn't look them over with a smile and his chest still feels caged, much like he and Max were moments ago, locked in what wasn't just a match. 

Something snaps; something ends. Daniel feels the shift clear, like the Earth tilting on its axis taking him with it and leaving Max standing still, his scuffed, golden boots rooted firmly to the ground. The weight of the championship belt turns laden, drags Daniel deep into the uncharted waters as he stares Max down, challenging and unabashed, blood thrumming with adrenaline. The bundled tightness in his chest lingers and lingers and lingers.

A corner of Max's mouth quirks up, eyes crinkling; no real malice behind them, just an answer to a soundless call, a promise for more. 

Daniel feels like he's the one plummeting down from the cage, from the top of a tower he built in his own name, not with stone but with blood, sweat and tears. Max follows suit, crashing into him without reservation, raw talent and blunt force, the soft edges of him breaking through skin and bone going straight for the heart; straight for the pin. 

The count follows, inescapably.

In his mind, Daniel doesn't kick out. 

[nowordsformylove]

I would love to hear more ideas from your jonesmith list if you’d like to share 🤲

yes absolutely I'll put it under a read more because it's going to be a lot.

ok so I know I've mentioned some of these before as ideas but I'll start with the ones that I drafted fics for:

Davy wants to take Mike out on a perfect date to show him just how deep his feelings are but the date keeps getting ruined and at the end he thinks he failed and that Mike wont like him now because he ruined their first date.

Mike keeps using terms of endearment for Davy and at first he doesnt notice because Mike calls everyone babe but when they get more romantic like sweetheart or honey Davy thinks that hes doing it to purposely fluster him and he decides to do it back. Mike suddenly stops doing it and Davy is confused why he misses it.

Davy notices that Mike never goes out on any dates and tries to secretly wingman for him by talking him up to all the girls they meet. When he realizes that Mike doesnt like girls he decides to help him win a guy.

Prince and the Pauper episode from the POV of Mike and Davy being in a secret relationship.

these are the ones that I never drafted fics for:

Similar to the nickname one above where Mike keeps calling Davy things like "tiny" and "short stuff" and hes not letting up. This was been frustrating Davy in more ways than one. Based on this post.

Wanted to write something centered around Davy's lovely plush lips and Mike noticing just how full and pretty they are and now that hes noticed he cant stop thinking about wanting to kiss him.

I had outlined a fic idea about Mike going out with a girl and Davy feeling jealous but he also feels guilty because hes always the one that gets the girl so he shouldnt be mad she picked Mike over him, but the more time Mike spends with her the more he realizes hes not jealous of Mike hes jealous of HER. The way I drafted this fic made it seem like it would work better for jork so I put it on the back-burner. (specifically the way I had the confession scene planned seemed more like a Peter-move than a Mike-move).

RPF fic set around 66/67 where Davy thinks Mike is very handsome (real life) and cool and he has a tiny "bro crush" on him. He goes out and buys a coat similar to Mike's but Micky ends up teasing him about it in front of Mike making him aware of Davy's little crush. Mike invites him out for drinks and then propositions him 🤭

Similar to above with it being an RPF fic based on the story where Mike left his own party to hop on his private jet to fly back to Texas just to get a burger, but in this Davy accepts the offer to go with and they fuck on his private jet.

I reallllyyyy wanted to do something for the episode too many girls but I could never come up with anything concrete. Always thought about Mike being upset at the idea of Davy leaving the group to be with some girl.

Wanted to do something for some like it lukewarm with crossdressing Davy but it was hard to get from "Davy hated crossdressing and refused to do it again" to "Davy dresses up again and acts all feminine for Mike's pleasure"

Really wanted to do a size difference fic but didnt know if I wanted to do Davy loves Mike's huge dick or "Mike loves Davy's tiny dick (SAD I couldn't decide on a pov because they are both so good).

I also thought briefly about a fic where Davy pressures Mike into having sex with him but that was more of a spur of the moment thought from my toxic yaoi loving mind haha... but what if 😳 needy Davy begging for Mike to fuck him and Mike who only feels useful when hes needed by the people around him. teehee

I also was planning to do a group poly fic centered on Davy being the group slut who gets fucked by all the guys it was going to be four parts (seperate but related) 1. jork 2. jonesmith 3. jolenz 4. group but I kinda lost my motivation for this one 😭 I DID start the jonesmith one and since they can all be read as one shots I may finish it and post it on its own rather than in a series.

[owwi]

The youtube shorts arg got me so now here’s just a bit of theorizing and a timeline because. well bored + the fixation is strong with this one

The following contains spoilers for the recent uploads, so I recommend only going if you know the basics, don’t care about it or just wanna see it.

So. If you haven’t been keeping up, here’s a rough idea.

Starting on around July 16th, 5 shorts YouTubers began to post shorts with weird glitch things, randomly popping into each other’s. QR codes also started to show up, with someone wearing a purge mask whoabsolutely fucking hates the YouTube shorts (and maybe also normal shorts). And naturally they wanna get rid of them. We also get introduced to a company called CLONEVPN, which seems to be connected to the one just mentioned and is sending these youtubers clones after they agree to a sponsorship.

The most common crossover involved Riggy from Danno Cal, who notably seems to be one of the two who actually knew that hey maybe he shouldn’t be in other videos! The other being RoyalPear. However, RaZer makes a short saying that he needs help to build a new computer, since his is causing these problems (spoiler alert: ITS NOT IT BRO-)

A new video was released for the QR codes as well, known as Rebirth. This shows the cloning process and it works for a bit, with only two unsuccessful clones, being of Joe Caine, who presumably is just too cool for it, and Riggy, who’s cloning process struggles and ends up making a more blue version of him that notably seems to just be a rabbit. Below are the two. Note how Clone Riggy (Picture 1) has a more vibrant color pallet, no eye color, a crumpled up paper border, and, most notably, lacks the tail that indicates him to me a Runkey. This indicates the cloning process just made him a rabbit. Meanwhile, Riggy (photo 2) is a less turned up shade of blue and red, has the green eyes, a grid paper outline, and of course, the tail.

We didn’t know what this would do until yesterday or the day before, when Jonny RaZer began a stream, ending with his presumed death by clone (also everyone tried to get the clone to eat the thermal paste but it failed). Other videos soon followed from almost all channels listed in the tags, the two exceptions being RoyalPear, who was marked as replaced by a new pfp and avatar they use to represent themself (became a more crudely drawn Tropius). The other is Joe Caine, who is the only one that I know of who never accepted. If not please let me know-

We also got a website! Clonevpn.com, which has a few pages and a spot to enter your email. As of now, I cannot find any hidden pages, but we have been getting codes, so it’s a matter of time.

Okay. That’s the rough timeline. I reccomend watching because I did NOT watch the streams in full. Seriously, go watch if you haven’t.

Now to some theory stuff!

So, Jonny is gonna do a r/place stream, and I bet they might make a QR code. Maybe to the website! Or we might find new links. It’s not much, but it’s gonna be a domino? And… hey! Mayhe thay’ll give us a new hint. Point is, that r/place stuff is something to watch, since we’ll maybe get an idea as to what the hell the clone has been doing.

In addition, it seems implied that both Riggy AND RoyalPear are currently alive, but not well. RoyalPear in particular is not having a good time and it seems the clone replacing him only has a few days to live and prove itself. So, expect something there in a few days! Probably a secret video, likely of the clone getting taken out. Or we might see something to do with Joe, since he’s the only one who is currently known to own his channel.

I gotta be honest, of all of these guys, I don’t watch much bundun. But he does seem to be similar to Riggy, as he IS implied to currently be alive! As of today, he has appeared in the channel’s respective clonevpn sponsorship, and thus, I expect to see him again. He hasn’t showed up nearly as much as the others, but the fact he is ALIVE is a good sign for him, and I wouldn’t be surprised if him and Riggy might team up or something.

Finally, the main theory one. JOE CAINE. Yes that name is a bit… y’know, certain thing sounds, but Joe is actually an interesting case to me. He is one of the few who hasn’t released a clonevpn sponsor, and also has not shown any sign of being replaced. However, his computer IS mentioned to be glitching out and being slow (sound familiar?) and also his… voice being weird? There’s heavy implications that if another creator is present in the short, he is voicing them?? So, that’s a thing.

Also, he can’t be cloned, and I have a small theory. Joe is already a clone. Think like this: Clones are likely harder to clone than things that aren’t clones. In addition, his appearance is based off of Harold, the grandpa meme dude. So, he could theoretically be a clone of that meme, though not Harold since I don’t think we should bring people who aren’t participating into this without them knowing. Plus, the whole voicing thing. If your a clone, maybe you can imitate other voices. It’s a bit far fetched, but this was fun to right. However, there’s one problem. As of soeeddunning shorts 113, we see he has received a sponsorship offer, and I don’t think they’d be after him if he was a clone. However, if he’s not doing what he should… there’s a chance? Either way I expect

tldr: Jonny is dead, Riggy and bundun teamup, Phaluer was not included because I have no clue where he fits in yet, Joe MIGHT be a clone we’re still figuring it out, and RoyalPear is double doomed. also thanks for reading this mess of thought soup, and make sure to take a look for yourself.

EDIT: This was made before we got confirmation Jonny was alive, sorry bout that. most of the above seems to apply still. Might make a new post tommorow okay thanks again!

[justanechoflower-ddlc]

(Alright, Monikanon here again, to clarify a few things.)

(The submission I gave (which you saw Nat respond to, the final in-character one for a while) was written BEFORE we worked out things aren't going that well and there's a chance this arc won't even be concluded properly. They were written not long after Nat's previous in-character post. And as it should have been apparent, there were never really any commitments on exactly WHAT would happen post-arc on this blog. That's something to be determined later. And Nat's right, the odds of something like what I described are smaller than they were when I said what I did then. And even back then, that was a small possibility out of a pretty big pool of possibilities, I didn't really have a clear vision in mind, just several possibilties of what it MIGHT look like, which is why I had said "more on that when we approach the arc's end".)

(Oh, and guys, full-scale AUs (On the scale of Inverted Fate/Underswap) were never on the table. If the blog's momentum had kept up, and it turned out that we decided that what I described DID happen (as opposed to some of the other possibilities I had in mind, or would have came up with later on, nothing about the future of the blog was EVER set in stone, the idea is we'd work that out when it's time to work that out), it probably would have been short scenarios. Think less "AU" and more simple "What If?", maybe on the scale of ONE of the Undertale Yellow "What If" animations by Robr0. (Except not animated, and I doubt it'd get even close to that level of detail) Also, it wouldn't be too surprising if that REALLY just turned into just broadly saying what might have happened in the same "here's an overview of what might happened". As I said before, nothing was ever confirmed, very good chance it'd never go in that direction at all, we didn't have a direction, we would have worked out where to go with this blog's future when we approached that point)

(And for why Monika hasn't returned, it's probably a combination of a lot of the factors we went over. My current (really rough, and nowhere near set in stone) outline is that the BEGINNING of bringing Ivan back is at the end of Flowey's trip, but of course he's not there for the whole process, the process itself takes up some of the time gap. Then there's catching up with the other girls, but there's also getting MC/Ivan to join the club again, and whether or not HE should know the game-related stuff, and how to catch HIM up into it. That's also going to take some time, and as the characters worked out, Flowey probably can't be there for that process, which means it's part of the time gap. That, and catching up with the others, is what I have right now, as I work out whether or not that's enough for that long of a gap. This is probably something we'll work out more over time here.)

(Oh, and I'll tweak probability a bit so Monika buys Flowey's explanation, or at least doesn't dig enough into it to work out what's really going on. I don't want that to happen either, and there are timelines where this would work. You won't see the results for a while though, for reasons I outlined in my previous submission. -Monikanon)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

(For some reason tumblr doesn’t want me editing submissions anymore before posting them because they say it will mess up the formatting? But I found a loophole around that and just copied and pasted what you wrote into a new post. I’ll also tag you at the end of the posts since there wouldn’t be any more notifications of “justanechoflower posted your submission.”

(Tumblr seems to be making quite a few changes with submissions including the new account requirement plus the fact I can’t edit them now. Oh well. They can’t stop us!!!!

(I have actually made animations before, but quick ones, and they mostly just include Flowey as the main focus in his flower form, which is really simple to draw in comparison to animating people. So yeah, if this fleshed out blog cuts short, we most likely would keep it a brief summary with a few still art pieces from me to sum up how this “what if” timeline would end. Probably in a similar format to the recaps we are going to be making for what’s happened so far.

(Your explanation for why Monika wouldn’t be present for the time between the end of the blog and now makes sense! And so far everything seems like it can line up with the main blog so it’s good that you have that prepared. Most likely when Monika returns to the ask blog, Flowey will be complaining about something alone the lines of “What took you so long? I’ve been having to deal with all these idiots single-handedly for forever!” Opening a chance for you to put in that explanation through Monika.

@ddlc-a-new-beginning

[duhragonball]

Dragon Ball Super Manga Ch.1-4

What’s that?  Did you think we were done with Battle of Gods?  No, we need to go over it a third time.

So after the success of the Battle of Gods and Resurrection F movies, Toei began producing the Dragon Ball Super anime, while Shueisha began publishing the Dragon Ball Super manga.  Both started up around the summer of 2015, and both made the... uh... bold choice to retell the Battle of Gods movie.

The weird thing is that both versions have significant differences from the original story.  They don’t even agree with each other, and I don’t understand what the point of this is.  The basic plot points are the same, but the details change.  For example, Beerus wakes up in the movie and pretty much heads straight to the North Kai Planet to meet Goku.  In the anime, Beerus visits at least one other planet instead, and he decides to only destroy half of it because their food was good, but too greasy.  Then he destroys a second planet and the explosion reminds him of the Super Saiyan God premonition. 

In the manga, he visits an alien planet, and the locals try to poison his food, but it doesn’t work.  One of their dishes is named Soup D’Saian Gahd, which jogs Beerus’ memory of his premonition, and he destroys the entire planet, not just half like he did in the anime. 

My whole beef is this: Who is this for?  A lot of times, you’ll see a movie come out, and there’ll be a novelization, and maybe a video game, and maybe a comic book or something.  They might vary in content, but mostly because not everyone had access to the final script.  I’ve heard that in the novelization of Empire Strikes Back, Yoda is described as being blue, probably because the author didn’t know they had picked green when principal photography began. 

But the point is that those are different media, with different priorities.  With Battle of Gods, we have an animated movie, and animated TV series, and a comic book that resembles the art style of the movie as closely as possible.  The implication is that all three need to be the same, and yet they’re frustratingly different in minor, nitpicky ways. 

To be sure, the classic Dragon Ball anime and manga had differences, but for a reason.  The anime would pad out scenes and invent whole new ones to sustain its production schedule while the manga was being published simultaneously.  Here, that doesn’t apply, because you have a TV show and a comic book adapting a two-year-old movie.  Also, there seems to be no interest in making both versions agree with each other. 

So let’s explain how this works.  You see Akira Toriyama’s name listed all over the DBS manga, but his involvement is pretty minimal.  When they list him as “author”, they mean he’s the guy who created all the characters.  It’s like when they put “Based on Star Trek created by Gene Roddenberry” on every episode of Star Trek.  Gene’s been dead for over thirty years, and even before that, it’s not like he was writing all the scripts.

Instead, the DBS manga is written and drawn by Toyotaro, a different artist who was chosen by Toriyama.  As I understand it, the formula for Dragon Ball Super is this: Toriyama will come up with a plot outline, then send it to Toyotaro, who expands it into a full story.  Toyotaro is an extremely controversial figure in the Dragon Ball fandom, mostly for high crimes such as “drawing the Dragon Ball comic”, and “existing”. 

For my part, I gave up on the DBS manga when it became apparent that it wasn’t going to do anything I wasn’t already getting from the anime.  But after the anime ended, Toyotaro finally got to tell original stories like the Moro and Granolah arcs, and that’s why I decided to finally read the manga this year.  Unfortunately, it means I gotta wade through a bunch of reruns to get to the good stuff. 

I suspect Toyotaro was similarly frustrated with this arrangement, because his Battle of Gods adaptation is very short--only four chapters long.  And there is no Resurrection F adaptation at all, which is lucky for me.  I think Toyotaro was champing at the bit to get this series moving, and in the meantime, he managed to work in some new additions where he could.

For instance, chapter 1 pretty much follows Goku’s POV from Episode 1 of the anime.  We see him doing exercises while Goten drives his tractor, but Toyotaro also shows him imagining his old enemies while he does his drills.  This is handy, as it gives Toyotaro an excuse to put Cell in the manga.  Also, I find it kind of amusing that Goku’s training regimen is exactly the same thing his real-world fans do on the playground.

Vegeta is barely in this thing, save for the part where he fights Beerus on Bulma’s cruise ship, so Toyotaro puts in some side panels of the guy, like this one of Mr. Satan trying to give him his award money.

Or, this one of Vegeta learning the Bingo dance he did in the movie, but not in the anime.  He also doesn’t do it in this comic, either, as the manga version skips over most of the party.  All we get is another panel of Vegeta lamenting that he didn’t get to show off his dance. 

We also get this page where he explains who Beerus is to the others, while also covering the flashback to when he first met Beerus as a child.  I really like the way this comic is laid out.  I don’t enjoy a rushed re-telling of Battle of Gods, but Toyotaro definitely does a great job with the assignment he’s been given.

The only new plot element here is the introduction of Champa and Vados, who are destroying planets while Beerus searches for the Super Saiyan God.  They don’t want to alert him to their presence, but fortunately he’s too busy to notice them.  The only ones who do notice are the Elder Kai and Kibitoshin, who deduce that Champa is looking for the Dragon Balls, but not the ones on Earth.  Accordingly, Kibitoshin goes to New Namek to collect their Dragon Balls, thinking this will foil Champa’s plan.

Then it turns out that’s not what it was about at all, so Kibitoshin uses the Namekian Dragon Balls to dissolve his fusion.  So now he’s Kibito and Shin again.  This would be reflected in the anime, when we see these two in the Universe 6 arc.  So I’m guessing this was thrown into show how that happened.

Meanwhile, Champa destroys a Frieza Force ship just as it locates a Dragon Ball.  So apparently the Balls Champa are looking for are a third set.  According to Garana, the commander of the ship Champa destroyed, these Dragon Balls are enormous.  The Frieza Force’s leader, Sorbet, is more concerned with the disappearance of another platoon of his troops.  This convinces him that their only hope is to resurrect Frieza.

Meanwhile, some sort of Battle of Gods happens.  Goku turns into a Super Saiyan God, but he can’t beat Beerus, yadda yadda.  In the movie, Beerus blew up a small piece of the Earth to satisfy his word.  In the anime, Beerus faked falling asleep so he could spare the Earth without looking like he’d changed his mind.  Here, he just decides to spare the Earth, at least for the time being. 

So yeah, that’s about it.  The art is great, but it’s nothing we haven’t seen before.  These four chapters are saddled with recapping a movie while also setting up events in Res F and the Universe 6 arc, neither of which needed a lot of prologue to begin with.  I mean, seriously, Resurrection F starts with Sorbet deciding to wish back Frieza.  The Universe 6 arc starts with Champa arriving on Beerus’ planet and stating his business.  It’s not that complicated. 

[player1064]

i’d be interested to hear about your planning process for your neville fic… how did you think about what would be included in each chapter? do you have a general timeline youre working on that you fragmentes and rearranged? i really love the fic and would like to know more about how you’re going about it!!

oooooooh good question.... short answer I DID have a plan but I'm in too deep now and we're mostly going on vibes

okay I started writing out the long answer and it's getting VERY long (sorry guys for being passionate about my silly rpf fic writing process) so I'm putting it under the cut

I was actually working on this fic for AGES before I started posting it, it started out I'd just write sections as I thought of them but then I got Very Deep into timelines and stuff so it's like

I've got a list that's got basic details of Gary & Becks' actual careers going by year so that's got like:

debuts for club/england

retirements for club/england

trophies won by manchester united between 1993-2013

personal awards/honours won

when Becks moved to different clubs

post-football career stuff like start/finish of coaching jobs, tv stuff, salford, miami, etc

Personal life stuff - breakups, meeting real life partners, weddings etc

Salford stuff e.g. promotions and trophies from 2014-present

(here's a screenshot actually kdghdfkjfsda... turns out I Love talking about this)

THEN as an aside to that list I've got notes of the key things that have to change for the AU to work - and specific dates of scenes that I could potentially write (still basic stuff e.g. for the chapter that's just gone up I had '2000 - bad season', '2023 - fight about documentary', '2021 - collapses at the euros', '2020 - weird pandemic conversation with carra')

I also have a page filled with random dialogue I've written without the full like Written Out Section bc I'm someone who thinks in conversations so I like having somewhere to dump all the conversations I'm imagining happening at various points in the fic... they don't all make it in for example here's part of the original valencia conversation gary & becks were going to have:

Then I've got a list that goes year by year which is less focused on Events and more on like their emotional journeys and what their relationship situation is at any given point.... trying to see if there's anything on that list that wouldn't give spoilers i THINK this one has mostly all been covered at this point:

yes there is still more to come. SORRY this is so insanely detailed but this fic has consuming my every waking thought for months. so.

so before I started posting it, like I said I was just writing sections as they came to me. I keep them in onenote rather than word bc then they're separate pages which is easier to navigate quickly and find what I want as I'm going.

I actually wasn't sure if I was gonna do the mixed up timeline or go straight chronological order but I think going chronilogically would be difficult bc there are some parts of their lives that get a lot more weight and attention than others and some that get skipped over just bc they're not super relevant to the story. so instead they're organised kind of by theme.

SO how I decide what's going in each chapter is like I had a vague outline of what I want the sort of Journey through the fic to look like, which is basically (again no spoilers so JUST for what's posted so far):

(ALSO actually reading through my notes on this I've gone slightly off course lately bc these things sort of get away from me. so this is a good reminder to myself that I did at one point have a plan that I was quite happy with and I should try keep it in mind)

1: establish the main things that have changed in this universe (not being sold to madrid and getting together when they're very young)

2: this bit is harder to explain but it's like. part of it is sort of highlighting different points where their paths diverged from real life and part is just like they're happy and in love but the outside world keeps creeping in - Becks getting more and more famous, Gary feeling like he can't keep up, the difficultes of being a gay footballer.

3: Jamie's coming in and starting to mess things up

4: issues they're having with their careers sort of seeping into their relationship and making everything a lot harder than it needs to be.

again I've not read through these notes recently and now I'm thinking I probably should have - I've just been going with the vibes which sometimes u need to do it's not a bad thing BUT anyway I just saw this note I made and I really really like it I think it's a good summary of the fic as a whole kfdhjgkdfs

GUESS WHAT I'm still not done. Yes this is insanely intricately planned out yes like I said the last couple of chapters I've mostly just been going by vibes rather than the actual plan I actually had. For example turns out I had never intended to write that second jamie interlude. oops!

SO like I said I keep all the sections as individual pages in a section of a onenote notebook and those I keep in chronological order for easy navigating. Then I use notion's board view and I've got the date of each section as a card that I can easily drag and drop between columns representing chapters so that I can organise how I want them to flow and I can reorder things until I'm happy with them:

and then after obsessively researching every single section for historical accuracy I just kind of. throw it all together and post it and hope for the best........

THANK U FOR THIS ASK btw!!!!!!!!! it was really really fun trying to explain all of this and I'm sure it looks like a complete mess (this isn't even including all my random scribbles in notebooks omg) but yeah. I really really love writing this fic I love this universe I love imagining them happy and in love I wish I didn't have to give them so many problems but as I'm always saying I LOVE pain and suffering!!!!

[valeriianz]

are you still doing yearning prompts? can you please do "every time you smile i memorize it...." from the list?

what you're about to read doesn't go with this prompt... yet! have a snippet of what's going to be a long Photographer!Hob and Model!Dream au. it's completely outlined so hopefully i'll have it out within a week, but for now, have a little backstory on how they met:

Morpheus had tumbled into his life almost literally. He appeared at the bar Hob worked at, collapsing into a stool and ordering a gin and tonic without so much as a “how are you?” and Hob hadn’t paid much attention to him, at first. They certainly didn’t speak, except for the mundane, “can I get you another?” and a heavy nod from the shadow at the end of the bar.

Morpheus was like a shadow, back then. A wallflower clad in midnight black, all the way to his ruffled head of hair. His skin was milk white with a jawline that could cut. Hob found himself sneaking constant glances at him, finding something new every time. The way he sat, stiff and proper, like he didn’t know how to slouch. The way his fingers wrapped around the short glass, skeletal, but also soft, careful, like what he held in his hand was a precious thing. His face, however, contrasted his demeanor. It gave everything away, his eyes puffy and red, like he’d been crying. Maybe he had been, people who came to a bar alone usually shared in some sob story, though it was interesting that Morpheus hadn’t spoken yet, choosing instead to silently numb himself with gin. 

He was pretty, Hob had thought, in the way a knife was pretty. Cold hard steel, sharp, heavy, lethal. But something that could also get dull and worn down with time. Hob had been curious, had wondered what could dull this man’s edge– a man who affected this tone of grace and confidence, when surely he must’ve known how his eyes betrayed him.

Hob spoke to him as he set down his third drink. He doesn’t remember the details of that first conversation, but Hob does recall easing into it, like walking up to a stray cat. It was clear Morpheus wasn’t interested in discussing why he was alone and upset that night. So Hob instead broke the ice to ramble about the latest book he read, what classes he was taking, the weather, allowing each topic to prompt Morpheus to respond, slowly opening him up until that ramrod straight back finally began to loosen, bending forward. Soon enough the man had his elbows on the bar top, giving Hob his full, undivided attention.

Hob supposes he should remember more, given the crater Morpheus left in his life. But it had been a busy night, the bar was dark and loud, and if what had happened an hour later hadn’t come to pass, Hob most likely would have brushed off the interesting man in the corner as just another customer. 

As it happened, Morpheus had gotten drunk, was giving out his smile a little more freely, and was glaring daggers at another drunken fellow a few seats down who had been incessantly flirting with Hob.

Hob had a plan with the drunken lech, he always did with unwanted attention from patrons. He played along with the nicer compliments, bit his tongue at the lewder ones, and finally set the man’s check down once he’d said something vulgar about where Hob’s “pretty lips” could be used for. He’d of course said he wasn’t done and after Hob insisted yes, he was, the man had the gall to grab Hob’s arm and pull.

Now, Hob could defend himself, was no amateur in a brawl, and was about to use his free hand to grab the back of the guy's head and smack his face into the bar, when suddenly it had been done for him.

His stranger at the end of the bar was there in a flash, pulling the man’s head back up by the hair and shoving him hard enough to make him tumble backwards and off the stool. Hob took a baffled moment to simply gawk, watching with wide eyes as the man landed on the floor in a crumpled heap before Morpheus grabbed him by the collar to hoist him up again with a strength that probably surprised everyone who was now watching.

In the time it took to give the guy a right hook, causing everyone to emit a chorus of “ooh!” after the sickening sound of bone connecting with bone, Hob remembered he should break this up. He met his manager on the floor and grabbed Morpheus around the shoulders, turning him violently away at the same time his boss had the other man in a choke-hold. Morpheus had his hands up in surrender as Hob forcibly pulled him through the dining room and out the door.

Normally Hob took a great deal of pleasure kicking rowdy customers out, tossing them onto the sidewalk like a bag of trash, but as he pitched the man in his arms out into the cool night air, he knew he’d been smiling for a whole different reason. He shouldn’t find the drunken fight to be amusing, but rationality wasn’t Hob’s strong suit, back then.

Morpheus had stumbled, nearly getting tangled in his long legs, before swinging his head to regard Hob.

Hob had expected some kind of tantrum, a biting remark about how unfair this was, or an explanation, but instead what Morpheus had said was,

“I haven’t paid my bill.”

Hob snorted, watching him sway on the spot and breathing heavily, the adrenaline of the fight still obviously pulsing through his veins.

“Come back tomorrow.”

[lashysdomain]

Monotony

The blank stare that Vayu typically gives her laptop while in classes breaks when her professor announces a group project. Vayuya starts packing her things away into her bag as her eyes roll; who would be most tolerable to partner with for this-

Ah. 

Assigned partners.

A night later Vayuya's group meets, the rest of them having picked a place unfamiliar to her to study. While uneasy, there are enough people around that her nerves are steady. Though it being a bar, even in the quieter hours, is still a bit uncomfortable.

Project breakdown, division of work, and an outline are established in a short few hours, Vayu deeming herself the groups scribe and choosing to not bring much up herself. This is a required course, not one she even has much interest in, so why bother at all when others are excited about it.

Her mind begins to drift as talk moves away from class work to personal life, beginning to pack things away once again out of habit. A tapping at her shoulder breaks her autopilot, her mouse nearing dropping to the floor but the stranger catches it.

"... What?" Vayuya is clearly startled as she hisses the question; looking the other to get a general idea of them and quickly they’re deemed not the kind of person she'd typically enjoy the company off just by the vibes running off their smile alone.

"Oh, sorry, sorry. I didn't mean to startle you; here." They hand her mouse back, and skitter out of their chair when Vayu immediately tries to beeline for the door. "H-Hey! I was gonna ask if I could walk you out! You're always alone unless it's like, one or two people so I figured I'd be ni-"

"Nice?" she spits the word, hand on the exit door as she wheels around, her eyes growing darker as they narrow. "What's nice about following me the full length of the bar when I clearly don't want to talk to you."

"Well. You didn't hear me out so I wanted to explain-- You didn't really say anything so I wanted to make sure-"

"Fucks sake- Can you not just leave me alone? Seriously?" Her lip curls up in disgust at just how insistent they are, opening the bar door and slamming it shut behind her to end the conversation. People from her school almost never want to actually be kind to her. Not people she's in classes with. The term had started months ago, there's no way someone had avoided the rumors for that long.

The sudden acrid taste in her mouth snaps her back to reality, glancing down at the ruined black polish on her nails as her feet slow to a stop. Turning her attention back to the world around her, the street she's on is unfamiliar; likely a side street she's never had to use in this part of town.

Pulling her phone out to check the GPS she feels a tap at her shoulder again, pointedly ignoring it as knowing one of these interactions is coming is always the worst. Scarbucks isn't too far since this was a college bar, but checking her phones calendar she curses. Levyil isn't working tonight.

"Hey- I'm sorry, but after what happened in there I wanted-"

"Oh, yeah, be honest with what you want. I know even though you won't get it, you'll tell people you did."

She doesn't even turn from her phone, just starting to head off in a direction at random.

"Would you stop that!" Vayuya nearly falls to her knees at how hard her arm is pulled back, glancing up at the green and pink bangs covering this trolls face. She hadn't even realized their voice was different from the others.

"I wanted to see if you were okay. That guy took off after you. I wanted to make sure you were fine." They huff, finally letting her go.

"Oh. Yeah. I'm fine." Vayuya glances away, a pit growing in her stomach at the misunderstanding. She can feel her posture changing to be less standoffish and more nervous for a moment, but after a shake of her head she's back to her normal self. "You can go now."

"I'd rather not, actually. They're probably still out here looking for you. Can I walk with you to somewhere you can stay safe for a while at least? I'll leave after. Promise."

"Uh. Yeah. Sure."

[idiotuvu-blog]

plucked petals

Hiii!!!

This is my first time posting a fan fic on here, it's not a self-insert and follows my OC, Ivy!

I really hope ya'll like it and if there's anything I should change or tweak please let me know- I'm open to criticism and pointers about where this should head. :) I do wanna open this up to some smut and romance but I'm not 100% sure.

TW: ANGST ASF!! death of a parent (mom), Chris being a shitty dad, smoking, mild cussing, self-hatred (in a way), and cancer.

Word count: 2,575

ENJOY!!!

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I never really knew my dad. I know his name, I know that he looks a little bit like me, and I know my mom was crazy over him but other than that? Nothing. I remember his faint outline from before he left us when I was 4, but who remembers stuff that far back the correct way? My mom kept a picture of him around but it was only a couple. One was them, clearly drunk, at a party back in 2001, celebrating the new year.

My mom’s pale face had red from the liquor dancing with her blush, it went hand in hand with her wild red hair, curls poking out from different directions. Her smile was always the prettiest thing, I’m glad I inherited her joy. On the other side of the picture was an equally, if not more, drunk man. His tan skin and dark brown hair stood out next to my mom, he was tall and very lean. My mom would say “Oh, Ivy. He was a Greek statue come to life” Her high-pitched voice always soothed me “He carried me into my room one time, I was blushin' up a storm!” she would finish with a laugh. 

Once I turned 16 her laugh quit being full of life, it would end with a cough or her catching her breath. One day when she was at work, she worked at the post office in town, she passed out as she was helping someone mail something off. I got a call from one of my mom’s friends and I immediately skipped 7th period to go to the hospital, my mom and I were connected in a way that I couldn’t explain. 

I always thought it was that she saw my dad in me, we didn’t look exactly like twins but I leaned a little bit to how he looked. We shared the same blue eyes, dark brown hair, and wide shoulders. I always hated my shoulders, just another thing on the list. They made me look even wider than I was, my plush body wasn’t as big as my mom’s but it was still something that made me stand out. 

When I got into the room my mom looked terrible, her smile was dulled and her wild hair was spread over the pillow she was leaning on. I rushed over and picked her hand, my thumb creasing her hand and all she did was look up at me, a little smile on her face. The doctors came in and explained that she had cervical cancer and it was spreading at an alarming rate, there was nothing they could do other than just offer her meds for the pain.

We cried, of course, we cried more than we’ve ever cried. A couple of hours passed after some shared tears and prayers, I wasn’t very religious but at that moment I knew I had to beg whoever was up there for something, anything. My phone started buzzing in my pocket, I grabbed it and read the name carefully ‘Dad’. The last time I heard from him was when I was 12, he was some military guy that moved around a lot. 

He lived in Oregon, which was very far from Wisconsin, and didn’t talk about his work a lot. He always missed holidays and birthdays, he never called, only a short ‘Happy birthday, sport’ or ‘Merry Christmas, kiddo’ text and some little gift he would send me. Usually some shitty art box or makeup box, he never knew what I liked or what my interests are and I always blamed myself for that. I thought I messed everything up just by existing, by just being born and breathing, or maybe it was the fact I wasn’t a boy. 

Maybe he wanted to be a boy dad? To play baseball with someone or teach them how to work on a car, not princess parties or Barbies. I thought about this as I watched his name disappear from my phone. Maybe he was coming home? Had some change of heart or finally wanted to talk to me. I looked over at my mom and I gave her a fake smile “It’s Tiffany, I’m gonna step out and call her back, okay? I’ll be right outside.” I would tell her- not wanting to say ‘Hi, remember the man who left you and moved across the country? Well, he finally wants to hopefully play dad so I’m gonna call him back!’. She just nodded her head, the medicine made her tired so as I stood up I kissed her forehead and left the room, holding my phone with a tight grip. 

I stepped out into the hall and stared at the message on my phone that popped up after I missed the call from him. 

"DAD: Hey kiddo, call me back. "

I just stared at the message, ‘kiddo’ was always my name to him. Never Ivy, my real name, or hell even our shared last name Redfield. I let go of a breath I didn’t even know I was holding and I hit the redial button next to his name. The line rang for about 2 rings before a gruff voice that I didn’t remember spoke up “Hello?” it said, as if I was bothering him. I stuttered for a moment “Hi, it's uh… It’s Ivy. What’s up?” I tried to sound unbothered but I’m guessing I failed since there was a pause on his end. “I heard what happened, with your mom and I guess I’m just checking in on you”.

My thoughts raced with questions, ‘How did he know? It’s only been 3 hours since the doctors talked to us and neither of us has been on our phones…’. “Oh really?” I wanted to ask how but honestly I didn’t care- I was mad. Mad that my mother dying, the mother of his only child dying. My blood boiled a little as I forced a nice reply. “I’m rolling with the punches I guess, mom is sleeping and I’m uh…” I take a deep breath to try to calm myself down before tears rush down my face, not wanting to face his harsh reality. “I feel like I’m drowning.” I choke out, tears making their way down my face. It was uncontrollable now, I was letting my walls down for a man who I hadn’t seen in 12 years.

 I was guilty of being an open book, I mean I could open up to someone just minding their business. I guess I caught him off guard as he looked around for a minute to respond to me as if I was making this hard for him. As if I’m just something he can just talk to for 5 minutes and it’ll make up for years of missing that key father figure in my life. “I figured,” he said, his voice still strong and unwavering. I opened my mouth, I was an off-put, how dare he call me to just make me feel worse? My mother is dying slowly, painfully, and with her 16-year-old daughter as a crutch to ease the pain, along with her meds. “I wanted to offer you to move in with me,” He said, someone talking in the background on his side, sounded like he was at some mall or somewhere busy. At this point I’m mad, he wants me to leave my mom? Alone?

I wipe my tears and try to straighten myself up, ‘no’ I wanted to say ‘why the hell would you even offer me to leave mom?’ I wanted to bark. Instead, I just said “Why?”, a feeble and weak notion of how I’m feeling- defeated and done. “I know this is hard for you. I wanted to offer to enroll you in school here in California. I could get you into a good academy and after you can come to work with me.” He said in a very matter-of-fact tone. I roll my eyes, ‘guess he moved again’ I think to myself.

That was it. I was mad, pissed, and manic even. This was just a recruitment to whatever the hell he does for a job, he didn’t care. He didn’t care that my mom was dying, he didn’t care that I was in one of the toughest situations in my life, he wanted a perfect little daughter. Someone feeble, who would go ‘Yes Dad! I would love to make up for the 12 years you missed! Please! Pick me!’ and little did he know I split. 

I wanted to be his perfect daughter, I wanted to go out on daddy-daughter dates or go to the zoo with him or hell- work with him at whatever shit hole military place he was at but I shook that thought out of my head, keeping my priorities straight. I took a deep breath and opened my mouth “I-” I was ready to give him a piece of my mind, to tell him off for everything, making me feel like I wasn’t enough, making me question myself but I was cut off by the other end of my phone “Redfield, we’re ready to roll out” some woman’s voice cut through. I heard him mumble a ‘one second’ before turning his, apparently important, attention to me. “Just think it over, kiddo. I’ll talk to you later” and a second later the phone line cut out. 

I stood there for a moment, shocked. 4 minutes and 12 seconds is how long I was worth to him before ending our conversation without hesitation. I made my way back into the room and sat next to my sleeping mom, the medicine must have knocked her out. I was glad since I had silent tears running down my face. 

Jump to the present with me, It’s 9 am and I’m dressed in a black dress with my makeup and hair down as rain smeared my perfect facade and pelted down on me. I just got done burying my mom. I’m 22 now and 10 times more fragile than I was at 16, I stand alone as the crowd of people disperse. My eyes are glued onto my mom’s closed casket, there are roses with a heart on the top, I put my hand on the lower part of the casket and I lower my head. Tears started mixing with the rain, and the thunder drowned out my loud wailing as I started to rest my forehead on the casket.

I was finally able to let out all of my emotions and I was alone- no mom by my side to move the hair out of my face, no mom to kiss my head and say ‘It’s okay Ivy, even diamonds are made under a lot of pressure’. There was no more light anymore and just like the weather, I was not holding back, letting my weak side show after 4 years of being the strong one, watching her hair fall out because of the medicine or watching her lose a bunch of weight to where she was skin and bone. She stopped walking after her 3rd year of medicine and we went everywhere together when she would sleep I would do online classwork for my college classes, I wanted to make her proud. 

“God bless her.” a gruff voice said beside me, I watched the tan hand place a rose onto the heart of roses on her casket. I stood up straight and noticed the colossal man next to me was my father. He smelled like wood and a faint cologne that I couldn’t pinpoint, his blue eyes matched mine. He was in a black suit and in his other hand he held an obituary for my mother ‘Annabeth Marshal’, her name stood out to me before my matching blue eyes flicked back to his. “How…” I weakly start to speak but he cuts me off before I can finish “I wanted to support you, you’re my daughter and I love you.” he said as if that would fix the now 16 years apart from him. I run my hands through my hair as I try to compose myself “Support me? Now?” I ask him, my voice laced with venom.

“It’s been 16 years since you left and you expect me to what, let you back in my life? You called once, sent an occasional text and now you want me to believe that you love me?” I start crying harder, my words coming out choked. My hands shook with anger but all he did was look at me with surprise, his eyes wide. I noticed someone else I don’t know standing on a hill about 20 feet away smoking a cigarette, he looked like he was with my dad and was watching us. My eyes snap back to my dad “You couldn’t even come alone?” I ask him. My dad shook his head “It isn’t like that, Ivy” he said back, his tone becoming slightly more stern, “Oh!” I laugh “You know my name now?” I shake my head at him, I’m angry and the random man watching us while smoking is making everything else worse. “Of course, I know your name, you’re my daughter, and I, as your father-” He starts but I cut him off.

“You’re my father now? I haven’t seen you in years!” I cry a little bit harder and he sighs “I’m sorry about that, I needed to protect you and your mother. Listen, I want to be a better man for you. I’m sorry, but please… Listen to me.” he says as he moves his hand onto my shoulder. Once I feel the warmth from his hand on my shoulder, I start to lose control. I crumble because I realize I still love my dad and I want his acceptance. I’m confused as my head naturally finds its way to his chest and I start to sob, it’s like I’m a baby again and he’s holding me for the first time. He starts talking again, softer and a little bit nicer but still stern “I want you to move in with me. Make your mom even more proud of you than she already was. Start over fresh.” He says as he starts to softly rub my back as I cry harder. I catch my breath for a minute as his words linger in the air and I think about it for a minute. I huff a little as I mumble against his chest “Okay… I will.” I feel so small and weak as his chest rumbles with a laugh and he ruffles my hair.

“Great, Let’s get you a bag and I’ll send someone to get the rest of your stuff,” he says and I eat it up. I’m putty in his hands and it feels great, I’m finally with my dad. He started to lead me to a black car with tinted windows where the man who was smoking was leaning against. Watching is even more and I get to see him fully. He looks around my dad’s age dirty blonde hair with some grey, he has some stubble on his chin and he’s weirdly handsome. The black suit he’s wearing is just as drenched as my dress and my dad’s suit.  look back at my mother’s casket for the last time and I take a deep breath, knowing she would have wanted this for me.

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THANK YOU FOR READING!!!

Please let me know if theres anything I should add or if I should write a part 2! :)

[gk999fangame]

February 2024 Devlog - A minor distraction (?)

This devlog was originally supposed to be about Gameknight999 Rebooted until my submission to a certain joke game contest on a certain Sonic fangame website ended up taking up most of my time this month. As such, I unfortunately couldn't get much done on GKR this month, but hey, I'll make sure to get some good stuff ready next time, alright?

Now that I have your attention, how about I tell a retrospective of my experience in that game jam? I can promise it will be worth it. (since this is not related to GK99R, it won't be tagged gk999fangame_devlogs like usual)

Context

Sonic Fan-Games HQ (SFGHQ) is the number one Sonic fangame website in the world for years by now, and is most well-known for it's yearly Sonic Amateur Game Expo (SAGExpo), an online E3-like dedicated not only to Sonic fangames, but also fangames of other IPs as well as indie games.

For a while now, SFGHQ has been regularly organizing Really Amateur Games Expo (RAGE), a side-event dedicated to Sonic joke games. Unlike the main event, RAGE is basically a game jam; people have 14 days to make a Sonic joke game following a given theme, and SAGE hosts livestream themselves playing through the games. For example, RAGE 2024's theme was "Sonic Mania 2", and the games were streamed by MotorRoach on February 17th.

I originally didn't intend to participate to that year's RAGE (I never even did a single Game Jam once in my entire life) until I rewatched past streams of Rummy (former SAGExpo host, very cool guy) playing old RAGE submissions. I told myself "god, it would be awesome if he laughed like that at MY game" and so I set off for my first RAGE, and first real game jam… 6 days late. Only 8 days left to make Sonic Mania 2 from scratch.

A troubled development

My submission was originally going to be called "Sonic Mania 2" until I actually started making the logo; at that time, I settled on the Mania soundalike "Majonga", for a full title of "Sonic Majonga". I later added the sub-title "The Trial" after rewatching the RAGE playthrough of Melpontro's INSANE 2019 submission, to imply that my game wasn't actually finished and only a trial version of a much larger thing yet to come.

From beginning to end, I had NOTHING even close to a project outline, and work was done in a real erratic order based on what I felt like working on: the title screen was ready before I even started working on the character controller, the last cutscene was done before the first, the second level was the last "scene" made from a chronological standpoint, etc.

This became a problem roughly three days before the deadline, when I ended up having pretty much everything ready, save from the actual levels. I had to rush things real hard to meet the deadline, and the level design for these levels more than suffered from it. At least, from other people's playthroughs, the levels took a balanced amount of time to clear; not too long, not too short. I still wish I had time to add more stuff in (springs, other varieties of enemies, speed shoes).

Gameplay mechanics

I'll get straight to the point here: I have no idea of how Sonic physics work, and can't even work with pre-made Sonic engines (Sonic Worlds, etc.). So, I decided to just not use Sonic physics at all, and make a regular platformer character controller. I am not the only one to do that by the way, "Sonic" games without the physics are commonplace at RAGE. I still ended up referencing this paradox in the actual submission through a non-functional, purely decorative loop with the text "imagine having functional loops in a RAGE game".

To compensate, I attempted to make the playables as unique as I could as well as add a touch of innovation there and there. Sonic's biggest changes revolved around the ground spin attack being replaced with the SA2 somersault attack. Due to a lack of time, I decided to make the drop dash and spin dash also go into a somersault. Knuckles cannot climb walls from a glide, but gets a dash punch, ground pound, and uppercut (now also usable mid-air as a makeshift double jump!). I also coded in small physics differences for each character, such as Knuckles having a lower top speed than Sonic.

The game's real big gameplay addition was Tails going from a semi-controllable CPU follower to a gun minigame; if playing as Sonic and Tails, the mouse will behave as a cowboy shooter minigame, where clicking around the screen can shoot down and destroy enemies and obstacles. You also have to handle an ammo gauge in the top-right, which can be reloaded at any time with right-click. There is also a hastly-implemented combo meter that's even programmed to not drain while mid-air, so you can theorically keep the same combo going for an entire stage with a bit of skillful movement.

Jokes galore

My number one objective for this game was to put a LOT of references and in-jokes. I often ended up naturally adding in jokes there and there while developing the game, so that wasn't really all that hard. Most infamously, it is filled to the brim with Scott Pilgrim jokes and references; most notable one is the title screen animation included the movie scene of Scott Pilgrim tying his shoes with Sonic's head edited in, and MotorRoach's chat went absolutely WILD when this part came on.

There's also various references to several past RAGE entries: These go from "Green Hill Man Man" from the eponymous RAGE 2018 submission ominously staring at you in G.Hill Act 1's background, or sprites of Cory in the House and Bradfordhound appearing inside the gold ring sprites (referencing Dankles' amazing Cory In The Ded 3.5 game). The one I am most proud of is the SEGA executive from 2022's "Operation Shadow Shoot" making a cameo at the end of the game, which prompted a reaction in chat from Rummy himself (who previously played Shadow Shoot at RAGE 2022 and lost his mind over it).

Other jokes were simply based on stuff I had in mind at that time. For example, the Sonic eyebrow face plastered all over the game was a Discord emoji I used for a lot of time, and the boss battle theme is the audio of "ytpmv elf", my favourite ytp of all times.

The future of the game

The game was streamed alongside other RAGE entries on February 17th at MotorRoach's twitch. In order to keep screentime even between all submission, MotorRoach couldn't showcase every piece of content that's available in the game during his playthrough (missing content include playable characters, alternate level routes, etc). So, even if you watched him play the game, there are still secrets waiting for you in there, including a big one that permanently (though subtly) alters your copy of the game.

One day after the full stream of the games, I was so proud of the game I decided to publish the game on itch.io ahead of RAGE's results, following the example of all my fellas on SFGHQ's discord. This was not only my first real game jam, but I also somewhat managed to accomplish my original goal: while Rummy wasn't the one playing the game, he still had a really positive reaction to it, and that's absolutely priceless to me.

I originally didn't really intend to update the game after the game jam (I thought I would just finish it, submit it, watch the reactions and never think about it again), but I had so much fun working on this and am really proud of what I had done, as flawed as it is. I genuinely want to keep working on this! First thing I will have to do though, is cleaning up and refractoring the engine (preferably from the ground up on a blank slate) as it was thrown together hastily with no regards toward working on a large scale.

This project won't have a major impact on my work on Gameknight999 Rebooted, as the latter remains obviously my main project; nonetheless, I still want to dedicate Majonga's future expansions a bit of my time, and will thus work on both projects side-by-side for the time being. Don't worry, GKR is still in the works, and I can say with certitude that I should have some nice stuff to show by next month!

Post closer

If you somehow read through all of this, I sincerly apologize for not adding any images. Otherwise, I don't really have a really good way of closing things out, but if you wanna try out the game while waiting for the next GKR devlog, it's available on itch.io right now!