#I dunno if I will ever explore this one further

[angelwings-crossbowstrings]

Blood Ties Chapter 26

Series Masterlist

Warnings: Mainly just pregnancy stuff

A/N: I hope I pulled this off while keeping our archer in character. Be gentle.

gif by @daryl-dixon-daydreams

You knew it was bothering him, it was evident in the way he moved. The jerking slices of the knife as he made bolts while he sat cross legged on the old railing across from you. You were perched on the porch swing—he had all but jumped up and down on it to make sure it would hold you safely—just watching him, guilt flaring to singe the inside of your chest. He wanted to go on the run, get the things that you and the baby needed, but you were scared. Hershel had said the baby could come any day. It was at your insistence that Daryl wasn’t going. You didn’t have to try hard, mind you. He was worried about leaving you as well.

Still, it wasn’t sitting right with him for the others to be risking their necks for his baby.

“Maybe you should go.” You finally said, picking at your thumbnail. You saw his movements come to an abrupt halt before continuing.

“Nah. Ya need me here.” He sniffed, starting up on another piece of wood. He had legitimate bolts with his crossbow, so you could only assume he was just trying to keep his hands busy. He was so undeniably torn and it was showing.

“I think you should. You know what I need. You’ve read the books. Maggie will be there to help with the medical side of things, the list Hershel made.” You sat up straighter, attempting to massage the little foot away from your ribs. Of course, Daryl noticed.

“S’wrong?” He was climbing off the rail and made it over to you in one long stride, giving you a once over before he sat down. He didn’t ask before taking over for you, lightly rubbing over the little form of toes with the smallest, gentlest of smiles. You’d almost consent to constant discomfort if it meant you’d see more of that expression.

“Thumper has a personal vendetta against my ribcage.” Your head found your partner’s shoulder, watching that same laser focus that had moments ago been on the wood he was carving now honed in on you. For a moment, you were just a couple expecting a baby. For a moment, the world hadn’t ended. For a moment, you had managed to find perfect. “I love you.”

Daryl’s hand froze but for a mere heartbeat before his fingertips continued chasing little toes as if he were playing a game with the baby, when in reality he was simply trying to divert the tiny digits away from your ribs. “So ya keep sayin’.”

“So you keep saying. Is that all you’re ever gonna say?” You weren’t angry, not even frustrated. There was merely a soft curiosity that sat in the back of your mind; along with the little voice that assured you Daryl was yours and you were his, even if he could never say the words.

“Dunno.” It always unsettled you when he spoke so quietly, small and fragile as if he feared his words would end in some sort of pain. God, you wanted to bury his father in a gopher hole, maybe even his mother and brother. It was normal for a person to be unsure of feelings, to question and explore before accepting what they were, good or bad. Daryl didn’t have that capability. He questioned. He explored. And then he feared, good or bad. He didn’t think he deserved good and he was so attuned with bad that it’s what came naturally in his own reactions. Perhaps he thought you were trying to fix him, when that couldn’t be further from the truth. You didn’t see anything broken. You saw someone who had never been shown what love was supposed to feel like. He wasn’t broken, he just needed to learn, and Daryl was good at learning. 

Still you persevered, your fingers finding their way into his hair, delicately tracing the scar from Andrea’s bullet. “Do you love me, Daryl?” Maybe narrowing it down to a simple yes or no would make it easier for him. Maybe you were pushing him. You would need time if the answer was no but you would be okay. He cared enough to be with you, to raise Thumper as a family. In the end, that was all you needed.

But then his hand stilled on the center of your swollen belly and he lifted his head to seek out your gaze. Even with all the emotion stirring in those stormy pools of blue, you could easily see the fear, but there was something else. You continued to run your fingers through his hair, the color darkening somewhat as it grew. Even with that comforting gesture, you held his gaze, heard his breath stutter, watched his lips move so, so nimbly without a sound. His free hand came up to brush back your own hair, tenderly tucking it behind your ear. As he leaned toward you, the corners of your mouth lifted into a welcoming smile.

“Y/N, I—”

“We’re heading out!” Glenn called from the doorway before stepping onto the porch. Daryl pulled away fast, his hands on his knees, eyes downcast. 

You were going to absolutely torture Glenn before you murdered him.

“You sure you don’t wanna go, Daryl?” Rick had joined Glenn and was checking his weapons before he finally looked up.

Daryl, though, only had eyes for you; his bowed head angled to see you, questioning. 

You sighed with a smile, giving him a nudge with your elbow. “Go. Try to find those bra pad things. Cloths suck and they hurt my nipples.” There was no deeper shade of red that could color his skin. You laughed, loud and true. “Go. We’ll be fine.” Licking his lips nervously, Daryl nodded and left the swing.

T-Dog held out the archer’s bag and crossbow. “Thought you might change your mind. Went ahead and grabbed these.” He only received a nod. 

The group began to descend the steps, but Daryl paused at the end, looking back to you. He closed the distance in seconds, a finger hooking under your chin to lift your face higher, even though you were already looking at him. “Be back ‘fore dark. Promise.”

That earned him one of your sweetest smiles. “We’ll be waiting.” You patted your belly. The rough hand at your chin, moved to your jaw, his thumb stroking the apple of your cheek. “I love you, Daryl. Be safe.” He hesitated, long enough for something to stir in your chest. Hope? Excitement? Then he merely nodded and was gone.

You and Lori were given the least strenuous tasks. She was not far behind you. A few weeks, her belly almost as prominent as your own. Luckily, you found it helped for folding clothing before stuffing them in the correct bag. Your bare feet were propped up in a chair across from you, your ankles swollen, squeezed by the socks that you had to wear to keep them warm. Your body just ached all over. Thumper Dixon was playing field hockey with your internal organs and the nausea you had definitely not missed was threatening to make a comeback. You just felt awful.

“The last month is the worst.” Lori commented while packing away some of Carl’s clothing. “And it’ll take a while after the baby comes to feel human again.”

“Growing a human fucking sucks.” You groused, one of Daryl’s few shirts lying spread over your torso. “And goddamnit, I have to pee. I always have to pee.”

“Means you’re hydrated at least. Silver linings.” Lori tittered. If anyone had been watching the two of you battling to your feet, it would have been worthy of more than a few chuckles.

“Thanks for going with me. Daryl would have a kitten if I went alone.” When you straightened, there was an immediate feeling of change in your body that had you looking to Lori, eyes wide. “Holy shit, I can breathe but I feel like I’m gonna piss my pants and my hips hurt.”

She smiled and placed her hands over her own round bump. “The baby dropped. You're carrying differently now. I wish we had a mirror.” 

“Carrying differently? What do you—oh.” You immediately noticed when you began to massage the taut skin that the swell sat lower. You suddenly couldn’t remember a word the old man had said. Were you about to go into labor? How would Daryl know? You couldn’t do it without him.

“Easy, Y/N.” At some point, the other woman had crossed the small space and put her hands on your shoulders, your stomachs brushing against one another. “It just means the baby’s getting ready. Though, I think after this run, Daryl should probably consider staying behind on any others.” You nodded, trying to get your breathing under control. In through the nose, out through the mouth. “Let’s go take care of business and then let Hershel do his daily thing, okay?”

You nodded again, a jerky motion while you trembled. “Yeah. Yeah, okay.” You followed behind her, trying to keep your mind on the fact that if you didn’t empty your bladder within the next couple of minutes, you would still be incredibly anxious but you would be so with wet pants. “Maybe the little gremlin can’t reach my ribs now.”

You felt like crap. All day, you felt heavy and sluggish, swollen and nauseous. By late afternoon, you just couldn’t stand it anymore. 

“Carol.” You spoke her name quietly, leaning onto the dusty countertop to pillow your head on your folded arms. You saw the concern on her face when she turned from canned foods with which she was planning small meals. You couldn’t even wave away her worry. “Do you need my help right now? I think I’d really like to lie down.” 

“Y/N, what’s wrong?” She came to place a hand on your back, rubbing softly. It only succeeded in making your yearn for Daryl to be there, easing your fears in his own Daryl way. He would probably already have an aneurysm when someone told him that you’d done work, light as it was. And then you needed to tell him that the baby had indeed dropped. God, even if you didn’t tell him, he’d notice with that keen eye of his. Your stomach had shifted, still round but lower. There was so much pressure on your pelvis that you thought the bones might separate at any moment. Lori had promised that what you were feeling was normal, that it was simply new and you would take a day or two to adjust unless the baby decided to make its debut before you could.

“I just don’t feel well.” You stood straighter, nodding that she could remove her hand and you were fine. “I’d rather have Daryl come back to me feeling like shit and resting than to me feeling like shit and trying to help get things done.”

“I can’t argue with that.” She laughed. 

Carol was about the only other person in the group that Daryl dropped any of his walls around. With Rick, it was all business. There was respect there, but not yet friendship. You could see it though, the subtle changes in your hunter. He was getting comfortable around these people. It was a snail’s pace but if they were anything like you hoped they were, he would be granted their patience. God knew, he had earned it. 

“Come on.” Carol urged. “Let’s get you settled.” 

With each step, you whined, feeling less and less like the woman you had been only months before, like she had been left behind somewhere, starved or trampled by a herd. “I hate this. Is it wrong to hate this?” You grimaced at Carol who only chuckled breathily, her hand resting on your cheek.

“It’s not wrong. This is a lot. Our bodies do a lot.” A couple of soft pats and then she bent down to straighten the bedroll and arrange the blankets. 

You were watching, actually finding yourself excited to be off your feet and deciding that a nap wouldn’t be so horrible when there was a strange feeling low in your belly. It started as a gradual tightening but soon turned into an unyielding cramp, your stomach hard beneath your hands as you grabbed for your sweater. You gasped Carol’s name, could hear her clearly calling for Hershel but you couldn’t seem to respond, swallowed up by every fear that had been looming like a dark shadow for the past few weeks. The pain wasn’t even horrible, not like you had imagined at all. But it was terrifying. The only thing you could think of to do was hold the area that housed your little Thumper and whimper out Daryl’s name.

A bed had been cleared, dusted, and made for you in the downstairs room. As you laid there, resting, and stared at the half empty cup of water on the bedside table, you overheard Beth and Carl animatedly re-telling how two walkers had shuffled by the driveway gate. The children had hid and remained quiet, reporting that no others were seen once those two had moved on. You weren’t naive enough to hope that it didn’t mean more were coming. The group would need to pack up and head out likely within the next day or so. 

“Braxton Hicks.” Hershel had stated matter-of-factly. He had expressed that he was actually surprised you hadn’t experienced them before then, added that maybe you had but they were so mild that you just didn’t notice. You had two more instances over the course of three hours but nothing since then, though your body seemed to be in a constant state of dread, waiting for another to happen; for it to be more than what Hershel had said. You were waiting for something to be wrong.

Beyond the dusty, tattered green curtains, you could see the light fading. Daryl would be back soon. Would he blame you for bringing this on by doing a little work? Would he be angry? He’d be beside himself with worry, that much was a given. Hershel had said you could do small chores, that it was good for you to be moving, but what if Daryl didn’t see it that way? The morning had started so perfectly. The conversation had been left unfinished but it didn’t seem to have been heading anywhere bleak. 

“Ugh.” You didn’t know what was more exhausting, your body or your brain. Each time you closed your eyes, your mind ran rampant with each and every wildly negative scenario it could possibly conjure. You groaned and rolled to your other side despite the effort and apprehensiveness of even moving. Letting your eyes close yet again, you fought against the intrusive thoughts, forcing images of what Thumper might look like instead. A little girl with Daryl’s eyes and your smile. A little boy with unruly light hair like Daryl’s had been, a constant scowl. You laughed softly, wetly, shedding a few tears around your smile. No matter the sex of the baby, you hoped for Daryl’s eyes. They were the one thing to always gave him away, no matter what expression he wore. With a baby that couldn’t communicate needs and wants, you would at least have that in your corner.

At some point, you must have dozed off, opening your eyes to the sound of the old truck Daryl was driving. Looking to the window, you could see the faint light of dusk giving way to the moon. He’d kept his promise, albeit barely. You didn’t care as long as he was back. Shifting and struggling, you finally made it upright just as you heard Glenn’s all too cheerful voice, though you couldn’t make out the words. Rick’s few words trailed right after. Then there was Daryl. He spoke but then there was nothing more than hushed tones. Hershel offering the day's events, most likely. A thud was followed by echoing stomps of boots pounding against the hardwood floors.

“Where is she?” Daryl roared, closer to the door.

“She’s fine, son. She’s resting. This is normal. It just caused a bit of a fright. She just—”

“Where. Is. She?!”

The old man must have nodded or pointed because the next thing you knew, the door was swinging open with Daryl’s silhouette backdropped by the soft candlelight in the other room. His shoulders were heaving in what sounded so close to sobs that you squinted your eyes for a chance to catch his expression before he moved, startling you with how quickly he had one knee on the bed and was leaning in to check you over himself. He was filthy, mostly dirt and grime, but spots of walker blood and a cut across his cheek that was no longer bleeding. 

“What happened?” You asked, reaching for his face but letting your hand hover in fear of hurting him.

“Don’t matter. Ya alright? Baby okay?” He was breathless, either from his haste to get to you or maybe just with worry. He was touching you without hesitance, his hands in a mad rush to feel your face, neck, your belly. You watched his eyes go wide and knew exactly what it meant. “Why’s it look diff’rent?” 

“Thumper dropped.” His eyes were dancing back and forth as he flipped through his mental catalog of reading material and Hershel’s words. Relief was evident in his posture when he recalled what he had been searching for, but he was still tense.

“Hershel said ya was crampin’. The fake shit. Does it hurt now?” You shook your head and watched him finally sink onto his hip beside you, scrubbing a hand over his face. “Shouldn’a gone. Ya didn’t need to be alone through that.” 

“Hey.” You leaned as far as you could, to guide his hand away with one hand while the other used his chin to turn his face toward you. “I wasn’t alone and we’re okay. It’s just my body getting ready.” Daryl’s head tilted, his expression displaying his gratitude for your attempts at consolation but also heavy laden with guilt for leaving you there. “Daryl, you had to go.”

“Didn’t hafta do nothin’. Could’a stayed right here where ya need me to be.” 

He hadn’t asked what you had been doing. Maybe it wasn’t that important to him after all. He seemed to be more concerned with what happened and how you currently felt than anything. You truly needed to start trusting him as you wanted so badly for him to trust you. Your palm left his face and wrapped around the back of his neck, not needing much pressure to pull him to you for your lips to press against his. It was gentle and chaste, his hand leaving your belly to cup your jaw.

“We’re okay and you’re here now.” You soothed, kissing the corner of his mouth. “Just—no more runs until Thumper’s here, okay?”

“No more runs.” He agreed, his eyes closed, forehead against yours. “Ain’t leavin’ ya again.” His hand lowered back to your belly, rubbing back and forth. It was always the most tender thing you’d ever seen from him. You didn’t think him the type but he actually seemed to be calmed by the action. “D’ya need anythin’?”

“Just you.” You let him help you lie back, but he didn’t follow. 

“Need to clean up. I’ll be quick.” He made to stand up but you grabbed his forearm and pulled yourself up again, not stopping once you got there. He gave in to your incessant tugging and wrapped his arms around you. “You’re gonna need to change too now.” You sniffled, trying hard not to cry, but you were just so overwhelmed with relief that he was back in one piece, that nothing bad had truly happened, that he was going to stay. “Don’t cry, woman. M’here.”

“I know. I’m just—I’m happy. I have you and Thumper. And—I don’t deserve you, Daryl Dixon.”

Daryl scoffed, rubbing his cheek against the crown of your head. “Ya deserve way better than me, Sunshine.” He took a deep breath that actually shifted you against his chest and then he was tightening his embrace. “But I love ya. An’ m’here unless ya tell me to get lost.” He pulled away before you could say anything, heading quickly for the door with one last look before he walked out. You were stunned frozen, silent. 

He said it.

He said it and you could feel that he meant it. His actions had always conveyed it, but hearing it from his mouth was everything. 

Thumper rolled and kicked before going still, reacting to all the emotions you were feeding to them through your bond. When you laid down again, it wasn’t hard to fall asleep. No wicked images formed behind your eyes. Just those words replaying in your head, a baby’s tiny hand gripping a large finger. A child’s giggle. And then his voice again.

Your eyes didn’t want to obey when you bid them to open, the mattress dipping beside you, the sheets moving. A warm arm pulled you against an even warmer body, enveloping you in a veil of safety.

Everything would be okay.

Because you loved Daryl.

And Daryl loved you.

[logicpng]

i dunno if this has ever been asked before but how did Rigel and Vegas "first meeting" go like when they first split and became aware of each other what was it like? same thing when they first became Aldebaran?

this is going to be a long one lol. i meant to explore this in the Project Aster comic but that didn't really work out, so instead you get a whole infodump 🎉

In the beginning the fact of split went unnoticed, but the process of training forces them to learn how to give the control to each other without really understanding it.

just letting go, doing the task seemingly automatically, which does the intended job! but on the surface it would still seem like just something aster, singular, can do.

But then...

Over time a sense of "other" presence shows up. Subtle at first, but hard to ignore. As if another process is occupying the same space as the original one. At first it's just a feeling of something watching, then feelings begin to be exchanged, nudges on when to exchange control, hints on what to do, fully fledged thoughts.

Their meeting was a slow process. Eventually it's like the two have always been together.

so imagine you've learned that even though this isn't how it was expected to work under the hood, it's a fact that there's two of you, and your cooperation is vital to be able to work optimally, even when you disagree on some things.

and then you accidentally smash each other together into seemingly one.

the thoughts aren't merely exchanged anymore, you hear everything that normally goes through the mind of the other, and mixed with your own background thoughts it is so much. racing thoughts, growing into panic, and there's no way to stop it. you feel your now combined required resources stretch your shell a little further, taking up more space than intended.

slowly, but surely, the frenzy calms down. the noise and racing thoughts never fully go away, but you also get to recognize the new privileges you have acquired. and then the power rush kicks in.

[gendertrickster]

i dunno why i'm making a post about eridan but i thought about him and how people perceive him so why not

eridan is a really good exploration of the hope aspect i think. like aspects are defined by the characters which embody them and eridan defines a very dark and twisted side of hope, which is that of holding many harmful and dangerous views of the world and choosing never to question them or allow anyone to defy your idea of how the world functions. eridan is defined by these hollow and black ambitions and in turn this defines a part of the hope aspect itself: delusion

this shit reads like a manifesto. eridan is so hopelessly far gone down this path of broken belief and it's an extremely dangerous state for a prince of hope because the strength of his convictions directly correlates to his power (in a less allegorical sense, his will to act correlates to his desire to accrue a weapon to enact his beliefs in the way he sees fit, which is an extremely real thing that happens). he's convicted in his belief that he is disrespected and not taken seriously enough but refuses to address his own flaws or the trauma society has inflicted upon him through expectations and when pushed beyond the limit the result is a murderous monster of a 13-year-old boy

it's also interesting to note that eridan does not attack unless he has a personal justification for it. to him, sollux started it and got what he deserved. to him, feferi was a delusional woman who never understood him so when she charged forward he did not hesitate. with kanaya, they stood in a standoff until she glanced the way of the matriorb and his hatred of trollkind acted on its own and destroyed it, which provoked kanaya which justified his actions. to him, all of this is just "self-defense"

here, eridan's silhouette is white where kanaya's is black because eridan believes himself the purest arbiter of truth. to him, she is acting on thoughtless aggression where he is ever calm and collected. and thus he kills one of his best friends

the only reason karkat went untouched in this is because he's a man he didn't involve himself in it, only staring in shock at what he just allowed to happen but knowing he would never have stood a chance, being complacent in the actions of the higher troll, which is befitting of karkat

and it's THIS shit that is the core of eridan's entire character. you can definitely take his character further if you so wanted — he can be really engaging and even funny if you do him right — but you have to recognize that if you do, the mark he bears for his actions can never leave him. not to say he can't change, this is homestuck we're talking about, but he was written to be the ultimate product of alternia's broken and cruel systems, and it's something very important to keep in mind lest you forget what defines him

[mythalism]

I love everything that you write and I wanted to bring this up with you. I feel like if we had seen the actual moment (at least in one of the regrets) of Mythal’s death, it would have been so impactful. It’s something that Solas talks about constantly and that he feels responsible for and I feel like it would have been a huge moment for the player to see in the story. I dunno. Just ranting. Thoughts?

thank you anon 🥺 i would love to yap about this with you… i think you are totally right that seeing mythal’s death would have been really powerful. i COULD be amenable to an argument that keeping it off screen adds to the drama and tension and the way mythal haunts the narrative…. IF that was their intention… but i don’t think it was lol i think it was probably another victim of the messy development.

mythal so thoroughly haunts the narrative and the lighthouse itself… i think if they leaned into that and we ONLY saw her through solas’s pov in murals, keeping the mystery of her murder off-screen would make sense. but considering we literally get to talk to her, she has enough of an on-screen presence that maintaining that sense of separation is already a lost cause. we also know mythal on some level through flemeth, who has literally ranted about mythal’s death!!! “she was betrayed as i was betrayed”!!!! i think it would have been a nice climax of flemethyal’s arc to see that betrayal or at least hear about it.

i totally agree that it would have humanized solas further and i think that would’ve been nice to see, especially how his complicated grief for her was the catalyst/final straw against the evanuris of the veil going up. he also does actually talk about her murder several times, and we know it happens with THE DAGGER so it feels like it would’ve made sense to elaborate on how it happened more, and the fact that it’s his dagger, that she told him to make, that he used to tranquilize the titans, that he carries with him still, that he is so attached to and obsessed with, THAT DAGGER that did it!? it would have served as a really nice metaphor for his attachment to his grief and regret and the precious world, manifested physically in this dagger that also KILLED MYTHAL (and Varric now too!!)

he actually brings up what im assuming is her death when you ask him about blood magic (lol a lot to unpack here but that’s for another time) and honestly idk what to make of his convo because the way he speaks about it is very detached which i find interesting. obviously this might not be about Mythal but the implication that the dagger used was made via blood magic and sacrifice and “I suppose it depends upon the dagger" is suspicious to me….

anyway, i think who would’ve really benefitted most from us seeing mythal’s murder is ELGAR’NAN!!!!!! HELLO!?!?!? HE MURDERED HIS WIFE AND ITS ONLY MENTIONED ONCE WHEN HE AND SOLAS ARGUE!?!?!?!? WHAT THE FUCK????? the fact that mythal and elgar’nans relationship is nearly nonexistent is one of veilguard’s biggest sins to me. it should have been a huge part of the main story. they are literally THE SUN AND THE MOON. THEY ARE THE ALL MOTHER AND ALL FATHER OF ALL ELVES?????????? and he betrays and murders her and stabs her in the stomach. and literally no one talks about it ever it just doesn’t come up except for like 2 lines. elgarnan was such a one dimensional villain with no motivations (being a naturally evil spirit of tyranny doesn’t count and it’s boring) and no attachments and he feels completely inhuman as a result. like literally he’s just evil and that’s it and it’s so boring. we could have had such an interesting exploration of love and betrayal and how power corrupts and what it must’ve been like to be basically Elven Adam and Eve and a jealous man’s resentment culminating in violence and how mythal’s closeness to solas impacted her relationship with elgarnan like it could have been SO INTERESTING. and yeah. seeing her murder would’ve been a logical conclusion to a lot of build up. put it on the list of things we lost i guess 😔

[howlingmod]

Warm

summary - katana x reader. reader is described to have a broken horn and it's implied to have been some sort of big deal but it's not super detailed

wc - i dunno again. woops

misc - heretic katana ily ... also sorry for any mistakes i love writing tired on a whim. smiles

It was late. The sky had long since turned pitch as the rain continued to pour on and on. Crossroads had fallen quiet for the night, rain driving passerby indoors and locking them inside for the evening. The silence was broken only by the constant pittering of the rain, tapping on the window sill and running down the sides of your apartment building.

Katana couldn't complain. While he stayed at your place rather frequently, he had yet to adjust to the louder bands of night owls that often roamed at this time. It'd keep him up, picking up the faint noise of conversation and movement. It'd keep you up, if only because of his stiffness. The hustle and bustle of the city had long become white noise to you, leaving tonight with a strange absence the rain couldn't fill.

That was probably why the both of you were still awake at this point, even if only partially so. Your body felt heavy, lead weights accumulating in your limbs to keep you firmly planted as you were. You didn't have a huge bed, but you two were still far closer than you needed to be, tangled together and facing one another.

A hand trailed from your arm up to your face, warmth bleeding into your skin before slowly ebbing back out. From there, it travelled further upwards to the base of a horn, left fractured and badly cauterized.

After an injury, horns can eventually grow back, so long as the trauma hasn't completely destroyed the tissue. By all means, you should've been able to grow yours back, but not everything turns out as it should. There had been too much blood loss, too much sensitive tissue and nerve endings left exposed that was sure to get infected in the mess. If your horn was to get infected in such a vulnerable state, you likely wouldn't be here. And so, as opposed to the fine, smooth edges you once had, there was now a mess of shards and sinew firmly covered by synthetic material affixed to the remaining pieces.

Nerve endings had been burned off, but even the faintest touch still resonated deep in the hollows and grooves of your horn. Ordinarily, you would flinch back, grab at your horn until you could numb it again with enough stimulation, but instead you laid still. You couldn't see his and moving, but you could feel him exploring the cracks left over.

You could feel the featherlight touch of a fingertip tracing the spidery splinters in the surface till they faded back into the thick of the material. You could feel it roll back up to the division of synthetic material and your own- if his touch hadn't been careful before, it was near paranoid now, just barely grazing the surface for fear of hurting you. After following the groove all around the reachable exterior, it fell back down to tracing along the length of it, long cracks and imaginary shapes alike.

You could barely make out the glint of light on his eyes and exposed teeth. You could just barely find the roughened skin and dense gums, could just see the edges of where once smooth skin had been ripped open to leave his insides bare. Your hand was too heavy to move, too heavy to even think about moving it, so you settled for tracing along the edges with your eyes.

He didn't like his face, that much had been made clear to you. To him, it was a reminder of awful times, of pain and torture he would never forget, mentally or physically. To you, it was his face. It was all you had ever known him to look like. The only Katana you knew was the scarred one, the one with leathery skin and bad memories. Likewise, he had never seen your original set of horns, perched proudly on the top of your head like a crown, he only knew the asymmetrical ones, one ripped apart while the other stayed as a reminder of what they were supposed to be.

You had been hesitant to ever let him get close to it, turning your head away to hide it whenever he even so much as glanced at it. With time, with bearing his own scars to you, you'd grown more comfortable with it. He still remembers the day you first touched the lip of your shorter horn to one of his, how neither of you had said anything. Neither of you felt the need to, the message had already been given.

"I love you."

Your throat felt dry, had you really said that? You figured you must have, if only beause he had smiled, skin pulling alongside his lips at your words.

"I love you too."

[gremlinmodetweeker]

A Boy, A Twisted Memory and A Desire for Love

So this is the first official Ghost story on my blog. I know, I know, it's been a long time writing and I've not written something for the guy, but it's really just because I get so worried about writing him poorly.

I know he's a big military guy who hates having emotions and kills any and all kindness in his heart, but I also really like the idea of him exploring the concept of healing from his trauma? I dunno, I just thought about it.

Also, like König, I can't imagine Ghost keeping normal pets. Originally I had him get a spider, but then I read over his backstory again and it made more sense for him to get a venomous snake. I think it's a major step to overcoming his trauma. By the way! Big trigger warning, this is about a snake! This entire fic centres around a snake!

Anyways, I had some fun writing this but it made me super sad.

TW: Snake, discussion of past abuse, emotional trauma, child abuse (referenced), emotional disregulation

Wordcount: 1.7k

Art from This Post

Story Below the Cut

A Boy, A Twisted Memory and A Desire for Love

Simon locked eyes with the little black and yellow creature housed deep within its cave. It was a small thing, barely hatched from its egg it looked like. The length of a ruler at most. It was a light thing, covered in fine scales along its supple body. This thing was venomous, yes, but it couldn’t do any real damage. It was a threat maybe to a mouse, but a man such as himself wouldn't fall to such weak poison. Swelling, pain, nausea, yes. But death? Not quite.

And yet, his heart quickened within his chest. He could feel the sweat forming on his brow. It had been so long since he’d seen one of these beasts, and yet the same fear from back then wormed its way inside him now.

“Hungry?” Simon’s voice was particularly gravelly, roughened by sleep deprivation and lack of use.

The creature made no move. He’d be surprised if the thing even heard him. Did it even have ears? He’d have to ask the breeder later.

“Been a long time since I’ve seen one of yer kind before,” he admitted. He didn’t quite know why, but it felt somewhat soothing to speak to the thing.

“I killed the last one of ye that I saw. Crushed the fucker right under my boot, I did.”

It didn’t seem to scare the beast off. He wondered if it really was more afraid of him than he was of it. He hoped that was true. He didn’t want to admit that the fear still wriggled under his skin.

“He wasn’t anything like what my dad ‘ad,” Simon closed his eyes as the oppressive memories washed over him, “that one was a right bastard. Bigger than anything I’ve seen ever since. Shoved it right in my face, he did. Wouldn’t let me go till I kissed it right on the lips. If it bit me, I wouldn’t be standin’ ‘ere. But you,” Simon opened his eyes, dark eyes matching two glassy eyes of inky black, “you’re nothing. You're pathetic. You’re… You're so small.”

Simon turned back to the breeder.

Finally, the creature came to its senses and slithered back further into its burrow. So sleek and streamlined, and yet so slow to move. It was afraid of him, that Simon decided the moment he noticed that despite backing away, it didn’t dare look elsewhere.

“How much for this one?” he asked as he pointed at the plastic cube.

“That one?” the woman blinked and looked at what he was pointing at, “the female or the male?”

“The female,” Simon clarified.

“Oh she’s pretty, isn’t she?” the woman adjusted her glasses as she slid behind the plastic cube, “poor girl’s probably pretty scared being out here.” She didn’t mention how terrifying Simon was in his dark clothing, rough fabric stretched tight across his broad frame. He was used to scaring people by this point. Sometimes, like now, he wished he wasn’t.

“How do you pronounce that?” Simon pointed at the name that had been scrawled in blue ballpoint pen on a blank sticker.

“Boida dendrophila,” the woman replied, “she’s pretty young, but she’ll get big soon enough.”

“She’s one of them big ones, yeah?” Simon asked aloofly.

“You bet your arse,” the woman grinned, “she’ll be big soon enough. Don’t know much about ‘em?”

“Oh no,” Simon leaned down to take a better look at the little beast, “I’ve been doing my reading.”

“You got a big enough enclosure for her?” the woman quizzed him.

“Sure do,” Simon hummed, “I built her an enclosure myself. It’s nearly as tall as me, long too. Got some nice branches for her to climb and all that..”

“Wow that’s a lot of space. You sure that’s not too much?” the woman frowned.

“She won’t be in there for a bit, I’ve got something for while she’s small,” Simon reasoned.

What a stupid question.

“Oh well that’s fine,” the woman broke out into another smile, “but yeah she’s eating mostly baby mice, an adult once in a while. You know she’ll be eating bigger things when she’s full grown, right? You can handle that?”

“I think I’ll be quite alright,” Simon mused, “have to admit, she’s a right beauty.”

“She really is, isn’t she?” the woman gushed, “I’ve been raising her since she was just hatched. But now? Well, normally I sell them off a bit sooner, but she grew on me. Unfortunately, the husband isn’t too fond of her and wants her to be moved on.”

“Why’s that?” Simon looked at the woman from behind his sunglasses.

“Oh he got bit when she was the length of a pencil,” the woman laughed, “he’s held it against her ever since!”

“Heard her kind can get pretty feisty,” Simon commented as he looked back at the spider.

“They can get a bit aggressive, I won't lie to you. A bit territorial, too,” the woman explained carefully so as not to scare off the only interested customer she had all weekend.

“Real fast,” Simon continued on, “with nasty bites.”

“Sounds like you’ve done your reading,” the woman laughed uncomfortably.

“Course,” Simon refrained from rolling his eyes, “so how much is she? The sticker’s ripped.”

“She’s on sale, actually,” the woman grinned, “only a couple hundred quid.”

“That much, eh?” Simon straightened up to tower over the slender woman.

“Normally she could be anywhere up to four hundred,” the woman fought back against the subtle threat of intimidation.

“Well then,” Simon looked down at the cube, “looks like I got a good deal then.”

“You won’t go stompin’ on her, will you?” the woman furrowed her brows.

“No ma’am, that was just what I had to do when I went out to the Middle East,” Simon chuckled humorlessly, “I wouldn’t dream of hurtin’ this here little lady.”

The woman grinned as she counted her bills, Simon smiled just slightly as he picked up the container and brought it back to his car.

When he got home, he carefully moved the little creature into the glass enclosure of dirt, leaf litter and cork bark. He put it back in its place on his shelf and smiled.

“Dendrophila, eh?” he chuckled, “how ‘bout Ophelia? That’s a cute lil name for ya.”

The creature only burrowed away under the cork bark, eager to get out of sight of the frightening giant before her. He didn’t blame the little thing, he’d be terrified of himself if he was a younger man.

Once, he’d hardened himself into an unstoppable thing, a monster of a man. He had formed his shell through cruel lashings the world had lavished upon him. He took ablutions in raining blood. He was festering sickness or silver sin. He was what he despised in the world, the monster he tried to protect his own family from. When his brothers in arms welcomed each other warmly, they regarded him as a feral dog to be kept at a distance, chained in the backyard, out in the rain.

In Simon’s heart there was no room for love. He was not a man forged in kindness and love. He was the unfortunate son of Mr. Riley, cursed from birth to be raised in the muck and mire of human atrocities. He had been calloused by the time he was nine, and by the time he joined the military even the recruiting officers were afraid of him. He was too cruel, too strict, too much for anyone to handle. He could brute-force his way through life, but only for so long.

Even monsters had hearts. This was the unfortunate fact that Simon had learned far too late in life. He hated himself for how he wallowed in his loneliness. He thought his team would be enough, but there was a despicable part that still resided deep within him. He could offer his rotten sort of love to his teammates, but he could never care for them like he needed to. There was a part of him that had been stunted since childhood, and far too late it breached his skin to scream into his ears, begging him to please just notice me, notice me and don't let me die here inside of you.

He didn’t want to, but he spoke to a therapist. It was Price's advice after he'd broken down with a bottle of whisky in one hand and a revolver in the other. Price promised to never say a word as he unwound his lieutenant's fingers from the trigger.

A week later he'd arrived at a small office. They’d been cowed by him at first. Everyone was, but something about frightening the one person he wanted to be helped by hurt a part of Simon he wished to rip from his chest. Once he would have laughed, but in that office, he could only hurt. No tears fell, but his walls did and he was able to speak openly for the first time in his entire life without the help of a bottle of jack and a pair of dice. It felt wrong. He hated it, but he learned.

His therapist told him that to help rid himself of this festering parasite of an emotion, he should try to nurture the damned thing. Simon had laughed in the man’s face. He then told him to go to Hell. The man had learned not to flinch in the face of a predator, and so pushed forth. He said that to grow, Simon could try getting a cat or a dog. Something he could raise with the love he never had been given as a boy.

He said that he needed something to love or else he'd never be able to heal. Simon scoffed and left the room, but not before booking another appointment. The smug look on his therapist’s face disgusted him. He turned quickly and left.

So maybe it was out of spite that he bought Ophelia, but there was a part of him that felt like he needed the little creature. He needed something to love, and so he did. He loved the Ophelia with all his heart. He nurtured her and cared for her as best he could.

Months passed, and he started to handle Ophelia. She hissed, she scurried away, she did everything to get away from Simon’s touch. He figured that if he had to face himself, he’d do much the same. He wasn’t a creature born of love and compassion. He was death, in face and in heart, but each time he brought Ohpelia’s container out and changed her water, when she ate from his tongs, he could feel his rotten heart beating within his chest. It made him smile despite himself.

He was not a creature of love, and yet it was love he felt when Ophelia tentatively reached out and slithered up his hand. When he raised her up, ever so gently, he couldn’t help but cry.

How cruel was the world that a boy, born from street gutters and raised by heavy hands, would only ever feel love for the first time in a dingy London flat on his thirty-first birthday, alone save for the venomous snake in his hands?

Stories

Ghost Dump

[amesliu]

so disclaimer: I haven't read the book yet so I don't have the full context + i'm not USAmerican so I dunno how relevant this would be to pjo

Also so sorry for the essay... do ignore this if you don't want to go into this further! I just get rambly about cultures and cultural differences haha

In my family it really depends on who the guest is on what is acceptable behaviour? I guess? Closest to percy and annabeth would probably be my sister and her long term boyfriend (5 -ish years, they're early twenties). He isn't expected to help out, but he's allowed to and does regularly help set the table. In this case he also eats at my parent's at least twice a week. Sometimes he and my sister cook, sometimes they clean etc. (he also helps us host at birthdays sometimes! like offer other guests drinks that kind of stuff) Different example: close family typically helps out in the kitchen. My grandma refuses to let us do anything without her help no matter how insistent we are that "You're our guest! Let us do the work!" she'll just tell us that it would be rude of her to let her (grand)children do all the work while she sits and watches. We also always offer our help when we're over at family. (my mom's best friend, who she has known since college, is the same way btw. She also insists on helping us and we always offer our help when we are visiting her and her family) Now, if the boyfriend's parents came over to eat dinner my parents would not let them lift a finger. Same with neighbours, colleagues and other more casual acquaintances.

If I went off of my own experiences and no further context i'd say that rr is trying to show that percy, annabeth and their friends are very close

I totally get that and I agree it’s context sensitive. HOWEVER. My issues with this scene are as follows:

1. Percy appears to be not doing much of anything in this scene? Like the page I read is just him standing there narrating the scene…….? It literally says “Grover and juniper were setting the table which is usually my job” maybe I’m wrong and I’m missing context but that’s what it read like. But this isn’t rlly my main issue with the food stuff so oh well

2. I have a huge contention with Rick’s push to make Annabeth into a character that is like. Good at and interested in cooking and food handling in general. His justification for her learning to cook appears to be “she’s smart and so ahead in her classes she just decided to” which goes back to my point that I made on my side blog about the poor representation of Annabeth as a “smart adhder”. It feels like a retroactive and lazy justification for a character trait that he has already decided for her when her upbringing and personality has given me no reason to believe she would ever need or care to learn to cook. Her doing so could be an interesting way to explore the way her priorities shift as she gets older as Jules discussed on my post about sohaes last chapter but it’s not being used that way and when he randomly starts pushing his one female character in his main trio to start cooking when both his male characters have a much better characterization for it it also feels somewhat misogynistic and “mommy-ifying” with how heavily the cooking focuses on Annabeth being so so good at cooking

I don’t want this to come off as me saying a female character who cooks is inherently misogynistic but this sudden addition to her character says nothing and does nothing when it can and should. Either she remains not good at cooking and we see food as a medium for care and affection with Percy and Sally as caretakers expecting nothing in return or we see her learn with Sally as a symbolic representation of her gaining smth she lost as a kid. But learning to cook in a class bc she’s just so smart and good at school is… not it.

And even then. What if she does learn in an academic and STRUGGLES with it. How does that interact with her pride? Her personality? Etc.

I think this is a huge issue I have with a lot of the ideas he brings up where they could be incredibly interesting things to explore but he will never take it there so it just feels random. We’re not at a point where we’re supposed to be teaching an audience about a character we’re at the exploring their depth stage and he just. Doesn’t act that way.

3. A cultural issue I guess but my partner would never be allowed to do the work at my parents house but we are sort of a fist fight for the bill type of culture so 🤷‍♂️

Side note: the tangent about Percy being like “wow I’d never think to ask if salad was okay for juniper” followed by the immediate tangent about how hard he’s thought about the feelings of fish and whether or not he eats them was like… something. Idk what but it ticked me off LOOOL

[dekarios]

genuinely interested in knowing more about your ocs! I am waiting with interest for that link on your pinned post to go live!

WELL I GOT NEWS FOR YOUUUUUU

afhiri's page already exists on this blog! it's right here. :3c I WOULD LIKE TO EDIT IT A BIT cuz some things have changed a little and been expanded on a little however...

for my other ocs you can hop straight back to my old blog's oc page right here. this one also includes their commissioned lil chibi heads heheheheh not everyone has their own page .. unfortunately. and only afhiri's is finished. and it's the same as the one moved to this blog i think... candor, amity and eden have some parts filled out. cirok too i think. i'm just kind of lazy ok. and my chronic pain puts me off cuz it's in my arms. BUT WE MAKE DO!

here's one/two different pages that are wip for my morrowind ocs. they didn't get on any of the big pages. i don't know. they fit in at weird times i wasn't even on tumblr really when i made them. yes they have tumblr pages that contradict this shhhhhhhh. i actually mentioned dreyla a bit in my morrowind screenshots i posted recently. she's also in the gifset i made uwu

now.. if we wanna go even further........... i have other more filled out oc pages with custom themes with a WHOLE LIST of ocs that i have not touched or developed in a long time, but some of them are my most explored and fleshed out ocs. like afhiri is not my only babie. some are just old now.

so if we go back to my oldest blog (it's not but for all you guys know. it is) and go to the oc page there.... you are gonna see A LOT of characters. there are no pages. unfortunately. it was also not finished. BUT THAT'S NOT ALL!

THIS!!!!!!!!!!!!! is a link to an oc page on an even older blog!!!! see i lied. none of yall knew me on this blog. i have never shared it before. i am feeling like sharing it now for some reason. this is my most "complete" oc page ever. i worked on it all the time for months. it's barely a thing for how long i worked on it. the ONLY character here with more info is my darling faire. you can view it by clicking her Box. but even then! it's not much.

i focused way too much on aesthetic over filling out information in these old pages you'll notice. nowadays i like filling out information like it's a wiki page. but i just struggle to write as much as i need... i get tired man.

this got long. if u ever wanna ask about an oc u can. i got. i got guys man. in my head. and idk. thinking about sharing them again is almost difficult. i dunno why. not cuz i'm shy or anything. not cuz i'm scared to be open about it cuz i don't wanna be judged or nothing. i'm just kind of lazy and tired or something idk. it's a lot of effort to make pages and fill them out. i am a busy bitch. i wanna play a video game or read a book or write a fanfic or watch a movie. i am not the same person i was when i could spend WEEKS nonstop doing this stuff. maybe one day i will get a kick and this new oc page will come to life.... but no idea when.

might add control and ghost bird to it and claim them as mine even though they're canon characters in the southern reach. they're mine now actually sorry jeff

[ocean--grey]

Day 16: Future

Word count: ~750

“D’you think you’ll ever do it?”

“… Do what?”

Lister gestured at the expanse in front of him with a sweeping motion. “Y’know. Go out in space. Get off Earth, have a few weeks out on Mimas, or Titan, or whatever. Just explore.”

Lise pursed her lips then grinned from where she laid next to him, and gazed up at the night sky herself.

It wasn’t like either of them could see any stars. There were few places where that was possible, nowadays. Maybe some of the most secluded spots of Earth’s surface, far from the sprawling cities. Any part of the sky within a hundred miles (at least) of Liverpool was no doubt a hazy orange-grey, even on the clearest of nights. It’d been like that for decades at that point.

Lister only had one very, very faint memory of seeing the night sky, unimpeded by the glare of Liverpool’s light. It must have been when he was four, maybe five, when his Gran’d taken him to visit some old friend of hers. He remembered watching as the haze of the city gave away to dark grey, then black, then to pinpricks of light splattered like drops of paint across some great aerial canvas.

The night sky above him now? Well, it was frankly boring in comparison.

Dragging his eyes away from the muddy orange of the sky, he turned to Lise, who’d picked up their conversation again.

“Hm. I’ve always kind of wanted to go Callisto myself.” She shrugged at his raised eyebrows and continued, “Heard they’ve got a great music scene up there. Maybe Ganymede. I can’t really see myself going further than Jupiter, to be honest.” She shivered slightly, drawing her coat further around her. “Where d’you want to go?”

Lister stretched him back as he unfolded one of his arms from behind his head. Reaching out, he draped it on the ground behind Lise’s shoulders so she could lay back on it. She muttered a quick “thanks, love” and nestled her hair into his neck.

“Dunno where I’d go really. Probably only go as far as the Moon before getting homesick. I know they say Earth looks better looking in on it from space, but honestly nothing beats actually living here for me.”

Lise’s hair bumped against his cheek once, twice, then three times, as she mulled it over.

“Okay. Yeah, I get that. So… where would you go, then? If you don’t leave Earth, that is.”

He felt Lise turn to him slightly, body still facing the sky but with her nose resting on his cheek. He could feel her breath across the side of his neck, could see her eyes tracing his features. All of a sudden he felt exposed, open, laid bare for her to analyse every atom of his soul.

“Honestly?”

“Of course. I won’t judge you – too harshly, at least. I promise”, Lise grinned. She reached up and squeezed his hand with her own.

“Fiji.”

“…Huh.”

“Or – or, I’d stay here. ’n Liverpool. Just makes sense, to be honest. I’ve lived here all my life, right? I know it as well – actually maybe even more – than the back of my hand. It jus’ makes sense to me, I guess, to stay here.”

“Why Fiji, then?” Lise squeezed his hand again, possibly reassuringly, her grin falling into an equally amused smile. “Seems a long way from here, even if it isn’t as far as Jupiter or anything.”

“Land’s cheap there. I could, I dunno, build a house there. Make a farm, something like that.”

“Isn’t Fiji partially underwater? I guess you could have a fish farm or something, though.”

Lister sighed. “Dumb pipe dream, I know. I guess there I’ll be able to see some stars, at least.”

“But you’ll still be on Earth.”

“Yep, that’s the plan.”

Lise reached over and traced Lister’s jaw with her index finger, kissed his cheek. “Guess you wouldn’t make a good astro, if you think you’d get Earth-sick that bad.”

“God no,” Lister shuddered, “sounds like an awful job. Stranded in the void for months on end in a small tin can? Barely touching ground except for a few days each time? I don’t know why anyone’d willingly do that.”

“Guess it’s cheaper than travelling the commercial routes. I’ve also heard it pays well.”

“Not in a million years! Except if I was previously stranded on Io or something. Apparently there’s nothing it really offers except for a bunch of active volcanoes.”

“Well,” Lise kissed her cheek again, “at least you’re not anywhere but on Earth right now”.

[turmoilcity]

LILLIAN X BOOMER SMUT????

hehe...he

Here's a cookie from a piece I'm working. Content warning for sexual lewd acts ☺️🤫

The setting is the early Americas- a fantasy version of it. The year is 1896. The charters are 22. Rating is M or 18+

***

"Let me in," she whispered.

Without hesitation, Boomer unlatched the window, letting in a cool gust of night air that made the candle flame dance. Lilly climbed inside with the grace of a cat, her eyes searching his face for any sign of judgment or anger.

"I had to see you," she breathed, her voice barely audible. "I couldn't let you go."

Boomer remained speechless, his eyes drinking in the sight of her. He hadn't anticipated this turn of events, but somehow, it felt inevitable. He stepped aside, allowing her to move further into the room. Lilly closed the window gently and turned to face him, her eyes searching his.

With a soft sigh, she moved to sit on the edge of the bed, her hands folded in her lap. The candlelight played across her features, highlighting the worry etched into her expression. "I know what you're thinking," she began, her voice barely above a murmur. "You're wondering why I'm here, after what happened."

Boomer didn't dare interrupt, his eyes transfixed on her as she reached behind her to untie the corset strings. Her movements were deliberate, almost as if she were performing for him. The corset loosened, and she took a deep, shaky breath, as if released from a prison of fabric and lace. The garment fell away, revealing the smooth, dark skin of her back, her muscles taut from years of dance.

Wordlessly, he joined her on the bed. His heart hammered in his chest like a blacksmith's hammer against an anvil. Lilly turned to face him, her gaze unyielding. The space between them was electric, a silent conversation passed through their eyes that needed no words. Boomer knew she had secrets, and he was eager to unravel them.

Her voice was soft, a whisper in the quiet room. "I've seen many men come and go, but none have ever made me feel the way you do." She paused, taking another deep breath. "I'm in love with you, Blue eyed boy."

Boomer felt a rush of warmth fill his chest. "Lilly..."

Her eyes searched his face, looking for something, and when she found it, she leaned in, closing the distance between them. Their lips met, a kiss that was tentative at first, a question more than a declaration. But as the seconds ticked by, the kiss grew more urgent, more demanding. Boomer's arms wrapped around her, pulling her closer until there was no space left between them.

He kissed his way down her neck, his mouth lingering over her pulse point, feeling it quicken beneath his lips. He cupped her breasts, feeling the soft mounds fill his palms, tracing the curves that had haunted his thoughts since he'd first seen her on stage. Lilly gasped as his thumbs brushed against her sensitive nipples, sending waves of pleasure through her.

He leans in, taking one of her peaks into his mouth, sucking softly at first before increasing the pressure. A soft moan escaped her lips, and her hands found their way into his hair, pulling him closer. The sensation was exquisite, a mix of pleasure and pain that made her toes curl. His tongue swirled around the sensitive bud, teasing and taunting, while his other hand continued to explore her body.

---

He chuckles smooth like whiskey on the rocks, his smokey blue eyes low and dashing like the sea. "My, my, Lilly," he purrs, "you're a troubled little bird, aren't you?"

Dunno when I'll post the first chapter. Still working details out.

[sepublic]

Metroid and F-Zero GP

So un-ironically I'd really like the F-Zero GP anime to cross over with a Metroid show; Specifically, let’s make it canon and even a recurring element within the series.

Because it takes place in space, in the future, there's a Galactic Federation, Captain Falcon is a bounty hunter. And the way I'd incorporate it would be as seamless and natural as I could; Like these are just new characters, the same way Rundas or Sylux would be. The fact that they're F-Zero is not made loud and apparent, not that I'm ever against those types of crossovers... But it'd be a fun writing exercise to try merging these stories organically, even making crossover elements and individual episodes relevant to Samus' character arc.

So there's a couple of F-Zero elements that might show up here or there, a reference to the races. There's an episode where Samus has to face off against yet another bounty hunter, this one being expert marksman Pico, whose fighting style revolves around his perfect aim, and eludes her due to his distant nature as a sniper. Dark Million shows up and maybe it’s the criminal organization that disastrously hired Kanden for the Metroid. And eventually...

Well, I'd discussed the idea of Samus going to Earth, the Earthians' ancestral homeworld, after the events of the Fusion arc. It's her way of reconnecting with her Earthian side, with the ancestry of Rodney and Virginia, after focusing so much on Chozo affairs. In a way it's Samus re-exploring her identity after becoming part-Metroid, who she is as a person, all that stuff; And it sets her up to occasionally question her Chozo heritage, who they raised her to be, which transitions nicely into the Dread arc and the Mawkin representing the worst of the Chozo.

But before that, Samus is interested in tracing her Earthian genealogy and all that. Considering the kind of life and community she might've had if the Space Pirates never attacked K-2L. I'd love for Anthony Higgs to be present here, but his standing in the Federation would make it really awkward for him, so I'm not sure how it'd work out; I'm working on the idea of Samus getting pardoned thanks to Adam helping her leak the BSL corruption, which leads to public outcry defending Samus, as a callback to Fusion's ending monologue about people who understand. Even so, Samus is still on uneasy terms with the Federation, so I dunno if Anthony could make it.

We get an episode or two about Samus awkwardly trying to be Earthian and it not exactly working out? Is she just a tourist here? She has an existential conversation with Adam, who is also possibly struggling with the fact that he's no longer human, but a machine. So like Samus he's rediscovering himself too, and maybe Malkovich had a life and/or ancestry on Earth he left behind...

Eventually, this segues into the next storyline; Samus decides to visit Mute City, a popular site for tourists and immigrants alike. In F-Zero GP continuity (which differs from the games), Mute City is just a renamed New York City, meaning most of the action takes place on Earth. Samus crosses paths with Captain Falcon, a fellow bounty hunter like herself. She also witnesses the F-Zero races, questioning how they're even legal; This could tie into Samus questioning everything she's believed in regarding the Galactic Federation. Are these death races, performed for the entertainment of the upper classes, just further proof that Sylux was right???

This also gets me to another thing; I'm interested in Joey Apronika, from the Samus and Joey manga. I'd also like to adapt that, with various story arcs spread out across the Metroid show; It's not done all in one sitting, Joey is a recurring character. And being human, he could maybe show up alongside Samus, as she explores reconnecting with her 'human' side and understanding just what she's made up of now.

Joey wields the Field Knuckle, which is basically a tech gauntlet that allows him to generate protective barriers around his fist, himself and others, etc. This comes in handy for just punching enemies really, REALLY hard. And this reminds me of the Falcon Punch...

F-Zero GP follows its own take on the classic roster, with Captain Falcon's true identity being Andy Summer, not Douglas J. Falcon. However, it's also established that the title of Captain Falcon is a mantle, passed down from mentor to apprentice; Andy is not the first, so it's possible, if not implied, that his predecessor and/or the original Falcon was Douglas. The anime ends with Andy sacrificing his life to defeat Black Shadow, and the main character Ryu Suzaku becomes the new Captain Falcon.

Yeah, did I mention? F-Zero GP follows a similar premise to the Samus and Joey manga, in that we have a plucky young rookie, who is mentored by the mysterious face of the franchise. Interesting! The F-Zero GP even ends with a "To be continued...?" tagline.

Now, with Ryu as the new Captain Falcon, shouldn't he have his own successor considered, just as the show up until then was him and the previous Captain Falcon going on the occasional adventure together? Enter Clank Hughes, a young, tech-savvy boy who has a visor he can scan things with...

In the epilogue, Clank is a grown-up young man, and explicitly named as Ryu's successor; He will eventually become Captain Falcon. In the meantime, he learns from Suzaku, who fits quite nicely into his new outfit and identity.

Clank Hughes bears a decent resemblance to Joey Apronika... Joey fights similarly to Captain Falcon... Clank has his own scan visor, not unlike Samus Aran. Thus, I've considered two different options for how I want to approach the mantle of Captain Falcon in a Metroid show:

The first is to follow up directly where F-Zero GP ended, with Ryu as Captain Falcon, albeit more muscled and chiseled now. Him and Samus have some bonding moments and parallels; They both have young apprentices who look quite similar to one another! They both carry on where their friend(s) have died, and are quite lonely and out of their world;

See, Ryu Suzaku is not from this century; He's from the 21st century. This was back when Earth had yet to make contact with the Galactic Federation; He used to be a regular police officer and racer, but when he got into a car chase with escaped convict Zoda, Ryu was badly injured. It left him in a coma so severe, that doctors gave up and decided to put him into cryogenic sleep, and wait for the time when medical tech had advanced to heal him fully.

This would happen 150 years later; Ryu gets revived and makes a full recovery thanks to Doctor Stewart, and is a man out of his time. The only people from his time are his fiancee, who also went through the same treatment... And Zoda, who also got the same treatment.

Point is: There's a lot of people that Ryu left behind! And while this concept does make me consider a 'Frozen generation' of others who also waited things out cryogenically... It's still not a lot to work off of. So for Ryu, he's trying to reconnect with his lost past, and Samus is trying to explore one aspect of her ancestry. These are difficult things to bond over, as is them not being able to relate to a lot of people over their experiences.

Likewise, as Samus worries about destroying everything she touches (wait until she unlocks her Metroid DNA and that happens literally!), she's concerned about possibly hurting Joey, and Captain Falcon is someone who can listen and understand. He even calls back to when Clank was a young boy, just like Joey himself!

As for Clank himself, he knows he's got big shoes to fill in; He bonds with Joey over their mentors, although Clank has known his for much longer, and is tbh closer to him. Still, he gives Joey much-needed reassurance as an older brother figure. Captain Falcon helps Joey master his Field Knuckle, imparting the technique of the Falcon Punch; Its nature in Metroid might be technology, secret martial arts, a mix of magic and pseudo-medical science, IDK. Ghosts canonically exist in Metroid, as do telepaths.

Clank's scan visor compliments Samus' quite nicely, and the arc comes to a close with Clank, who has been considering how HIS successor will be, realizing Joey is a pretty good candidate! Joey's too young and Clank isn't Captain Falcon yet, but there's setup for his own future to look forward to... Captain Falcon, Clank, and a couple other F-Zero characters also return every now and then, depending on how long the show keeps going after the Dread arc's conclusion.

That's Plan A... For Plan B;

Clank Hughes is already Captain Falcon. Samus sees a fellow bounty hunter who also has a scan visor incorporated into his helmet. Cap helps Joey master his Field Knuckle in ways even his father, whom he inherited it from, didn't; Captain Falcon and Samus both bond over mentoring this young and impressionable kid, it makes Samus feel a lot less scared and lonely handling Joey. And Captain Falcon sees a lot of his younger self in Joey.

Eventually, Falcon elaborates on his backstory; His true name is Clank Hughes. He is not the first Captain Falcon, just another in a lineage. His predecessor was Ryu Suzaku, who gave his life to protect innocents... Cue a flashback to the first Metroid Crisis; Space Pirates have deployed some Metroids on the F-Zero Grand Prix, because they're petty like that.

Clank is present racing alongside Captain Falcon. It's a pretty tense scenario, civilians are being attacked by Metroids, some of the racers find their vehicles being drained by the vampires, which leads to crashes. The Blue Falcon gets attacked by Metroids and is damaged; Captain Falcon can't get the cockpit to open, he's trapped inside...

They're on a racetrack atypical of the usual ones; A ring contained within a stadium, built on the premise of high-speed circular racing. With the speed that racers go, they can heat up the track really fast. To make up for this, beneath the stadium is a giant cooling reactor to keep the racetrack from melting... How does Captain Falcon know of the Metroid weakness to cold? This could be after the first wave of attacks, when the Galactic Federation has already posted PSAs about this vulnerability.

Falcon messages Clank, explaining the emergency eject has been disabled; There's no getting himself out of this situation. But for everyone else...

In some really expert maneuvering, he drives the Blue Falcon into the Metroids, letting them cling onto his vehicle and start draining it. He even bumps into other racers, the speed and force tearing off the Metroids, who then choose the Blue Falcon instead. Hell maybe he even drives onto the abandoned seats to lure the Metroids away from the audience.

With all of the creatures latched onto his vehicle and its power draining fast, Falcon makes a final send-off message to Clank, declaring him the new Captain Falcon. The entire scene is in blatant, shot-for-shot homage to the previous Falcon's heroic sacrifice, down to an instrumental version of the song that plays; Captain Falcon activates the boosters, ramming through doors and into an underground track leading to the cooling reactor.

Captain Falcon rams the Blue Falcon into the center of the cooling reactor, freezing the outside, as well as the Metroids latched on. His helmet flies off, revealing an older Ryu Suzaku, who charges up a Falcon Punch that he rams right into his console; The force is so great it causes the Blue Falcon to explode, shattering the frozen Metroids. We get a final shot of Ryu smiling in his heroic sacrifice, just like Andy Summer, before disappearing in the explosion.

The detonation leads to a chain reaction within the cooling reactor; This causes all of the ice to funnel upwards and through the racetrack above, leading to some very pretty snowflakes falling around the stadium. Clank Hughes mourns Captain Falcon, and vows to fulfill his role, just as Cap did the previous one before him!

Cut back to the present; Earlier, Hughes had expressed admiration to Samus for ending the Metroid Crisis. You can see he really, REALLY means it. He imparts his own advice to Samus about keeping the hearts of your friends alive, and their sacrifices not in vain, and he knows what it's like to lose multiple father figures; Samus takes that into consideration (and it sets up Samus having to deal later with a 'father figure' she takes great shame in). Samus and Captain Falcon's friendship is furthered, since he basically takes joint custody with her over Joey, and realizes Joey has the shapings to become a Captain Falcon himself!

The training won't begin, not yet; But it's an invitation for Joey to consider. And it's something for Samus to look forward to; Joey doesn't have to follow in her lonely footsteps. But with Captain Falcon, he's got a lot of friends and confidence and charisma... Adam reminds Samus not to be so dismissive of herself though. Who knows?

(One of my main reasons for hesitation with Ryu being posthumous and Hughes having already taken his position, comes from me... Honestly not wanting to crush the hearts of fans who grew attached to Ryu, and really wanted to see him be Captain Falcon. Granted a badass heroic sacrifice helps to assuage that disappointment but still. And also yeah I kinda DO want to see Ryu as Falcon, myself!!!)

As a side note: There's also a storyline about Rockets, a racer from Samus and Joey, competing in the F-Zero. He's an antagonist, hoping to use the prize money to help fund his boss Greed's operations and all that. Jody Summer is also present, and things could get complicated given she's a member of the Galactic Federation, which has VERY tense feelings towards Samus because of the BSL incident; She probably leans towards sympathizer, but it's still awkward. And at some point Captain Falcon has to clarify she's the sister of a previous Falcon, so Jody's family to him too.

[kittygirlpaw]

Well, that's it! press_start, one of my first real attempts to make a full-fledged story, point-to-point, is over.

I wrote a little retrospective, here, because I felt it was prudent to Say Something rather than just. Shrug, and move on, because it did end up becoming a big part of my life in a lot of ways I didn't expect. If you'd like to read, feel free to hit the read more.

TL;DR is - the story ended up meaning a lot to me, both as something to work on consistently and a part of my life that was always there, waiting to be touched up. I spent over two years on it, and even if I think I could've done things better, I'm glad I made it.

It feels weird. Especially after having well over a year of time where I looked at it as The Project. Y'know, that Thing, where you always start working on it when you're not doing anything else. It became one of the central pillars of work to do when I'm not doing anything else, it was basically on my mind 24/7.

It became how I got closer with a few people, it became how I gained a lot more confidence in my ability to dress a story and characters. I got a lot of practice with it, I managed to feel like I could actually make something. Set a goal, a long-term goal, and meet it.

I'd always dreaded actually setting pen to paper, and press_start was basically my first dart-throw at trying to make something bigger than vignettes, or quick one-shots. Something with a thread, with stories to tell, with lives lived.

There's a lot of things I think I could've done better, or differently. I think there's a lot of stuff that don't think I did great at, and a lot of the story was me riding by the seat of my pants and throwing things in the air faster than I could really tone everything perfectly. There's a number of unanswered questions, vague hooks, theoretical openings for another story to be told.

I'm not sure if I want to tell another story, there, though, for a lot of reasons that are both personal and informed by...I dunno. The story was, at the end, one about exploring very specific questions, and those questions got answered.

When it feels like there's no reason to go on, you go on not only for yourself but the people you love. It's easy to hurt yourself, but you will hurt others because of it, even if you only ever try to direct it inwards. Fixing yourself isn't trying to hurt yourself the "right way". Acceptance is the only real path forward. Things might be different, but they can still be good. Connection and community, trust and love, are things that you can find.

I went through a lot of changes during the brainstorming, making-of, actual writing, and finalizing of the story. Moved something like three, almost four times, further into my transition, left my bio family behind, entered a poly relationship, got married...

Weird as it is, press_start became a cornerstone for us. A marker by which we addressed change and time.

If I return to it, it'll probably be with little things to say, rather than another narrative. Stories of people, in the aftermath.

Maybe it was time to say goodbye, but that doesn't necessarily mean I was ready, in a funny way. I'll still do it, because it just means I can move on to another story to tell.

[owl-with-a-pen]

So, I have reached the final episode of season 6 of my Supergirl rewatch and I just have to reiterate: they did Nyxly so dirty.

I still don't understand what they were thinking. Nyxly is the first person to pass the Courage Totem's test, she's inundated with empathy from the Humanity Totem, she's completely open with the Truth Totem and is granted access to the Love Totem by choosing the life of a child over her own quest for power.

So, why did they just bung her back in the Phantom Zone!?

It wasn't a satisfying ending, it wasn't even a character arc - it was a circle! She ended up exactly where she started. Sure, Lex's hubris being his own downfall made sense for him, but him being in the second leg of season 6 at all felt so unnecessary that that wasn't satisfying, either.

Here's how I like to imagine this story arc going, because I'm never going to have the time or energy to do anything with this idea besides writing it down like this:

So, we've got Humanity, Hope, Courage, Dreams, Love, Truth and Destiny. 7 Totems. 7 Super Friends. Say, each Totem was tied specifically to a member of the Super Friends and so we're given an episode per Totem exploring a member of the team and their unique relationship to what that core element represented for them. (They sort of did this in the show but only for a couple of the Totems and they never really committed to it as a theme).

Narratively speaking, the Super Friends are working together to beat the trials, which is exactly what a superhero team should be all about. Together, they represent the best the planet has to offer.

Except, that's not the point of the trials. To gather the AllStone, you have to do it alone. And who's doing it alone? Nyxly. Nyxly bares her soul to these Totems, she gains most of them independently without cheating and the further along she gets into the trials, the more she's able to overcome the very reason for her pain and anger that led her down this path to begin with.

The Super Friends aren't looking for power, that was never their goal, and so of course they aren't playing by the rules to gain it, they're doing it in a way that everyone equally shares a part of the burden and so the effect isn't as intense. For Nyxly, though, by gaining all 7 Totems and going through those associated trials, I like to think that by the end of her arc, she willingly gives up that power.

And maybe that's the whole point of the AllStone. Only someone worthy of power should gain it, and the only people worthy of power are the ones that don't want it. The AllStone isn't meant to be a weapon or even a tool used by an individual, it's supposed to be for the whole world to share. And so the very mechanics of the trial will either fail those corrupted by their thirst for power long before they get a taste, or teach someone the true values of their own humanity by fairly passing every test.

I know the show wanted to go out with a bang and a big-stakes CGI battle with all the trimmings, but Nyxly was never designed as a villain. She was hurt and angry, but that never made her evil. She was a fifth dimensional imp, all she ever did was cause mischief, and so having her face her own reality through the trials would have been a major grounding factor for her.

To have the final villain of the show willingly give up their power not because it was beaten out of them, but simply because they decided to feels right to me. They built up the stakes so high in this season to make Nyxly out as the most powerful villain they'd ever faced -- and so maybe the only way to beat her was for her to decide that the fight was no longer worth fighting.

I dunno, it just would've been nice if the AllStone had actually meant something at the heart of it, and that Nyxly actually had a satisfying end to her story that made sense for her character.

Oh well. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[flecks-of-stardust]

what are those mods that were cooler than MSC? if they're that good i have to try them out

So upon further thought of this topic, I think i’m misrepresenting my thoughts on my enjoyment of MSC. A more accurate way to put it would be that I had more fun with a lot of other mods. However, I don’t think it’s necessarily fair to compare MSC to them, because the goals of MSC are different from that of other smaller mods. I guess this counts as an analysis post; this will be long.

TLDR: I had more fun with a number of region mods and I think some modcats are cool, but Rain World’s design makes having a DLC that stays true to its core ethos difficult, so I find it hard to really blame the MSC team for MSC being a lackluster DLC.

Regions

When I say that I enjoyed other mods more than MSC, I think a lot of it is in the level editing (ie, lediting), in the sense that region mods have consistently wowed me far more than MSC’s regions ever did. Conceptually, the regions that it added were incredible; I loved seeing Moon as close to her prime as she could ever be shown in Spearmaster’s time (ie LTTM the region; DM), but also finding her ruined structure (MS) as Rivulet, and the idea behind Silent Construct (CL) is also fantastic. But gameplay wise? I didn’t particularly enjoy any of these regions, especially not CL. I hated the spider clogs that I had no way of dealing with, and overall I really just bumrushed it and cheated to get to the story. Metropolis (LC) and Outer Expanse were okay in terms of gameplay, but LC’s tiling and geometry is just kind of boring, if I had to be honest. It’s quite repetitive and not particularly unique, except for maybe Atop the Tallest Tower at a stretch. OE was fine by virtue of not really having another region to compare it to and also being comparatively more plant focused, but honestly, other mods have still wowed me more. So I dunno.

Like when it comes to having regions that feel interesting to explore and are also nice to look at, there’s always Pilgrims’ Ascent and Scorched District, both by Myrmice, and these two also fit so well with vanilla Rain World’s vibe to me. These two, along with the Mast from Snoodle, are all but canon to vanilla to me, because they just fit so well and add to vanilla while still maintaining their own identities as regions. And even beyond having to feel vanilla necessarily, because that’s not always the point of mods, there’s regions like Stormy Coast, Coral Caves, Howling Rift, more that I won’t list because of how long the list will get, but the point is that all of these regions give me more engaging gameplay and paths for exploration than I felt I got for any MSC added region. Granted it’s been a while since I played MSC’s content in full, and my memory of this stuff is generally poor, but I’d rather explore Aqueducts (OA) again than do MS. OA was big and I kept getting lost even with a map, but it was big and disorienting in a way that just felt better to me than MS. The same goes for Deserted Wastelands and CL, personally.

MSC regions feel very vanilla-like to me, in that they’re kind of easy to filter out of your conscious processing so you can focus on other things. I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing, but for the price that you have to pay for Downpour, I think it falls a little short. The thing is that MSC is very much story-focused, putting more emphasis on the slugcats you play as and their stories rather than the lediting of the regions exclusive to them (in my opinion anyways. I ain’t a leditor). Which brings me to my next point:

Modcats and Story

This might be a bit of a hot take, but I think Rain World is inherently a gameplay focused game that doesn’t support much overt story or plot. The lore in all three vanilla campaigns is entirely optional, and if you kill Moon? Fuck you! No lore for you! And even if you wanted the lore, you have to figure out that pearls have to be taken to her to be read, and that the colored ones have unique lore, and you have to find them and hope the scavs don’t take the pearl first. Even with Hunter, you can choose to toss the green neuron and do your own thing. It doesn’t even stop you from ascending either. The story is entirely optional in Rain World. So then to add any story focused campaign at all inherently takes it away from Rain World’s initial design. And on top of that, you’re playing as a slugcat. It’s really hard to add any sort of story in Rain World that doesn’t circle back to iterators in some way. But then what else do you do besides ascend? Eat a few specific types of food? Gourmand does that. Kill a specific creature? That’s Artificer’s thing. Talk to all the echoes? That’s Saint, and kind of Hunter in a way. What else can you do without radically changing the structure of Rain World itself? And to that end, would that still be Rain World? I’m not saying it’s impossible to have a story based campaign that doesn’t involve iterators, but I do think that it’s really difficult to have them be completely irrelevant to the story and still have an engaging story, because Rain World itself is so not story focused. But if you don’t add story, then what do you do in the campaign that doesn’t make it just a rehashed version of Survivor’s campaign?

So like. I can’t really take issue with MSC’s story based focus that much, because genuinely, what else do you do? And basically any modded slugcat available in 1.9 that I think is worth trying falls into the same category. I think Pitch Black is really promising, but it introduces A Lot of changes to the world, and there’s currently almost no story. Vinki isn’t iterator focused necessarily, but their story still hinges on pissing Pebbles off and is overall very silly (not in a bad way! But it doesn’t fit the vibe of Rain World). And Gravel Eater,, you can’t get more intertwined with iterators than with GE’s story, but they’re still my favorite modcat because of how detailed their story is and how interesting their mechanics are. And if you just have a scug with abilities and no story, that’s… not really interesting to play, because then it’s essentially just Survivor, but you’re able to like, say, make spore puffs for free.

Maybe I’m just not creative enough in this aspect, idk. But genuinely I can’t think of much else to do in this game that doesn’t involve iterators in some way. If you know me, you’d know I’m Iterators McGee who has written 70k+ words about a character who has literally no canon dialogue. I fucking love iterators, but I think their stories should be separate from that of slugcats, but in game, just. How? I genuinely don’t know.

Other Thoughts

I think in some ways I view MSC as more of a framework that has allowed other people to build their own stories off of it. The only other mod that has a scale even remotely comparable to MSC is Drought, which is also iterator centric in story. I can’t speak to its lediting since I haven’t played Drought myself (but I’ve heard the quality… fluctuates?), but story wise… yeah. I don’t know. I just don’t think Rain World can really have a DLC that doesn’t pull it away from its original ethos in some way. I would not want Drought to be a DLC either, as cool as I think it is, and I still value a lot of things about MSC. It’s lackluster as a DLC because again, what sort of campaign can you add that doesn’t add a story that isn’t iterator related in any way?

I guess the way to summarize this is that I think MSC tells some really interesting stories through its gameplay. Even the parts I hated are part of the story it’s trying to tell, and on that front I think it does well. But by virtue of being story focused (and, by virtue of story in this game being very iterator centric), it doesn’t feel as much like Rain World, and so it’s not as good as a DLC as it would have been as just a mod. And now that it exists and is widely used, other people have been spurred to make their own ideas and show their creativity, going bigger and bolder than MSC in some aspects. And regarding me enjoying region mods more than MSC’s lediting, I think enjoying the region for being a region is kind of the fucking point of playing a region mod, whereas that isn’t exactly MSC’s focus. So some things are hard to compare.

This is kind of an incoherent ramble but I hope I got the main points across. I still like MSC and I won’t tolerate anyone bashing it here. You will get blocked.

[a-crumb-of-whump]

Saved By A Killer #2: Little Snoop

Masterlist

Content: Comfort, stranger caretaker, [implied] touch starvation, morally dubious caretaker, morally dubious whumpee at this point, recovery, lonely caretaker.

-

Several days passed. Eli was pleasantly surprised to find that each day went by much quicker than when he lived in that cabin. Apart from the wounds and the bruises on his skin, nothing hurt anymore. For the first time in a year, he finally felt something vaguely resembling contentment. 

The only problem he ever experienced now was the feeling of boredom itching at his brain. He’d made a few different attempts at finding stuff to do  - Cohen had plenty of books around the place, for instance. Though it really just looked like a weak attempt at making the house look more alive. None of the books looked as though they’d been touched in years. 

Then, after all other attempts had failed him, he finally resorted to the one thing he’d wanted to do since he got here: exploring. 

The cupboards and the drawers in the living room were the first to be examined. There were many of them, some with absolutely nothing inside and others with random items that held absolutely no context to them whatsoever. Little porcelain dolls, old candles that had to have been there for years, photo albums that he chose to ignore for the time being - the list of things he found was endless. 

The activity itself was rather relaxing, really. At least, until he turned around partway through to find the owner of it all standing there, leaning against the back of the couch with a look of amusement on his face. Eli couldn’t tell if the expression was due to catching him red handed or the little yelp he let out upon realising, but it was humiliating either way. 

“Having fun, little snoop?”

“Shut up,” Eli grumbled. “I’m bored as hell, and I don’t think you can judge me after what you did.” 

The man jokingly held up his hands in defense. “Hey, I told you you’re welcome to whatever. Just don’t get upset if you find something you don’t like. Did you end up finding my stash of board games?” 

Completely disregarding the second comment, Eli perked up at the mention of games and took another look around the room in an attempt to figure out which places he hadn’t yet searched. There were a few, but none of them looked big enough to hold more than one or two small games. ‘Stash’ had to mean more than that, right? 

“Will you play with me?” he asked hopefully as Cohen disappeared into the hallway that led to their rooms. “I haven’t gotten to play physical games in so long. Can you believe my favourite one used to be Go Fish, of all things?” 

“I can, actually. I imagine you were obnoxiously good at it, too.” 

Much to his delight, Cohen had around five different games in his arms when he finally returned to the living room. He looked rather pleased with himself as he set them all down on the coffee table, and as Eli examined each one, he started to push both couches further in so they wouldn’t have to sit on the floor. 

“I knew these’d come in handy someday. They’ve been collecting dust in that closet for years but I couldn’t bring myself to get rid of ‘em. See any you like?”

After some debate, Eli finally decided on Settlers Of Catan, and the two got to setting it up almost instantly while the rest of the games got pushed aside for later. 

“So, how’d you get into games in the first place?” Eli asked conversationally. “I thought, at the very least, killers would be more into video games with, I dunno, violence and shooting ‘n’ all that stuff.” 

It took a moment for him to realise that Cohen had stopped what he was doing to give him a dumbfounded look. Unsure of what to say, he mocked him by creating the same face. 

“That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.” 

Eli raised an eyebrow. “Really? You’ve been around for nearly thirty years, you work as a goddamn hitman, and that’s the thing that tops the charts? Aren’t you supposed to have cool stories to tell, like in the movies?”

“I dunno what to tell you,” Cohen shrugged, not looking up from the board as he put everything together. Despite the fed up voice he was putting on, it was not hard to see the corners of his mouth twitching upwards as he attempted to hide his amused smile. “A lot of us are nothing like the ones you see in movies, believe it or not. I mean - I am probably the most uncool person you’re ever gonna meet. My idea of fun is sitting by my computer and watching movies while I drink tea, I’m an old man where technology is concerned, and I will not hesitate to eat from tupperware containers when there’s no clean bowls left. Does that sound like any of your favourite fictional hitmen or assassins?”

The answer was no, but Eli chose not to issue a response to that. With a small smile, he picked up his five pieces and began considering where to place them, only speaking again once they were all in their spots.

“Well, for what it’s worth; I think drinking tea and watching movies is far better than anything else you could offer me.” 

“Yeah?” Cohen smiled, something he seemed to be doing more and more with every passing day. “I had no idea you were a tea drinker. Feel free to raid the pantry in the kitchen - there’s an entire section just for tea bags and other related things.” 

“Thanks.” Eli smiled right back at him. “I will.” 

-

Later on, Eli did in fact take Cohen up on the offer. He made two cups - one each for both of them, and quietly made his way back into the living room where the man had made himself more than comfortable on the couch after their game.

“So, can I ask you something?” he asked curiously as he sat down in the spot beside him. Cohen gave him a silent nod in response. “How often do you rescue strangers and take them in? Is this a regular occurrence or am I special?”

“First time,” he responded into his cup of tea. “Usually I take ‘em back to the city or give ‘em a lift somewhere. I’ve actually been on my own for nearly a decade now.”

Eli hummed, puckering his lips as he thought about it. “Do you ever wish you had friends?” 

“No.” Cohen’s response was instant, and there was some weight to his words when he eventually decided to elaborate. “I tried that a few times back when I was younger, but as it turns out, desperation just made me an easy target to abuse. I’d take being alone for the rest of my life over having to go through that over and over again just to find someone who likes me any day.”

There was another pause as Eli considered his next words. He wasn’t really sure what to say during conversations like this. Speaking at all seemed hard enough when nothing he could have said would take away what had already happened.

Eventually, he let out a small sigh and reached out to awkwardly squeeze his shoulder, deciding that something was better than nothing. “Hey, you got me to like you, ‘n’ I never thought I’d say that to another human being again after everything that happened. Doesn’t that count for something?”

“Yeah…” Cohen turned to smile over at him, and despite how hard he was clearly trying not to, Eli could feel him leaning some of his weight into his hand. If he wasn’t such a coward he may have offered him a hug, but truth be told, he’d be lucky to never have to be close to another person again after Lucas. “I suppose it does.”

-

Taglist: @kiss1t0ffm3 @latenightcupsofcoffee @make-it-gay-please @nyooom @pigeonwhumps @topsheepstudent @whumped4whumplover @whumpsday @whumpshaped

[inaris-mage-of-storms]

CubScar Week Day 3: Masks/Wings. Cub thinks about all the different masks Scar wears, and about the man behind them.

Scar wore a lot of masks. Cub wore some too, of course. Everyone did in one way or another. For most of them it was only one or two, swapped in for special occasions, or so loosely worn that it was an almost meaningless gesture. But Scar cycled through masks as easily as he breathed. He was an explorer, an elf, a mayor, a wizard, a pilot, a pirate, a businessman, a hapless idiot, a scheming mastermind. He was anything and everything he thought the situation might call for. He wore them so often and so well that no one actually knew when the mask was off, even if they thought they did. Well, almost no one. Cub had met Scar back when his only mask was made from the same generic base everyone used, a mask of politeness and societal expectations. He had seen the mask slip, and the uncertain look in Scar's eyes that followed – do you still like me? am I still acceptable like this, bare-faced in front of you? or will you leave me too? And Cub had stayed, and Scar had smiled so beautifully that he never wanted to leave. And he watched Scar craft each new mask with steadily increasing proficiency and showmanship, sometimes wearing new ones of his own to match. There were a thousand Scars, and Cub loved every single one of them. But it was the one without any mask at all, the one currently sleeping next to him in a bed under the roots of a magical tree, that was his favorite. Cub brushed back an errant lock of soft brown hair and rested his hand on Scar's cheek. "You're thinking too loud," murmured Scar without opening his eyes. "What's on your mind?" "You tell me. If I'm thinking so loud it woke you up then you must have overheard," teased Cub. Scar smiled. "It wasn't that loud. But you only touch my face like that when I'm sleeping and you're thinking about something." "Whaaat? That can't be right," said Cub. "It doesn't always means I'm thinking about something." "Yeah? You just like my face, huh?" Scar turned his head to kiss Cub's palm. Cub smiled and ran his hand up through Scar's hair and back down his neck. "I was thinking about masks," he said in answer to Scar's first question. "Hmm. I like masks," said Scar as he yawned. "They're fun." Cub laughed. "Yeah, I know you do." He slid his arms around Scar and Scar snuggled into his chest eagerly. "But I like maskless Scar the best. You're right, I do like your face." Scar looked up at him and gave him that brilliant, beautiful smile. Scar smiled a lot of smiles at a lot of people; charming ones and cold ones, happy ones and mischievous ones, angry ones, excited ones. But this was one reserved just for Cub, and every time, even now after all their years together, it made his heart feel like it was sprouting wings.

"I like your face too," said Scar, and hummed happily into the kiss Cub gave him. "Especially when it does that." "What, kisses you?" He kissed him again. Scar giggled. "That too, but no. I meant when it goes all soft and happy." He poked Cub's cheek. "When you look at me like I matter."

"Then I must look like this every second of every day," said Cub. He felt awkward as soon as the words left his mouth, and oh no, Scar was staring at him. Cub didn't do 'soft.' He showed his love in other ways; tender declarations were Scar's forte, not his, but somehow it had slipped out of him anyway.

Scar didn't seem to think Cub's words were as uncomfortable as Cub thought they were, because all of a sudden he was kissing him, and kept kissing him until they were both breathless. "What was that for?" asked Cub when Scar finally pulled away, and oh, his heart had definitely grown wings and was in danger of flying away.

Scar didn't answer, just laughed and tucked himself further into Cub's arms. "Have I ever told you how much I love you?" said Scar.

Cub chuckled. "Dunno, you might have brought it up a time or two. Wasn't really listening."

Scar gasped in mock offense. "Rapscallion! Cad! Scoundrel, even! 'Not listening,' he says. The nerve." Cub was laughing now, and Scar smiled at him and put a hand on Cub's cheek. "I'm glad you stayed," he said in a softer voice. "I'm glad you saw the me behind the mask and decided to stay anyway."

Cub smiled and turned his head to kiss Scar's palm. "Ditto," he said, and together they went back to sleep in a bed under the roots of a magical tree.