#I like watching it in increments :D

[giggly-squiggily]

Forget Acting Cool- LAUGH! (Big Windup)

Oops I fell down a rabbit hole and came back with some Big Windup content lols.

Heyo everyone! I think I'm on ep. 10(?) of Big Windup and let me just say: SCREW HARUNA! I said it, and I mean it! >:I dislike him greatly! So much so I had to write a fic about Abe getting cheer-up tickles to wash my brain of his jerkface! (Among other reasons- I really like writing Tajima lols) Anywho- I hope y'all like it :D

@intheticklecloset BOOM! Wasn't expecting THIS were ya? >:D

Summary: Takes place after the events of Ep. 8-10; Abe is quiet on the way back from the Stadium game between Urawa Sogo and Musashino. Mihashi is worried as Tajima finds an opportunity to get their catcher to perk up.

Abe was quiet on the way back from the stadium.

Most of the guys assumed he was just tired and let him be, but now knowing a new chapter of Abe’s history, Mihashi knew better.

Even though their encounter was short- talking to Haruna had an impact on the catcher’s mood- and not in a good way.

‘Are you okay?’ was on the tip of Mihashi’s tongue when he snuck a glance at his friend, watching him stare out the window with a heavy expression. He wanted to ask so badly, but he was concerned; would it bring unwarranted attention to something he didn’t want to talk about? Would Abe get mad at him for asking? He didn’t complain when Mihashi took a seat beside him, but that didn’t mean he was willing to talk. He dared another peek.

Abe was staring at him, brow raised. Mihashi squeaked, flushing red and dropping his eyes to his lap. “What?”

“Erm- n-nothing! I just- erm…” No point in hiding it now. “Are you o-okay?”

Abe didn’t respond, returning his gaze back to the window. Mihashi tried not to let his disappointment show.

“I’m fine. It’s nothing I can’t handle.” Abe spoke so quietly Mihashi almost missed it. Looking back at the other boy, he turned to give him his full attention in case he had more to say. “Just a bad experience, that’s all.”

“Still…” Mihashi didn’t know why he was pressing. Abe did so much for him- it didn’t feel right to just leave him brooding.

“Don’t worry about it, Mihashi.” That was it- a note of finality in the catcher’s tone. Not harsh, but not yielding. Drop it.

Nodding, the pitcher turned back forward in his seat. It wasn’t much, but at least he checked in.

“Oo, broody!” Tajima grinned from the seat behind them, leaning over it so he could drape his arms over the back. “Trying to look cool for Mihashi, are we?”

“Tajima…” Said pitcher whispered, scared of where this was going. Abe merely rolled his eyes, leaning further into the window.

“Are you ignoring me? Wow!” Tajima mock gasped, reaching out and prodding Abe in the ribs. “Talk about rude! Can you believe this guy, Mihashi?”

“Tch-Tajima, don’t!” Abe squirmed at the pokes, pressing his arm down against his side in an attempt to block. “We’ll crash!”

“Yes, cause you’re driving the bus alllllll the way back here.” Tajima snickered, moving upwards to Abe’s neck. “Good thing you’re not- who knows where’d you take us with your head in the clouds!”

“A-Ahehehehe! Doohohohn’t!” The thin line of his brooding expression wavered as giggles escaped. Abe scrunched up, trying to make himself small as Tajima tickled him. “M-Mihahhahashi help!”

Help? The request shook him to the core.

“Yeah Mihashi! Get his ribs for me- he’s too low!” Tajima pretended to massage Abe’s shoulders, pressing into the back of his neck and making the pitcher double down in giggles. “Coach is gonna get mad if I climb over the seat again!”

“Damn right I will!” Maria called from the front, earning a round of giggles from the team.

“Mihiiihashihihihih dohoohhoohn’t!” Abe tried to sound firm, but his laughing fits only killed any real meaning. “Dohohoohon’t hehehehehelp him!”

“Come on, don’t you wanna see Abe smile?” Tajima winked, going right for the jugular.

It was like Mihashi had two tiny beings on his shoulder- an angel in the form of Abe telling him to be kind and not assist. Then there was the tiny devil Tajima himself egging him on to join in.

He really shouldn’t; is that how he’d repay him for his kindness? What would Abe do for him in this situation?

Join in. The little angel and devil said simultaneously.

…

“Whahahat are you- Ehehehehehehehehehhe!” Abe shot up when Mihashi’s fingers prodded along his sides, pressing into his ribs gently. With new spots in reach, Tajima went for it, tickling like nobody’s business. “Stahahhhap, stahahhahahap this is ehehehheembahahhahrrsahahhhahaing!”

“No it’s not- it’s adorable! Isn’t he?” Tajima cooed, laughing along with him. Mihashi giggled to himself, equally pleased.

“No way- Abe’s ticklish?” Hanai perked up from his seat, grinning.

“Get him good, guys! Go for the ears!” Oki called out.

“Dude, why ears?”

“I don’t know- seemed like a good spot.”

“How is it-”

“EHEHHA!”

“See? I told you!”

Oki was correct; Abe’s ears were pretty ticklish. Though the reaction didn’t come from them, but rather Mihashi giving his knees a friendly squeeze just to see what would happen. “Sorry, Abe.”

“Don’t be- he needs it!” Tajima cackled, barely heard over the squeaks and laughs Abe let out.

“SHUUHUHUHUUSSHI! AHEHAHHAHAHHA, YOOHOOHOHU TWOHOHOHOHO! AHEAHAHHAHAHA!” Abe tried sinking to the floor, but between Tajima and Mihashi, he was effectively trapped. His cheeks were warm and pink, eyes squeezed shut in mirth as he tittered. It was a definite improvement from earlier.

“Heh, okay okay. Give him some breathing room.” Maria clapped her hands, signaling them to stop. Tajima pulled away as Mihashi scooted back some, watching Abe gather himself. “You good, Abe?”

“Eh..ehheehhe…heh.” He couldn’t speak, so he gave a thumbs up, earning a hoot of cheers and cackles from the bus. Soon everyone returned to their own things, popping back in earbuds and cozying up for naps. Abe pulled himself up, slumping forward until his head hit the seat before them.

Mihashi’s guilt came back; he didn’t mean to tickle him that much. Words were at the tip of his tongue once more.

“I’m okay.” Abe reassured without looking, startling the pitcher. “Erm…thanks I guess. I kinda needed that.”

A thank you!  Mihashi blinked back tears as he smiled a wobbly smile, day made.

It was so little, and it really didn’t do much in regards to Haruna and the feelings associated- but Mihashi sat a little taller in his seat knowing he helped Abe out.

Thanks for reading!

[sysig]

Many months of paper review (Patreon)

[olderthannetfic]

Being a trans man and not being an anti is also isolating, which is part of why I think trans guys gravitate towards either being an anti or reposting anti posts. If you're not an anti, you get booted from discord servers, blocked on social media at best or sent misgendering rape threats, death threats and suicide bait by other trans men at worst, and now that I'm in college I've found IRL that not being an anti makes a lot of people in queer spaces available to the average college student incredibly uncomfortable. So you have to either be entirely alone - which is very difficult when you're young, queer, and just coming into your own identity - or you have to be around it a lot without saying a word. Agreeing with it at first wouldn't even be necessary. You just have to not say anything against it, and then you'll be able to be around other people.

It doesn't help that most trans men who get sucked into anti circles are teens at the time. There's 501 proposed anti-LGBT laws right now, not counting everything that has passed, the majority of it anti-trans. If you're a teenage boy seeing all this transphobia on the rise, you're going to feel powerless. Bullying people like antis do makes you feel power over at least a few people. Being told you can consume your way into being a good person via media intake makes you feel like you have power and control over at least that.

I was sucked in incrementally because I wasn't exposed to the more violent antis who fantasized about murder and hurting people for writing fiction, I met my only friend - who was an anti - after my dad had beaten me for coming out as trans, and I was sixteen. I got out when I was eighteen because once I went to live with my mom, a psychologist, she gently corrected me when I would say things that aren't based in fact. She pointed out how upset these people were making me. She taught me how to fact-check claims and look into the veracity of claims.

And when I tried to convey to my friends that no, what they were saying wasn't supported, they turned on me. Including the only person who had been there for me when I was hatecrimed, who had reached out to me specifically because she met me what day. I lost every friend I had in roughly 30 hours.

If I hadn't had a really great mom, a very intelligent rabbi who's well-versed in psychology and is a former lawyer who saw the "fiction made me do it" excuse used to defend heinous crimes and doesn't buy it, and an older half-sister who lived through people calling her a psycho lesbian because she's a lesbian who played D&D, listened to metal and dressed Goth in small-town Montana in the 80's/90's, I would have probably killed myself. Having those three people who accepted me and did not accept this extremist rhetoric kept me sane and repaired my self-esteem enough to keep me going.

But a lot of people don't have three adults who are intelligent, supportive, and know better than to fall for this faux-psychology. A lot of people don't even have one. Often, they have unsupportive people who also believe firmly in the faux-psychology of "if you watch a thing you'll do that thing IRL". So there's not only no one hauling them out of this, it's getting reinforced.

Being a non-anti who is a trans man gets me a lot of shit from a lot of people online and offline. (As other anons have mentioned during the ace discourse, online talking points come up on college campuses and in real life, because the internet is not an alternate dimension, it is something being used by the people around you who exist in the same physical space as you.)

A reality that I don't think people want to discuss is that trans men, just like all other people of all other genders, suffer a lot of psychological distress if they're put in a position where they have no support. I sure as fuck wasn't happy being in a position where I went from having tons of online friends, discord servers I could hang out in and fandoms I associated with good vibes to none of that, plus harassment, plus massive misgendering.

It's a lot less awful of an existence to be a trans man and an anti when you're young and need community and support than it is to not be an anti and be isolated. And humans gravitate towards the least awful option 99% of the time.

--

Yuuup.

Having some kind of real support network, usually offline but at the very least not randos you met a day ago on discord, is vital and is the difference between not only whether you rot in a pit of antidom forever but in stemming the massive flood of trans teen suicides. The overall queer rates aren't great, but the specifically trans rates... they're bad. They're so, so bad.

[mamawasatesttube]

#25 for the gentle prompts, maybe? :D

25. "You can sit on my lap."

By the fifth time Tim shifts his weight, leans on his staff, and heaves a sigh more explosive than Mount St. Helens, Kon has just about had it. The stubborn set to Tim's jaw means he doesn't want Kon to point out that he's clearly tired, but also, uh, the idiot is clearly tired, and it's getting a little ridiculous.

"Rob."

Tim holds up an imperious finger. "Don't say anything. I'm fine."

Kon rolls his eyes. "We're probably gonna be stuck up here for stakeout purposes for, like, at least another hour or two. You might as well make it easier on both of us."

Tim gives him a mildly dirty look. It's probably supposed to be worse than mildly dirty, but despite himself, Tim hasn't been able to stop looking at Kon with, like, heart eyes, ever since his resurrection and return. Even when they're bickering like they did as kids. It... it gets Kon, sometimes. He tries not to think about it too hard.

"I'm fine," Tim repeats stubbornly. He folds his arms over his chest and stares down at the warehouse they're watching. "I'm fully capable of finishing the stakeout."

Oh, for the love of—

Kon leans over and bonks him on top of his cowled head. "Yeah, I wasn't disputing that, dumbass."

Tim stiffens for a second. Then he heaves another huge sigh, his shoulders slumping. "...Sorry," he mutters, scuffing one boot against the wet rooftop; a pebble goes skittering off towards the edge. "I, uh... sometimes get all defensive and kinda grouchy when I'm tired."

Both amused and endeared, Kon snorts. "Yeah, trust me, I've noticed." He lightly tugs at Tim's cape. "You've been on your feet for hours. Why not sit for a bit at least?"

Tim glances down at the wet rooftop and makes a face. It's been raining on and off since afternoon faded into evening, and Kon has to concede the point; stakeout or not, that's not the coziest place to chill. Sitting in a puddle might mean Tim's poor ass gets hypothermic—literally, his ass. Yikes.

Well, easy solution. Kon hops up onto an invisible recliner and leans back comfortably, then holds out his arms. "C'mere. You can sit in my lap."

For the second time in as many minutes, Tim freezes for half a heartbeat. Kon can hear his heart rate kick up a notch, can hear the breath catch in his throat, can hear his eyelashes brush the insides of the lenses in his cowl as he blinks rapidly.

Even behind the cowl, the look on his face is still as fond as ever. It does things to Kon's heart, too, if he's being honest.

"...Yeah, okay," Tim says. It's several seconds too late to be casual, but both of them politely don't acknowledge that.

Kon tugs him into his lap, winds his arms around his waist, and wraps his TTK around him for extra security. Tim sighs again, softer this time. He's stiff for a moment, but when Kon doesn't start screaming about cooties or whatever, he relaxes incrementally, muscle by muscle. Finally, after several heartbeats, his head comes to rest against Kon's.

Oh, Kon thinks. Oh.

This is nice.

Oh, no.

"Um. Thanks," Tim mutters. His heart is definitely beating faster. His fingers curl into Kon's jacket. Fuck, Kon likes that—he likes that a lot. Oh no. Oh no oh no oh no.

"Anytime, Rob," he answers, way more casually than Tim managed, if he does say so himself. "Make yourself comfy. You barely weigh anything to me anyways."

"Mn." Tim goes quiet, but after a moment, he does slip his arm around Kon's shoulders, and... that's really nice, too.

"I guess we should keep watching for our guy to come out of there, huh." Kon forces his attention away from Tim and back down to the warehouse. They're on a mission here. He can't just get distracted by... by... canoodling.

"Yeah," Tim agrees, and—is Kon imagining it, or is there a note of reluctance somewhere deep down in his voice? "I guess we should."

[frostbitebakery]

Hi :D 👀👀 I'm very much intrigued by Surrender, Please!!! <3

The evil!Codywan AU that takes over my brain whenever I’m feeling especially volatile! They travel dimensions and of course got caught up in good!Codywan’s universe.

.

“You love me,” Cody grits out, roughly squeezing Obi-Wan’s body to his own. “You promised.”

“But—“

“No.”

Obi-Wan is shaking like a leaf in his arms, the pieces of him clattering apart, and Cody won’t have it.

“It’s calling me,” Obi-Wan rasps out.

“Don’t go where I can’t follow,” he begs, tightens his grip and presses his nose into the grey-tinted neck, the red veins. “You have me. You know you can’t lose me.”

“It would destroy me,” Obi-Wan agrees softly and a part in Cody’s chest relaxes in an increment. “I can’t lose you.”

And Cody can’t lose him. Not any more than he already has, like he lost himself.

“Help me turn around, please,” Obi-Wan orders softly after a while. Tremors still flit across his limbs but it’s getting better, slowly.

Together they take care not to aggravate Obi-Wan’s knee, Cody offering his body as a brace as always. Golden eyes flick up to his face before they vanish under grey eyelashes.

Sometimes he wonders when Obi-Wan lost all his colors except gold and red. Maybe it started when Cody caught him staring at the Open Circle Fleet insignia more and more often, lost in thought and grief.

“You’re not letting me go, are you?” The question is hidden in the robes and blanket, careful in its presentation as if there’s more than one answer.

Cody rubs his nose against grey hair, his lips against a grey forehead. “I’m not strong enough to do that.”

“You aren’t,” Obi-Wan says, echoes of mischief in his voice. He curls into himself, into Cody. “They want to see monsters.”

Cody glances at the mirrored transparisteel window along one wall. Their counterparts, the good versions, he thinks with a sneer, are probably watching. Watching and waiting.

“They’re wondering what made us this way,” Obi-Wan continues, voice raspy and rough ever since the gold broke his eyes. “They’re wondering where our roots are in their heads.“

[perplexingluciddreams]

I had a very good day today.

My support worker came to the house for the first time! It is my first time meeting her in person. Her name is Emily and she is lovely. (She also has very cool hair).

She was here from about 11am - 5pm. I got to take my time and take breaks to swing and rest and be alone. Emily, Mum and I had a chat in my room before lunch. I used my AAC and Mum helped me tell Emily things about myself. Communication is much easier with Mum there - I was a bit worried about getting stuck or having a shutdown and not able to cope with a Person there at all. But I did well, I think!

Then I had lunch and a break for swing and Grey's Anatomy. I was quite anxious in my body - tense, sweaty, a bit shaky. Even if I logically know that everything is fine, my body has an instinctive reaction as if I am in danger and not safe, every time there is a Person there in the house (usually this doesn't include parents or sister, because I am used to them living in the same house. But on some days it is absolutely everyone, no matter who). New People are especially hard.

It is also rather hot weather today (18°C!) so that threw me off sensory-wise. I had to take more time to regulate.

In the afternoon I decided to be very brave and play a card game with Mum and Emily. We did three rounds of blackjack. It was a lot of fun! We each won one game. I was still a bit tense, but I was also very proud that I did so well.

I really like my new support worker and I am happy and proud and relieved that today went so well. I finished off the positive streak with listening to Martin Fröst (legendary Swedish clarinettist) play Brahms and Mozart while in my swing.

Wednesday will be my day with Emily from now on. I am really hopeful that this can help me learn to be less scared and anxious around people. Or at least widen the group of people who my brain recognises as "safe". And it is just lovely to spend time with someone and laugh and smile. And get to tell someone new about my interests!

I also have been texting with my best friend in the past week. That is very nice. They are also friends with my sister and quite often pop round our house to hang out, although not with me (because, y'know, Very Disabled - I am sure I don't need to give the full explanation here!). I hope to work towards being able to be physically in the same room with them and hang out, eventually.

It is different with someone I already know, who knows me for years back. There is different mental blocks and barriers and obstacles for both New People and People Who Know Me. It will be a slow process, with lots of teeny tiny baby steps. But I have to start somewhere! So, next time they come round, if my bedroom door is already open, they will pop their head in and wave. That's it. Just wave.

I hope to write more in detail about my "brain barriers" (just what I call it because I don't have any other words) in general, especially relating to Other People. It is a tough topic, and very hard to find words. I have been trying hard for over a year to write anything about this, but the progress is incredibly incremental.

Anyway, now I will need a lot of rest, I am knackered! My body is still in a heightened state of anxiety from a new situation and New Person and how much stimming I had to do to regulate. Usually in the evening I can finally calm down my body - things get quieter and darker and colder and it is all much better. It takes more time to calm down physically than mentally sometimes.

But it is all so very worth it. And Mum is happy too :D

Time to relax, rest my body, and turn my brain off! AKA: Time to watch even more Grey's Anatomy!

[crazycurly-77]

Bob (22/24)

This is written in the style of the 24 series.

Events occur in real time.

Hour 22 of 24: 07:00 p.m. - 08:00 p.m.

07:01:02 p.m.

Party room on the yacht:

“Gentlemen!” the first officer called out loudly and clapped his hands to get everyone's attention.

Suddenly the room became quiet.

He looked around at those present and when he was sure that everyone was listening to him, he said:

“Let's go to the conference room so the auction can begin. Please follow me.”

With that, he left the room.

Gibbs also began to pull away from you. You would have liked to hold him so that you didn't have to face the other women alone, but that wasn't possible, you knew that. You had to get through it somehow.

Attentive as he is, he noticed your discomfort. He took your hand, squeezed it briefly to cheer you up and gently kissed your temple. Then he murmured quietly: “You can do it. I know that.”

You looked at him doubtfully, but he just gave you a friendly smile and went to the other men.

But you had little time to think about the situation and how you should make small talk, because several women immediately came up to you and asked you:

“Tell me, darling, your boyfriend is veeeery sexy. Where did you pick him up? Does he have any brothers?”

Your eyes got bigger and bigger. The topic of the expected small talk wasn't clothes and hairstyles (which was bad enough), but that Gibbs was sexy and looked stunning.

"Nobody prepared me for THIS..." you thought frustrated.

07:04:56 p.m.

Conference room on the yacht:

Bob generally preferred to blend in with the crowd without being recognized. This was also the case this evening and especially during the auction. He didn't want anyone to know he was among them.

That's why it was his assistant who was now standing at the front and directing the process:

"Welcome to today's auction of the heavily armed helicopter with secret stealth mode that you saw on the aft deck. Bids are to be made in increments of 1,000 as a minimum and the amount is to be paid immediately by the buyer after the auction has ended," he explained and then paused.

"Does anyone have any questions?" he turned to the company again.

Everyone shook their heads, whereupon he nodded in satisfaction.

"Good. Then let's begin."

Gibbs discreetly looked at his watch and remembered the conversation with the director that afternoon.

You three absolutely had to be off the ship by 10:00 p.m., because that was when the FBI would launch an airstrike with the aim of destroying the helicopter.

Its destruction was the top priority and if he, Tony and you were killed in the process, then that would simply be collateral damage.

“The FBI gentlemen have to get involved in everything. They just can’t stop annoying me,” he thought grumpily.

07:15:45 p.m.

Interior of the yacht:

As planned, Tony left the party room with the other men. But instead of going to the conference room with them, he crept in the other direction to start searching the boat.

Obviously the mastermind of the robbery was on board and owned the yacht. So there had to be clues about his plans and his identity somewhere.

The first rooms he looked at were unremarkable. Then he passed the stairs to the boat's engine and thought to himself: "Since I'm already here, I'll check there too."

So he climbed down and was about to go back to the upper deck when he saw something suspicious in the far corner. He went closer and paused in shock. He quietly informed Gibbs over the radio: "Boss...there's a bottle of sarin gas hanging on the air conditioning. They're not planning anything good, but I haven't found any clues about the mastermind yet."

Gibbs had certainly heard him through the small receiver in his ear, but in his current surroundings he couldn't answer. So DiNozzo continued to follow the plan and kept searching.

After a few minutes he found an office. It had to be the owner's room and luckily he wasn't exactly tidy or thought he was completely safe because there were papers scattered on the desk.

He carefully searched through them, skimmed through their contents and finally found what he was looking for. The owner of the yacht and mastermind of the robbery was none other than the arms dealer Bob, who was wanted by Interpol.

Bob was just an alias, but who was behind it? Good question. And he got the answer when he discovered a photo in a drawer. It was unbelievable.

“Boss,” Tony whispered into his communicator.

“The mastermind is Bob and behind Bob is…”

He didn’t get any further.

07:59:58 p.m.… the clock was ticking….

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

Here you will find the other chapters of this story.

Masterlist stories - Part 1 (finished ones)

Masterlist stories - Part 2 (finished/ongoing)

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Tags: @ilovemark1951, @hobby27

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[blackjackkent]

@thedarkstrategist replied to your post “Ooh, got a dialogue I haven't gotten before with...”:

:o I've never seen this dialogue either and I feel like I always have her approval fairly high by act 2. Interesting. Maybe I just missed it

Actually gonna copy my reply to you into its own post here in case anyone else is also interested. :D

I actually remember watching a video a bit back that discussed the exact mechanics behind this. It's not really approval dependent, but instead she has a secret counter under the hood that is incremented by making certain specific dialogue decisions with her. It was kinda interesting actually!

Here's the vid if you're interested:

[utilitycaster]

This has been a long time percolating but I want to push back on the frequent criticism (that I am almost certainly guilty of myself) that people who don't get something have never played D&D (or the game in question) or have never been a DM/GM.

I definitely think that experience playing or running TTRPGs helps with an understanding of actual play as a medium; but it takes a certain level of awareness anyway, and I think it's very possible for someone who understands the give and take of a game but hasn't played it to have a strong grasp of how it works. Similarly, I think it's entirely possible for someone who has played to not realize the intricacies of their house rules vs. how other people play the same game, or to just not be familiar with every single detail.

But I think a bigger reason why, at minimum, we should be careful about this criticism, is that a lot of the time the things people don't understand or appreciate are ultimately about narrative and storytelling in general, rather than about D&D/TTRPGs specifically. For example: I find a lot of people do not handle the fact that NPCs are generally given less agency within the story. This is something of a function of TTRPGs...but it's not uncommon for people watching scripted media to similarly fixate on relatively minor characters and fail to understand why they remain minor, and why the protagonists get all the action. Similarly, not understanding an ensemble cast and the idea that focus will not be doled out in precisely equivalent increments but is rather character-dependent is not exclusive to actual play, nor is treating things as too contrived. I think, actually, a little knowledge of TTRPGs but no strong grasp on narrative/media criticism actually exacerbates this problem: TTRPGs have a random element, so people sometimes expect randomness even in places it normally would not exist. I will say that this is a case where GM-ing experience might innoculate you, but someone who is neither a GM nor a player but has a strong understanding of how to tell stories will also probably take no issue.

I also think that understanding the rules of actual play are not the same as understanding the rules of TTRPGs - it's much more high level, especially when it comes to (for example) combat in games like D&D and Pathfinder. You do not need to understand action economy in depth, for example - it can add something, definitely, but it's not a requirement for the story on the whole - but you do need to understand that combat is an important part of this story. All of this is pretty easy for someone paying attention, even if they aren't familiar with the game. They just need to understand that the medium has specific rules, and then grasp what they are.

I actually think the above - understanding that there are rules for the medium - is something where getting too into the weeds is a detriment. This is in fact why I think a lot of discussion of scripted adaptations of things based in actual play or TTRPGs (TLOVM, the D&D movie) misses the point. It focuses too much on specific mechanics when the goal is the storytelling. This can also be true within actual play itself. Rule of Cool is very subjective, but there are fairly widespread house rules: many people ignore the fact that small races can't have heavy weapons, because this is frankly stupid in a world where the magic armor shrinks to fit you and few people bother with the details of encumbrance or size for any other strength-based checks anyway. Don't get me wrong - I love mechanics and think there's a place to debate them and talk about what one might have done differently - but that place exists outside the larger story and isn't really relevant anywhere but those niche side conversations about mechanics. I'm not really a pure "as long as we're all having fun :)" kind of person, but I also do think it's absolutely vital to understand that rules and structure exist to facilitate something, and not for their own sake; people who forget that and only focus on the rules tend to lose sight of the actual goal (which for TTRPGs as used in Actual Play is telling a story).

I think the place this gets even more fraught than all the above is when we get into broader and more nebulous and subjective TTRPG philosophies or the limits of what stories can be told (the infamous Player Agency debates and by extension railroading; understanding what kinds of scenes a given game can support) because they are both unique to the medium but not governed by clear rules. But even then I think what's ultimately more important is picking up the type of story from a baseline, rather than relying on one's own personal positions. For example: D&D as a system has in my opinion some pretty profound limitations when it comes to heists - it's possible, but it's not designed for that to be the main story. There is absolutely a scenario in which you, as a D&D player in your home game, can run a wonderful heist. But the question is really "does this actual play tell this story well? Does the TTRPG system support and add to it, or is it merely accommodated" and answering the first question requires no D&D knowledge whatsoever, and answering the second requires a degree of compartmentalization that not all D&D players have.

So in the end - there are scenarios in which knowledge of the system an actual play is using, or being a GM, are uniquely helpful, but that's mostly in the area of mechanics. Most of the rest will be better addressed by having a strong sense of narrative structure, characterization, and how to tell a story; and focusing on tiny mechanical details can even be a detriment to understanding if one becomes fixated on perfect rules as written over, well, having fun.

[ghosttownwherenoonegoes]

I HAD A DREAM ABOUT THE HAWKINS CREW, CORRODED COFFIN, HELLFIRE, JOYCE AND HOPPER

ohmyGOD okay so all of us were playing some kind of campaign where we had to sleep in sections of twenty minutes and Eddie had written out a very long very precise set of instructions for everyone to follow. He didn't print out copies, he handwrote ALL OF THE ABOVE CHARACTERS their OWN copy of the instructions and personalised them with his own doodles. And we had to follow them to the letter, all of us, or the campaign wasn't gonna work.

So anyway, everyone sort of split up into their own groups and naturally, I went up to Eddie and I asked him if maybe he'd want to partner up with me? Eddie's response wasn't verbal, he just wrapped his arms around me, waited until I did the same to him, and then started humming Master of Puppets under his breath and it was so sweet and gentle😭 I swear, I could FEEL his arms around me.💔

All of us follow the instructions as best as we can, everyone is paired off nicely, and then Joyce and Hopper come looking for their kids. Will shows Joyce the instructions and she's confused but supportive (same impeccable energy as when she told Will she needs to buy him new crayons because it looks like his character is shooting cabbages🤣) but Hopper is like "this doesn't make sense". And he and Eddie go head to head in a very... They're challenging each other in a friendly way and having fun with it. Eventually, Hopper concedes and so does Joyce and they sit down to watch all of us play D&D, and we get a third of the way through the page before Eddie notices that the younger kids are all starting to find it hard to follow the incremental twenty minutes of sleep because they just want actual uninterrupted sleep, and he calls the session off so that they can get some rest.

Everyone kind of... Disappeared after that, I guess my imagination ran out of juice but it was me and Eddie in the end and I asked him if he was tired and he nodded and we laid down together surrounded by all the campaign props, character and instruction sheets, chalices filled with Mountain Dew, and then I asked him if... If maybe he would want to date me. We have chemistry, right, so how about it?

JUST AS EDDIE LEANED IN TO GIVE ME AN ANSWER, I WOKE UP.😭😭😭😭

I'll take that as a very graceful no 😂💔

[romegaketh]

M, Q, and D for in the pocket!

Lots of text so I am putting this under a cut!

M: Got any premises on the back burner that you’d care to share?

I had to kill a Randy/Cody subsection of Seth Rollins Has A Bad Time In Omegaverse and I probably won't follow through on it ever because Randy is too gross for me to want to spend like... lots of time in his head. But I really like the internalized homophobia Potential (wow, florals for spring, tumblr user romegaketh is interested in internalized homophobia) of Randy being like ... very angry that he desperately wants Cody to top him and frustrated that he can't stop feeling like that ever and willing to take out that confusion and frustration on Seth and Cody, probably. I just think Randy's particular combination of gay for pay and homophobic lends itself to him having spent a lot of time baiting Cody into topping him and then being furious about it later.

(Also weird for Cody, obviously, but he can just go to Japan and be insane there xx.)

Randy and Seth had history. Randy had history with everyone; Seth had history with everyone. Cody and Randy were so complicated that when Cody thought about trying to explain it the words leapt into his mouth and tried to strangle him. There was no denying that everything Cody was today bore the print of Randy’s fingers. He had been betrayed - brutally - and just as brutally fought for.  And still there was nobody who misunderstood him so deeply as did Randy; who if asked would probably say that Cody, in turn, misunderstood Randy himself. 

Q: Do you have any discarded scenes/storylines/projects?

I love to keep a little scrap file for every wip because it helps me to feel less like I am killing my precious babies. I was very unsure about how to fit pocket into current timeline and this was the option I was running with initially but have now discarded, thank you for coming back, Roman.

Seth came into the hotel room wearing basketball shorts and an old Shield t-shirt. This was textbook appeasement and it would have worked if Roman had not watched the show from the hotel bed, getting steadily angrier and angrier, until there was something banked and roiling burning in his chest.  “Two weeks,” Roman said. He got up and shut the door behind Seth. “To fight Damian Priest. For the title.” “Some of us like doing our jobs,” Seth said. This was 2012, do you miss football, did your dad teach you that move; Seth with the single blond patch, in the trunks. Roman caught him by the chin. The blond hair fell around his face; he was tan from all the time next to Roman’s pool, in Roman’s yard. The roots were showing already. “I have been with you for ten weeks,” Roman said. “Try that again.” “I’m gonna say his name, so you need to settle down.”  Roman gritted his teeth. Fuck you. Seth shook himself free, pulled himself up to his full height. He was wearing the fucking brace, at least he retained an increment of sensibility. “Hunter and I talked. We went through preliminary testing, I’ve wrestled some under supervision. It’s going much better than anyone expected.” “Under supervision-” He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t move. “Jesus,” Seth said, and he caught Roman’s shoulder, guided him to the bedroom, to the bed, where he knelt on the mattress with only a singular wince, pressed his forehead to Roman’s, stroked his other hand along Roman’s side. “Hey. It’s me. I’m here.” The chair.  “I only didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to stop me. But now you know, now everyone knows. You’re here. It’s fine.” “Seth.”  “I'm sorry,” Seth murmured. He kissed Roman's forehead, pressed that whole long line of himself against Roman as if Roman were not one wrong breath from violence against him. “But you would have stopped me, big brother. You would never have let me get on the plane.” “I love you,” Roman said, furious, exhausted, terrified. “Is it still you? Would you tell me if it wasn't?”  Seth cupped his cheek with painstaking tenderness. “I don't know. But I'm me, I think. I do love you.” He said that, too. He felt his hands around Seth's neck. The Royal Rumble. I never want to hurt you, he'd told Seth in Ohio.   “This isn't the hotel room I booked.” “You're returning. You were entitled to a penthouse on your own terms.”  “Did you do this to other people?” Seth asked. “Other partners?” Roman shrugged. “Nice things? Yeah.” Other partners, he thought. Seth in the same universe as a girlfriend, Seth in the same universe as Roman’s ex-wife - “It's not nice,” Seth said. “It's about control.”  “It's nice, though.” He waved a hand: bedroom, living room, enormous bathroom, balcony. “He should have done this for you.” “I'm not fucking him. If that's what you're implying.” Not this time. His heart hammered. “You've held every title in this company. He ought to respect that.” “Do you?”

D: Is there a song or a playlist to associate with [right in the pocket]?

Well. I did not expect pocket to be a billion words long so it is titled from this song and it's a bop. Whatever, we'll all live.

[clowngames]

i’m a game dev student at an art school and i’ve been really struggling with finding my niche…. i LOVE being a environment/modeler/texture artist, and i want to have more skills in the design/tech side… but i’ve been struggling really hard with learning unreal engine 5 for my classes. do you have any experience in unreal5 blueprinting or just anything more on the tech side? i would appreciate some advice to get through these tough college quarters :’D

Whenever someone entering gamedev on the programmer side is struggling to figure it out, there are generally two reasons for this.

The first is that they're struggling to get into the programmer mindset. Blueprints try to bridge the gap, but code doesn't work like english. It doesn't even work like the human brain. When we think or talk we take shortcuts to formulate or convey ideas because we can trust that when it comes time to interpret those ideas another person (or ourselves in the future) will fill in those gaps. This is so intuitive to us that we don't even notice that there are gaps. Programming forces you to become aware of how many gaps there are and fill them, and quite frankly it's a humbling experience.

I'm probably not saying anything you don't already know, but I want to emphasize that the way coding works is unintuitive to most people and we need to retrain our way of thinking to get good at it. This is unfortunately not a fast process. It's very common especially for new programmers (though I'm not immune even now) to go "I'm a fucking idiot, I'm a fucking idiot, I'm a fucking--I'M A GENIUS" because of the cycle of shit not working for stupid reasons and then finally working.

The second problem is that they're unfamiliar with (and overwhelmed by) the library they're working with.

A "library" in a programming context is typically collection of functions and objects you can import into a project, but each game engine has its own built in libraries which the engines are built around. These are the verbs and nouns that aren't built into, for example, C++, but have been added by Unreal Engine to make it easier to make games.

The better the game engine, the larger the library. Unfortunately, the larger the library the more overwhelming it is because that's a lot of shit to learn.

In your case anon the "library" would refer to the different kinds of nodes you can add to the blueprint. When you're new to it, even an expert Unity dev will struggle in Unreal because they don't know what their options are to accomplish things.

Now the reason I break down the new-programmer hurdles into two distinct problems is because they often seem like one problem, which can make it hard to solve. Both get better with experience so sometimes slamming your head against a wall is a viable way to get through them, but it's not the best.

If you think your main issue is the first problem, you can work on it through "exercise." This can be in the form of taking programming courses on codecademy (I'd recommend C++ since you're using Unreal, though C# isn't a bad choice) or by playing a game by Zachtronics like Infinifactory or Opus Magnum. These games are "programming puzzle games" and I can personally attest to having gotten better at Infinifactory as I got better at programming.

If you think it's the second problem, the biggest solvent is curiosity. When I get into a new engine, I spend a bit of time learning how it works and then immediately try and figure out how to do dumb shit in it. I made an incremental game in RPG Maker just to see if I could. It wasn't good, but it was a fun educational experience. Sometimes I'll come across a function I don't understand, and I'll open the engine's manual and read about the function and use that as a jumping off point to dive into similar functions.

It doesn't feel good for my advice to be "read the manual" but genuinely there's a point where you realize that you're reading the manual instead of watching youtube videos and it's like, holy shit I'm a real programmer. It's a sign that you're getting comfortable enough in the role that you're learning what questions to ask to figure out what you need to know (youtube is still a great resource of course).

All of that said though, if your aim is to be an environment artist I think it's okay to be bad at programming. Survive college, of course, but if you're in a team with a dedicated programmer (which you will be if you are not the programmer) then all you need is to be able to understand how to communicate with the programmer. It's really beneficial to know enough about the fundamentals of what you're working in to know what info the programmer needs from you and what info you need from them, but you don't have to be good at it to do that!

[jeremy-ken-anderson]

Survival Genre

Surviving the Game as a Barbarian is a good series so far. The character has bumped up against both the limits of his knowledge in terms of, "I know a bunch of stuff about the isekai I've been dropped into but it's still a random-seed style game so I'm not some God of Destiny" and also in terms of "I know how things work when it's a game but it turns out drinking healing potions is intensely painful."

Having watched the first episode of Black Summoner yesterday, I feel a strong appreciation for how Surviving the Game as a Barbarian maintains stakes.

And...maybe that's an unfair comparison.

Back when 3rd Edition D&D was dying down, I got the Dungeon Master's Guide 2, which contained some of the most broadly useful gamemastering advice in a game manual. That was where they broke down the players into types, with ideas for how to make them happy:

The Supercooler plays to be awesome. Play up his hits, maybe even play up his misses as mighty swings the opponent just barely slides under.

The Tactician plays to see their plans come to fruition. Give them points in the story where they have advance warning of events and ways to capitalize on that.

The Troublemaker plays to act out in a safe environment. Give them an aside now and then where they can Fuck Around and Find Out.

The Explorer plays to imagine a grand journey. Describe your vistas and the wonders of where they're going.

The Lurker plays to spend time with friends and isn't comfortable getting into the game. Make their turns as uncomplicated as possible, and give them ways their in-game actions can make the other players happy.

There are three or four more, but you get the idea. When it came out I thought the DMG2 was the worst game book I'd ever read; It had almost nothing as far as new classes and monsters and...but at this point I'm thinking it was one of the best. It was teaching lessons about All Gamemastering.

Anyway imagine a similar list of gamer types for videogames. Now you can see that stories like Surviving the Game as a Barbarian are stories that play on the kind of gamer who wants to optimize. They want the main character to face impossible odds and win, which is not the same as someone telling us "That's a Tier-8 Angel" and then having the protagonist scoff and say, "Then I'll cast a Tier-9 Banishment!" and immediately win. "Facing impossible odds" is based on relative level.

But as I've said elsewhere, there's an entire subgenre of isekai these days that is based around people who escape into games in order to relax. In the isekai this escape is more explicit, but the desire is clearly the same. They want to do everything in the game the easy way. They start off with ridiculous power, and while the writer may include a token effort to show difficulty it doesn't last because it's not the point.

Anyway if you like to see your protagonist challenged, Surviving the Game as a Barbarian is quite good. It's had some hard stuff but thus far (in my opinion; Your mileage may vary) manages to skirt the line and not quite fall into Misery Porn territory. At the present point in the story, things are tough but manageable. So in spite of its minor visual similarities to Fear and Hunger (I really wonder whether any concepts were inspired by that cruel game) this isn't a particularly cruel narrative so far. And while I could be wrong I don't get the impression that the author's planning to murder all the lovable background characters. I think this will be a proper adventure, with the hero pulling and scraping to make gains and become more powerful, and then face off against incrementally more powerful foes. Which is a good vibe, if you're a certain kind of reader.

[volivolition]

what are 3 things you’d say shaped you into who you are?

what’s some good advice you want to share?

fave song at the moment?

youtuber you’ve been obsessed with and why?

-Drama

hi hi hello Drama!! :D <3 my responses are long-winded as usual <3

1) what are 3 things you’d say shaped you into who you are? - growing up second oldest in a big family (you still carry a lot of responsibility for all the younger ones but whoops you're still not your perfect older sister!! oh well im a boy now so i never will be lmao!! speaking of which:) - transing my gender B) - MOST IMPORTANTLY, reading homestuck (truly fundamentally changed me as a person, artist, and storyteller, i cannot tell you how much of my current self can be all traced back to that fucking webcomic hkjhg)

12) what’s some good advice you want to share? - carry a pen, napkins, bandaids, plastic cutlery, hard candy, and something with whimsy (this can be a tiny bubble wand, stickers, a fake tealight, a fidget toy, etc. for me i have a tiny bag of ttrpg dice) with you if you're going to socialize somewhere. the hard candy is fun to share with friends (and is. also important if, like me, you have low blood sugar...) the whimsy item is just a good conversation point or boredom reliever - if executive dysfunction is fucking you up, break the task into tiny parts, with the first step being one you literally cannot fuck up, count to 20 and start the first step on 20. (if you dont start on 20, forgive yourself and count again). - hold onto whatever tiny joys you can, any reason to stay alive is a good one, progress can feel incremental but i promise it will get better eventually as long as you keep living.

38) fave song at the moment? other than "Too Sweet" by Hozier playing on repeat in my brain, "On Your Mind" by Noah Floersch has been really vibing with me lately :3 <3

39) youtuber you’ve been obsessed with and why? truly my youtube is a mess, i rarely watch youtubers consistently hgkjh <3 um, my best answer is probably Drawfee, but even then, i haven't been watching them as often these days <3 i put them on in the background because since they're drawing, they encourage me to draw too hkjhg <3

[cemeterylanes]

chapter three - april

The New Year and spring came fast. Wayne got his cast taken off another month after the conversation with Terrence about what his plan would be. They settled on Wayne getting a Greyhound ticket to Boston, since Brockton is about 30 minutes away. Terrence even promised Wayne to give him a 200$ Visa gift card so he could get food, clothes and pay the taxi fare to get to Brockton. He told him he was a good kid and just needed to be set on a good path. Their therapy sessions often were sitting in silence or meaningless small talk. Stuff about Wayne’s dad, or his brother before he left. His mom. Del. He gave Torrence a very abridged version of what happened that summer. To Torrence, it was progress. To Wayne, it was wasting time.

With his cast off, Wayne tried to be careful. He still did ‘weight training’ which was more about him getting to balance out his strength than the actual weight training. Initially, he dropped everything he picked up. It was frustrating and annoying. The keyword was tried – within that few weeks of the cast being off, he caused fights every couple of days. It drove the staff and officers crazy, that this one boy could cause riots. But the strangest thing happened after a while of all the fights, bruises, bleeds - weeks, weeks of prying people away from one another, and no one being able to piss without being babysat - everything was suddenly peaceful. Despite Wayne being the harbinger of violence, it was like everyone sang a song of harmony.

It was so out of place. Even new boys to cell block D behaved. It wasn’t like they all clamored around Wayne, but no one picked on each other anymore. The adults were bewildered. As each month passed, a plan bigger than all the juvenile hall’s staff could imagine. They were planning on a jailbreak. Things had gone missing over the course of time - July / August to now April. Pillow cases, socks, cutlery. But not missing in large increments. Nothing to trigger alarm bells. Wayne wasn’t necessarily the facilitator but he was a participant. He paid attention to times and shifts of rotations for the officers. His hearing went well - Torrence speaking highly of Wayne. But still, the severity of what he did, he was supposed to stay in until July. That did not work for Wayne. Being here this long already was Hell. Not a day went by where he didn’t think about Del Luccetti.

The plan was April 15th, it would be jailbreak day. Boys who preferred juvie over going back out to the real world would be the ones to incite one big riot. Someone would steal a set of keys from their counselor, and paperclips to make lock picks for the fire alarms. All hands would be on deck, and left a skeleton crew to watch the rest of the boys. Wayne had pillowcases to help him climb over the fence, and not get cut up by the barbed wire while he scaled it in his jumpsuit. He wasn’t going to get the 200$ Visa card to help him through, or the bus ticket to Boston. But nothing was going to stop him. He was just looking for a final sign to go forth in jumping in the jail break.

⛓𓌹*♰*𓌺⛓

The day before. April 14th. His routine. Up. Bed. Breakfast. Up to therapy with Torrence.

“No fights, collaboration with your peers…you’re doing fantastic, Wayne.” Terrence looks over his notes. Wayne is busy otherwise, looking for things to take. Truthfully, he would feel guilty stealing from him. This man had been nothing but patient. He said such nice things at the review hearing. He fiddles with the small envelope in his hand. He wrote it during individual time - a thank you. Thank you for saying such nice things about me, for me. He was looking for a reason, some final flag to tell him to stay or go.

“Thank you.”

“So do your peers. We’re all really impressed with how everyone is doing and getting along.”

“Yeah.”

“Really, Wayne. You’ve really turned things around. I’m proud of you. Even though we don’t always talk fully during these visits, I am fond of them. That being said…I recommended to the court that you’re done early. Later this year is too long for us to keep you.”

Wayne’s eyes darted from a picture on the wall to Terrence. “What?”

“I recommend you to be released by the end of May at the most.”

The end of May. Still too late to not see Del.

“Really?”

“Yes. I figured our sessions coming up could be us doing maintenance and preparing for transition. You have so much potential, and this won’t be the be all, end all for you, Mr. McCullough.” He felt bad. All of this work. He still needed a sign. “You have a strong sense of justice. You have it within you to do what’s right. And that’s very admirable, Wayne.”

Wayne picks his head up. “What’d ya mean?”

Terrence gave him a warm smile. “You have a very justice forward personality. You protect people who need your help. When you leave here Wayne, do what’s right. I know you will.”

That was it. That was his sign. Wayne juts his hand out with the letter.

“Here.”

“What’s this?” His counselor tilts his head and takes the envelope. It’s addressed to Mr. Brown. “Thank you Wayne.”

“Wait uh. To read it.”

“Why?”

“It’s important.” The best thing was that Terrence respected his clients and their wishes.

“How long would you like me to wait - rather, what day should I read it?” He tilts his head.

“I dunno. Friday. Not today.” Then, Wayne would be gone. He would understand. He told Wayne to do what was right.

“Till Friday, then.” He leans back in his chair, and places it so it leans against a framed wedding photo. “It’s your hour. What would you like to do?”

“Listen to music.”

So, that’s what they did. Terrence and Wayne sat in silence as they blasted Wayne’s preferred music artist out of the shitty desk speakers on his desk. One worked on stuff at his desk, typing up notes and filing papers while the other bobbed his head almost violently to the tracks. Tomorrow was the day he would get out, and get straight to Del.

⛓𓌹*♰*𓌺⛓

The morning of April 15th was the same as the day before, and every other morning. The first half of the day was the same, but group activity. Group activity is when the fun started. Through breakfast and lunch, everyone exchanged knowing glances and acknowledgement of commitment to the plan. Ten minutes after lunch ended, 6 of the 20 boys in cell block D started a fight. Although inflicting physical pain on one another, they promise their concentrated blows on their torsos and backs. It was more painful for the officers to manhandle them in trying to get them to stop. Another 3 pulled 3 different fire alarms with one of the keys they stole, and bent up paper clips that they made work for lock picks.

The alarms blaring, combined with the kicking, screaming and yelling was Hell on Earth for everyone’s ears. For the remaining 13 boys - they bum rushed whatever skeleton crew was left to manage them. They wrapped their arms in sheets and pillowcases, tucking fabric around their necks and faces to scale the barbed wire fence with ease. As Wayne sprinted his way out, approaching it, a gut pang hit him the minute his fingers wrapped around the metal links. He was scared somehow he would break his arm again. In awe of his own feats, he pulled himself up the barrier and climbed over, the worry of his arm still being weak subsiding. The other boys - Christian and Jesus included - hooted and hollered as they ran as fast as they could. Wayne attempted to follow, but had more of a plan than the others did.

Every time he was outside, he looked for hiding spots. Bushes, leafy trees. Of course officers would look under cars, or catch them jay running across the street for their freedom. Sirens rang as people were discharged. Ocala police sped up and down the street, and a loud sound like a tornado siren came from the juvenile hall, signaling lockdown. Some of his peers didn’t get very far - tackled on the hot Florida asphalt in the middle of traffic. Wayne hauled ass behind buildings and alleyways for about five blocks, nonstop. It stung when he rapidly inhaled and exhaled to bring oxygen to his lungs. The closest, ambiguous hiding spot was flinging himself behind a shitty wedding chapel. He jumps inside of the green dumpster, and the top closes as he collapses on top of some stained wedding dresses. Panting, he tries to catch his breath and closes his eyes.

Adrenaline coursed through his veins, pumping his blood through his body what felt like twice as fast. He felt lightheaded as he collapses back against the metal behind him. It smelled sickeningly sweet inside of this dumpster. Like someone poured champagne and cake in the garbage - rotting icing and sour booze. He scrunched his nose. He looks down at the shredded pillowcases stained with droplets of blood. They were in tatters. He touched around his face, thin cuts with little blood. He sighs. His lungs hurt, and he runs a hand through his hair - his scalp moist with sweat. He doesn’t really know how long he had fallen asleep for - when he wakes up again, he’s sweaty and scrambles to push open the plastic swinging top. It was still light out, but he wanted to kick himself. Walking out of the alleyway, he looked for the time. He looks all around for something to signify what time it was - anything. He passes by an antique store, and looks through the window. A large display of clocks, all in sync.

4:15 P.M. On 4/15. Next to it was a bus stop - with little shelter and a small metal stool. He looks at the route map that’s contained behind a large piece of plexiglass. He scours it for the bus stop, or a Greyhound stop. Identifying it and streets, he begins to walk. Eyes frantically analyzing each sign - he walks, and walks, and walks. The adrenaline high has crashed, and he can’t feel his feet. He rotates between walking and running, but it doesn’t feel like he’s making progress. The sun says goodbye, and the moon rises. The air is cooler. He unbuttons the top of the jumpsuit and ties it around his waist. Underneath was a white t-shirt now soaked with sweat. The bus station came into view. It was well lit, and busy with departing and arriving buses. He snuck his way in, and shuffled to a security desk.

“Where’s lost and found?”

The barely conscious security guard sits up - inhaling mid-snore, answering on command, as if he already had the answer loaded in. “Behind here, lad.” His overwhelming Irish accent catches Wayne off guard. He moves around the desk and the man, and gets on his knees to dig through the cubbies.

“What’re ya lookin for?” The man asks, not bothering to look behind him.

“Uh, stuff. M-My stuff.” Wayne blurts. Godamn beacon of truth. Wayne sifts through the lost belongings for a pair of worn Vans that looked like they were supposed to be beige, a pair of torn jeans his size if not a size bigger, and a t-shirt with some forest on it and a grey hoodie. He wonders where his clothes will go back at the juvie. He missed his green overcoat. He listens to the man behind him drift into sleep again. Wayne’s eyes darted around for the time again. It was already 7. He groaned, and dug towards the bottom of the cubbies for wallets. No one carries cash anymore. He found about 50$, which was fine. He slinks away from the desk and to the bathroom.

He discarded the awful, suffocating jumpsuit. He stuffs it into the garbage bin, and takes soap and paper towels and soaks it with water. He washes up under his arms and around his neck. He looks at himself in the mirror. The scar on his nose. The scabs from the most recent cuts. He looked down at his feet - since he didn’t put the shoes on yet. He lifted his legs, and let the water run over his feet in the sink basin. Some men walked in and out of the bathroom, looking at him for a minute but didn’t pay any mind. He pulled on the socks, and the shoes. He shuffles out, and looks for the desk to buy a bus ticket.

He approaches the desk.

“How can I help you, young man?”

He taps his fingers nervously, setting the money on the counter.

“I need a ticket to Boston.”

The woman looks down, and she looks displeased.

“Baby, you need 250$ dollars to get to Boston.”

Wayne’s face went pale.

“What?”

“It’s 250$ dollars.”

Wayne grimaces. “Why’s it cost so much?”

Her earrings jingled as she looked at her computer. “They’re FlixBuses.”

“I don’t know what that is?”

“They play movies while you drive.”

“I don’t want no movies. I wanna get to Boston.”

“I don’t have any other buses until next Tuesday, honey.”

Her demeanor was kind, but almost pitiful. Wayne looked like a sad dog left in the rain. He looks down at the cash. “I’m sorry, baby. I’d make a miracle if I could.” She looks and scans through her computer. There really weren’t any cheaper rates. Wayne sniffles, and takes the cash back. She looks around and leans over the counter. Her hair was streaked with grey, and her tight ringlets frame her face, and her little glasses holders swing as she looks at him.

“There ain’t no other way?” He rests his fists against the counter.

“At 9 o’clock, Jedidiah will be drivin’ out to Boston.” She looks back at her computer. “He close to retirin’.” Her voice has a southern drawl to it. He wonders where she’s from. “He don’t care who get on that bus. He’ll be in row.. 9, spot 3. Get on that bus and go, okay baby boy?”

He looks around, like it’s a joke.

“I mean it. For real.” She holds a hand out and rests it on Wayne’s fist, gently squeezing it. “Get to where you need to be. You look like you on a mission to go somewhere.”

“Thank you.” He mumbles, and she lets him go and waves him off.

“Next!”

He sits down on a wooden bench, surrounded by all kinds of people. People in suits and nice clothes, or lounge clothes. Homeless people, clutching their jackets tight as they watched the red LED clock. It was 8:30 now. He had another half hour before he could leave. How long did a bus to Boston even take? Were they gonna stop places? He hugs his knees, and waits.

When 9 rolls around, he jumps as fast as he can to get into the parking lot. He snatches a used bus ticket out of the trash to at least look believable. He runs out to the parking lot, and runs up the steps of the bus identified by the nice woman he spoke to earlier. The man looked tired, annoyed. He looked close to retirement. He groans in welcoming everyone on board, and doesn’t bother checking their tickets. He holds onto the one he had anyway.

Boston to Ocala. What a coincidence.

He sits down, and jumps - pin stuck in his leg. He lifts his left leg and pulls out the sharp object, and a rubber backing. It was a green four leaf clover pin. He cradles it in his hand, and looks out the dark window - the lights of the city trying to sleep shone through. He looks around the bus. Everyone was so vastly different, going to Boston - or maybe would get off on those stops along the way. A man in a suit sits down next to Wayne.

“D’you know how long this bus ride is?”

The man with his combed over blonde hair looks at Wayne, then to his own ticket.

“Doesn’t it say?” He nods to the paper in Wayne’s hands. Wayne covers up the reversed departure and arrival locations.

48 hours. Two days.

“I believe we have 3 stops along the way, if I’m not mistaken.” The man holds up his own ticket. “Yeah, a few cities. They’ll be brief. It must be your first time.”

“Yeah.”

“It’ll be fine. Get up and stretch during those stops. Sitting here for hours is bad for your legs.”

“Thanks.” Wayne nods, and rests his head against the window. The man nods, and goes back to reading some papers he settled in with a briefcase. The bus groaned as the man pulled the gear into drive and exited the Greyhound parking lot. Goodbye Ocala, Florida. Behind Wayne was the pain of saying goodbye to a mom who he knew now was better without him, and the last thing his dad could leave him. Behind him was the life before, and now things would be different. Things would be different when he got to Boston and reuinited with Del.

[finalgrrrls]

get to know the author!

name: dani

pronouns: she/her

preference of communication: i use both tumblr ims and discord. i prefer discord for plotting and ooc chat because tumblr im delays in loading messages, but i’m fine with either.

most active muse: varies depending on whatever i’m hyperfixating on. at the moment, it’s definitely cameron, although maggie has been active on and off since 2018 despite me not watching d/ark sh/adows for years.

experience / how many years: i’ve been on this hell site since 2012 more or less consistently, with occasional breaks of a few months to a few years. before tumblr, i wrote mostly on youtube of all places, and in my friends’ chatzy rooms.

platforms you use: for rp, just tumblr. i’ve written on discord a few times in the past, but i prefer to use it for ooc communication.

best experience: it’s really hard to say! i suppose overall i’ve had the best experience writing in the star wars fandom a few years back. i had an oc in 2016 and a canon muse in 2019, and everyone was really friendly and welcoming to them both <3 i also had a great clique of friends when i wrote carrie white 10 years ago (that being a full decade ago kills me lmao). more recently, with maggie i’ve gotten to write with so many interesting muses and fantastic writers over the past couple years! many of whom i still write with today <3

rp pet peeves: people who constantly post their drama on the dash. i really don’t care what it is, unless it’s a call out of a legitimately dangerous person (not just someone you personally dislike or disagree with) i don’t want to see it.

fluff, angst, or smut: angst all the way, although i’m not opposed to writing fluff! as for smut, i’m not very experienced with writing it. i feel awkward writing the extra explicit stuff, so you’re probably not gonna see much of that on this blog.

plots or memes: it depends on my mood and our muses tbh. sometimes plotting is necessary for crossovers, but i like that memes allow for muse dynamics to grow organically. there are benefits to both!

long or short replies: i tend toward 2-4 paragraphs for most replies, but i can do longer, it’ll just take me longer to write. i don’t have as many short threads (and they tend to eventually become long lol) but i do like having a few going at any given time. sometimes i get overwhelmed by the longer drafts, and short replies are just what i need to kick a muse into gear.

best time to write: whenever i’m putting off something important that i need to do, or when i’m bored at work, or when i need to sleep 😅 my executive functioning is trash and if i sit down to write in my free time, i can’t always focus how i’d like to. i end up writing most replies in bits and pieces over the course of a few weeks in 5 minute increments.

are you like your muse(s): i don’t think so? not really for my canon muses. i tend to pick muses with interesting lives and backstories and powers….all stuff that i don’t have 🥲 my ocs have a lot more pieces of myself in them, but i haven’t written most of them here.

tagged by: @girlseventeen (thank you! <3)

tagging: @gas-stxtion, @cometsdiner, @lettherebemonsters, @alphateamsfinest, @wynterlanding, @nabaidhean-neonach, @vihilum, and you!