#and again: as someone who's probably put a total of more than two fucking months of time into new vegas and skyrim

[rad-batson]

Headcanons of Tim and Damian’s Love/Hate/But-Mostly-Begrudging-Love Relationship (They’re My Babies)

They will take EVERY opportunity to be a little bitch to one another

Tim: “Don’t get too close to me. You probably have rabies.” Damian: *actually bites him*

Damian tripped Tim once, which started an all out prank war that lasted several months. It only ended when Bruce walked into a glue trap and couldn’t reach his phone to call for help. But he couldn’t figure out who put it there so they were both grounded. (It was Tim.)

Tim teaches Damian to finish his vine references when Bruce tells them they need to “bond.” They proceed to try and speak in exclusively vine references and TikTok sounds during patrol. Bruce benches them for his own sanity.

Damian: “I’m not touching you” *gets pushed down the stairs*

Tim: “I’m not in your room” *gets hit in the face with a book*

Tim calls Damian short even tho he’s only like two inches taller for quite a bit of time (and Damian never hears the end of it after Tim’s growth spurt)

Family Game Night could go in one of two ways: they’re opponents and spend the whole night one-upping each other OR they team up and wipe the floor with everyone else’s pieces

Damian: “Just trust me.” Tim: *remembering that one time Damian tried to kill him* “Okay.”

Tim: “Don’t ask questions.” Damian: *recalling the multiple genocidal Tim variants* “Whatever.”

During one Wayne Gala, they make up this game called Freestyle Checkers where they choose guests as their “pieces” then subtly manipulate them into walking to their opponent’s side of the ballroom without talking to someone from the other team or they’re out. No one can know that they’re part of a game or their opponent wins by default.

Bruce is proud of them at first for being more sociable during galas until he realizes what’s going on and immediately loses five years from his lifespan.

Both have attempted to fake their deaths to get out of the same school project

They’re both notorious for stalking people to get information instead of just…ya know…asking like a normal person. So they’re bound to team up one day.

Like maybe it’s Bruce’s birthday soon and both are like “No, I’m getting him the better present,” but then they run into each other in the vents trying to find out what he wants and they end up trading secrets. Just brotherly things

Tim: “I need you to follow this guy for me. I think he’s our culprit.” Damian: “I would rather die than take orders from you.” Tim: “I’ll buy you that fancy oil painting kit you want.” Damian: *already changing into his Robin gear* “Where is he?”

Tim makes Damian play the dumb, helpless kid in all of their covert operations, which pisses Damian off until he gets so good at it that he uses it to his advantage and annoys the hell out of Tim when they’re paired up for public appearances

“God, he’s so annoying.” “Yeah, totally.” “What the fuck did you say about my brother?”

Damian is the only person who can get Tim to actually sleep for once. No one knows how he does it, but the strongest theory so far is blackmail

Tim “I’m ignoring Bruce’s instructions because they failed the vibe check” Drake and Damian “I can totally do this mission that requires four people on my own” Wayne teaming up behind Bruce’s back and immediately getting into deep shit but somehow making it out alive with the bad guys behind bars.

During one of said missions, they thought they were going to die and said “I love you” to one another. After they survived, they silently agreed to never mention it again.

Damian gifts Tim a new board that he designed for his birthday. It took weeks. Tim cries

[that-one-banger-of-a-rhcp-song]

A Rodrick x reader where they're friends with benefits and aren't aware of each others feelings towards the other util reader gets asked out by someone from their school :]

i started this one earlier and then the draft got deleted (this is why you dont take grilled cheese brakes kids) Thank you so much for the request, i have never written fwb before so i hope i meet your expectations :) (p.s. im a sucker for hand/knuckle kisses and it shows) lets just say greg and rowley weren't there for the party.

"Dammit Rodrick," you chuckled slightly, sitting on a desk.

"What?" The raven haired boy started, "Don't like doing this anymore?" His hot breath tickled against your neck.

"It's not that," you muttered, "I just, don't feel like making out in an empty classroom five minutes before lunch ends."

"Oh, 'cause you are so above that," he retorted, going back to his assault on your neck and jawline.

"I'm turning over a new leaf!" You leaned back slightly, humming.

"Proud of yourself?" his hand relocated to your waist, the other supporting his weight.

"I would say I'm more proud of you,"

"Oh?"

"You haven't gotten a detention in two days!" at that, the boy laughed, and removed his head from the crook of your neck.

'God I love you!' he wanted to say, but you seemed content with your current status, and he got to make out with you whenever he wanted... so he was fine! Totally.

"Has that Micha kid been bothering you?" The so called 'Micha kid' had been trying to hit on you for months, and you were to nice to tell him you secretly hated him, but you were working on it (thanks to Rodrick)

"Kind of? He tries to talk to me a lot, but he's less persistent."

"Good" he smiled, patting your waist before kissing you again.

You pulled away after a moment, "We should probably get our stuff," you commented, pulling him out of his blissful state.

"uh, yeah!" god he was so awkward sometimes. He held out his hand for you to take, (which you did) and you slid off the desk.

"You're such a gentleman!" you mocked in a brittish accent

"Oh, I know, love," he carried on.

-----------

'party at my house -rodrick' The text had been sent four minutes ago on the dot. Your parents were out of town, so you could go without being caught. So you fucking did. You put on a white button-down, black skinny jeans that were torn to shreds, and You put your earbuds in and started walking the block to the Heffley household. Your mind shifted to your previous interaction. How concerned Rodrick was being, he did care about you. and some times it felt like he loved you. you felt as if you could only dream.

---

You knocked on the door, the music was so loud already.

"Y/NNNN!" Rodrick dragged your name out, he took your hand and kissed your knuckles, "You do know this is casual, right?"

"Yes."

"Alright then. Get in here!" he pulled you in the house, there were lights, MCR's 'na na na" was blasting at full volume, and there were high-schoolers making out in random corners, someone had started a fistfight, and it seemed like it was more Rodrick's element than yours, but that was ok. And then you saw him.

Micha.

The boy who looked at you like a Piece of meat.

you grabbed Rodrick's sleeve, "Micha's here," You said desperately. He noted your concern, and looked around for the boy, "Hey," he said, grasping your arms, "It's gonna be fine! if he starts bothering you, just come find me and we can make out or some shit!" He looked you in the eyes and smiled, trying his hardest to reasure you.

"Thanks Rodrick," you said hugging him.

"Of course!"

-------

Rodrick had decided to be social, so you just wandered around the house, looking at the people you knew, and those you didn't. When you heard that terribly familiar voice.

"Hey y/n!"

Well fuck. you turned around, and sent a glare that could kill toward the boy.

"How's the party?" Micha said.

The sound of his voice made you want to yell. "Good." you said, not looking at him.

"I haven't talked to you in a while,"

"I know." you kept your answers short and half assed. Hoping he would get the memo.

He didn't.

Lucky for you, Rodrick had pardoned himself from his buddies chit chat, to make sure you were alright.

An arm looped around your shoulders, "Hi," the boy said "Uh, Micheal, was it?"

"Micha."

"Oh, sorry meesha,"

"That isn't even close to my name."

"Cool" you were never really religious, but you took the time to thank god for Rodrick. "Now, Mickey, can you not tell that you're making y/n uncomfortable?"

"I figured they would tell me if-"

"Micha, I don't like you." you said, voice laced with anger, "I never fucking have."

The boy just looked at you sadly and nodded before walking away.

"Rodrick, thank-" you were cut off by a rather agressive and passionate kiss.

"Y/n I love you. It's okay if you don't love me back but seeing you that uncomfortable made me want to tell you."

you could only stand there shocked. "I- Rodrick I" you stuttered, "I love you too. I always have and I really want to thank you for keeping me close!"

Just hearing those words made his heart melt and his confidence boost dramatically.

"I know this is my party, but" He tried, "Wanna blow this place?"

[alwaysshallow]

love the idea of high ranked readers kid just being the most chill fucking kid in the world— but only when ghost is holding them. like they just see this behemoth of a man with a skull mask and decide: yes. this is my person now and if anyone tries to remove me i will scream

just them gently patting ghosts face, curious about the mask and just spending majority of their time with their head laid on his shoulder, slowly drifting off to the voices around them and jerking wide awake whenever someone tries to remove them and just scowling at said person while gripping ghosts clothes in their tiny fists to show their displeasure and then slowly drifting off again only for this to repeat

(i am fucking obessed with this and have zero regrets)

You stare at your kid, happily tugging Simon’s shirt, and you can’t believe your own eyes and ears how chill she is.

Earlier? A crying mess, you thought you’re gonna burst into tears too, if she’s not gonna stop with the fuss that felt like her kind of revenge for taking her to work, instead of daycare, like always. You were singing lullabies for her, reading, but nothing seemed to work, and you wanted to hit your head against the wall, you even considered taking a day off, just to be with your daughter.

Yet, the sight of Simon Riley in the mask, coming right to you, seemed to soothe her more than anything - she suddenly got interested, and when he took her for a moment, she decided to stay there.

Your own kid, being a traitor. But could you blame her? Not really, not when she is lying comfortably on his chest, her little fists playing with the material of his shirt. Not when she seems to be the most comfortable around a man with a mask.

Ghost, a myth that scared the most brave soldiers, and when they saw his mask around, they knew their time was limited. Ghost, a legend, someone who was described as a soldier totally devoted to his work, no matter how many people he had to kill, no matter how many months he would have to spend on a single mission.

And Ghost, a babysitter for your daughter, apparently.

“She seems comfortable,” you laugh silently, praying that your voice isn’t gonna interrupt her sleep; it would be good to put her into a stroller, you don’t want to take advantage of Simon’s kindness. “Is it okay with you? I put you into—”

“—’s okay,” he interrupts you, locking his gaze with yours. His intense, brown eyes, makes you a bit shy in this scenario, especially when he looks so good with your kid; you wouldn’t accuse him of that earlier. Of being so good. “At least she’s sleepin’, yeah? Safe and sound.”

“Safe and sound,” you repeat, smiling softly, as you take a few steps into their direction. Lieutenant automatically stands up, slowly, his big hand on your daughter’s back, and you just can’t help yourself from sighing.

It’s like a dream.

“You good, colonel?” he asks, and you barely hold back your laugh.

“That obvious I’m not? Just taking in the view,” you reply, maybe a bit too sincere, but you don’t really care about that. Not when he looks so adorable with your daughter.

“That so,” he hums, and after a few seconds, you are so close - chest to chest close, with your kid between you two. Only barrier; or maybe a connection, binding you two. “Should probably give her to you, eh?”

“Would be nice, yes. You can’t hold her the whole eternity,” you whisper, clearing your throat, when he slowly leans in.

“Well,” he starts, his head tilting to the side, his lips next to your ear. “For you? For you, I’d be more than pleased to do that.”

You want to say something about his words, you want to confess somehow too, but your baby girl starts crying the moment Simon hangs her to you.

A reminder; that he’s not yours, and you’re not his.

“Guess she’s stayin’ with me,” Ghost smirks under his balaclava, when she stops crying.

“She always liked everyone better than me.” You roll your eyes, shaking your head with amusement. “Can you stay here for a couple of minutes, then? I need to go to Price for a second.”

“Right.” He nods. He, then, calls your name. “Don’t think we’re done with the conversation, okay? We can continue later on.”

You just gulp, smiling politely.

It's gonna be a long conversation, then.

[briebysabs]

I have to talk about Misha I’ve been holding this for so long. I am not defending him, everything he’s done is fucked up. I just want people to understand him better and idk how coherent this will be but HSVDVXHSBSJJDF

Bc if you hate him, totally justified. But I don’t want Misha to ever be simplified to the jealous crazy younger brother. Yes he is technically that but one thing about mochijun characters is that most of the time, you can always dig further into their psyche. And I feel like not enough people do that with Misha. I haven’t made an in-depth Misha discussion until now mostly bc I’m a potato. He isn’t 2-dimensional and he fits perfectly in the themes of vnc. Misha cannot be saved, he is a hopeless character, he bears Luna’s Mark while using the Book he is doomed. You can say he was doomed the second he entered the story. His brotherly love for Vanitas is twisted. He is the embodiment of tragic. Everything that led him to this point was not his fault. The only thing he chose was to follow Luna and join their clan bc he would’ve died otherwise. Luna and Vanitas are the only good things he ever had.

We all know his backstory. So of course losing both would make him snap. And on top of all this he’s being manipulated by Teacher. Who fucking knows the lies or orders Teacher has been feeding him. All this when he’s like 12....13 at most.

And let’s approach the vanoé situation. We know the depth of vanoé’s relationship and even though Misha might’ve observed from afar, he doesn’t have that context. To be fair he probably wouldn’t care but point is, he sees Noé as some random guy. And again, let’s withdraw ourselves a bit and see things from the outside. How much time has passed since chapter 1? How long has Vanitas and Noé actually known each other? We know that a couple weeks passed since the end of the Gevaudan arc. We know that a week passed after Vanoé got kicked outta Ruthven’s study. If there are any other mini time skips I’m forgetting pls lemme know. But let’s be honest, they’ve known each other for two months. If we wanna push it, three. Of course how long you know a person doesn’t solely decide how close you get to them. You can know someone for two weeks but depending wtf goes on in that time frame, they can become your ride or die. But let’s use Misha’s logic for a minute.

You’ve known Vanitas longer, both of you went through hell under Dr. Moreau. You have the same Mark, you’re gonna suffer the same fate. And from how you see it, he chose a man he met by chance a few months ago, over you. Someone who will never truly get it. He is putting his life in the hands of a stranger over yours. You finally meet again after all this time, and the brother who you believed puts you above everything, points a gun at you. Yeah, Misha fucked up. But that will hurt anybody.

Misha challenges their relationship. He questions how much it even makes sense. It’s not only “how can you chose Noé over me?” But also “How can you kill Father but not him?” Is he more important than us?? And that’s a valid question. Messed up but understandable to ask. Noé has protected Vanitas and has been pretty helpful. But Vanitas doesn’t need him to survive. Noé isn’t essential for this suicide mission he’s on either. Misha cannot understand what Noé brings to Vanitas’ life.

Misha was so dependent on Vanitas that he couldn’t fathom his brother not feeling the same. Vanitas loves Misha, no matter how strained or corrupted that bond has become. But he is not emotionally capable to stay with him. And he is allowed to feel that way. And Misha is allowed to scream and wail and be broken about it. In conclusion, Misha is an amazing addition to the narrative, I love him a lot. But I also love Vincent from ph so that explains quite a bit doesn’t it?

[digital-domain]

HI HI🫡🫡

thinkin about the absolute loml gojo who hates fancy settings but goes to one anyway because he knew reader would be there😭 like he sees them all dressed up which is a rarity and can't take his eyes (or hands wink wonk) off them. i can just see reader having to scold him for being so touchy but he can't help it, its not like he cares about the eyes that might be watching them anyway lmao. but no cus he'd probably be whispering absolute FILTH into their ear😭

this is just a basic idea, add as much spice or anything else you want🤭🤭 ALSO I LOVE YOUR WRITING<3

Ahhhh thank you so much!! <3

I LOVED this prompt so much that it ended up wayy longer than I anticipated. Around 2k words I think?? I hope you enjoy :)

Content tags: hmm I’d say suggestive but not nsfw? But Gojo is being a menace. In the best way possible.

An art gallery. Who the fuck wants to spend a Friday night at an art gallery? You, apparently. Enough to turn down Gojo’s generous invitation to a much less pretentious, much less obnoxiously-well-lit bar in the center of the downtown entertainment district. It would have been fun, pulling you out onto the floor, convincing you to dance for what he can only assume would be the first time in your life. If you’d ever experienced it, you would have gone with him. Instead, he’s here, surrounded by sculptures which seem to depict nothing in particular, searching for you in the crowd. He can’t really be mad at you for turning him down tonight. Apparently, you’ve had these plans for months - you’re friends with the artist-of-honor, or whatever you call it. He wasn’t really paying attention to the specifics. And he’s not paying attention to the art, either. The promise of free wine intrigued him, though - if only he could find a server.

There’s a dress code, too. Suits only for men (or tuxes, but he doesn’t own one of those). The one he’s got on is light blue, standing out among a sea of navy and black and grey. He absently wonders what you would have worn if you’d gone clubbing with him instead - he’s imagining a short, black dress, or maybe a sparkly one, or jeans with one of those tops that seem to just be bras in disguise. He’s never seen you show off that much, but it’s fun to picture. Maybe there’s something to that idea of “leaving things to the imagination.” When it comes to you, he has a vivid one. A sly grin creeps over his face as he thinks of what might have happened tonight - flashing lights, dark corners, a dense crowd pressing the two of you together. Inevitably. Finally. In the most technical sense, you’re still just a “friend from work,” but you both know it’s more than that. He’s not exactly the subtle type. He’s been flirting hard for weeks - and you’ve flirted back. Even almost kissed him once or twice. You’re just a little bit shyer about things than he is. A little bit scared. It’s always “Someone could see us!” Or even worse: “We can’t. It’ll make things too complicated.” Always with a strange mixture of fear and excitement in your voice. You’re at least as interested as you are intimidated – it’s not an uncommon reaction. And he hasn’t pushed you too hard. He’s been holding back. But then again…so have you. And tonight could have been just the opportunity you both needed. In fact - it still could…

His moment of self-indulgence is broken when he checks his phone. He’d texted you a full five minutes ago ( “surprise! I’m here. Come find me ;)” ) and you still haven’t responded. Perhaps you’re simply enraptured by the weird little metal ornaments around you. Or maybe - no. There’s no way you’re purposely ignoring him. He put on a suit for you. And a matching tie. And flirted with the girl at the front table so he could get in without an invitation…

Hm. Maybe you’d seen that. It wasn’t his best performance - but he was here! The methods, in this case, totally justified the means.

He scans the room for you again. You shouldn’t be hard to find - he towers over the people around him. Over in the corner, maybe? Pressed up against a wall…

Oh. There you are.

He almost didn’t recognize you at first - he hadn’t expected that little black dress he’d been imagining to become a reality. Especially not here, where most of the women he’d seen were wearing long dresses or jumpsuits or blazer sets. It’s form-fitting, short, and two little shoulder straps are all that’s keeping it on. You stand out - and just like that, the little bit of self-control he had left is gone. You need encouragement? He’s going to give it to you. He zips across the room, almost knocking over that server he’d been searching for moments earlier, then doubling back to pick up two plastic glasses of red wine. He sidles up behind you, wrapping his arm all the way around your bare shoulder, and proudly holds one of them up to your face.

****

Oh no.

You decided weeks ago that you weren’t going to do this. Not with him. As soon as his hand first not-so-accidentally brushed up against yours, as soon as he made his intentions clear – you’d made up your mind. Getting…involved…with Gojo Satoru would be a huge risk. He’s simply too strong. Too complicated. Too much. In terms of power, personality - everything. Everyone wants a piece of him, everyone’s watching him, and you don’t want those same pairs of eyes falling upon you. You can flirt back – sometimes, it’s impossible not to – but that’s it. It’s just simple fun. A diversion. It’s going to create issues if it becomes anything more.

However. You’ve been playing these little games for weeks, and you just find yourself getting closer and closer. And now, he’s here.

You whip around at the sudden appearance of Gojo’s hand, nearly knocking the contents of the glass in front of you to the floor. You’re aware that you’re staring. But you can’t exactly look away. He’s here, standing before you, for absolutely good reason. Although…no. You’re sure that in his mind, it’s a perfectly reasonable thing to do. But only because he’s a little bit insane.

He grins shamelessly, and casually sets the wine on a nearby display shelf, dinging the rims of the two cups against the sheer pane of glass. “Haven’t you been checking your phone?”

“No.” You shake your head, eyes wide in disbelief. “How did you even…never mind. I don’t wanna know.” His smile only grows as you narrow your eyes at him. “Why are you here?”

“I’ve developed a sudden appreciation for modern art.” He bites his lip, looks you up and down, bright blue eyes flashing over you. “Especially the kind that wears dresses like that one.”

“Satoru…” you sigh. Although you’re not unaffected by the compliment, you know you have to resist a little bit - he’ll pounce if you give him an opening. But he’s so over-the-top that it’s hard not to be impressed at his efforts. And, you have to admit - he looks incredible in formalwear. “You are…a complete menace.”

“Impossible.” He gestures down at himself. “Look at me. I’m very classy.”

You roll your eyes. “Only on the outside.”

“I wanna go outside.” He dramatically loosens his tie. “It’s hot in here.”

He’s ridiculous. The farthest thing from classy - or subtle. “No. It’s really not.”

“Well, of course you’re cold. You’re barely wearing anyth-“

“Satoru!”

He shrugs. “Sorry.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Maybe not.” There’s a pause.

Within that pause, you struggle to force your brain back to rationality. And you fail terribly.

He points to your shoulder. “You know that strap is slipping?” You look down, and in the split second that your eyes leave his face, he darts forward to “fix it” - you’ll never really know whether it actually needed fixing. You take a step backwards, shaken out of your thoughts, caught off guard by the sudden movement. In your surprise, you nearly trip - and he catches you by the waist. The most humiliating thing is how he has to lean down to murmur in your ear, smirking all the while.

“Sorry. Didn’t realize I was gonna sweep you off your feet.” He loosens his grip - giving you an out, perhaps - but you don’t pull away. He’s never touched you like this before, never been quite so blatant, and despite the setting, you can’t help but enjoy the attention. Even as you’re embarrassed by it. Maybe that’s the real humiliation - the fact that you can’t get yourself to resist him, as much as you might want to. As much as you really should.

He’s encouraged by your reaction, and presses on: “I’m just lookin’ out for you. Did you even read the dress code?”

“It’s a dress,” you protest, already feeling the warmth spreading over your face. He’s so infuriating. And obnoxiously pretty. His eyes are even more beautiful when brought out by the blue of his suit, his body even more distracting when it’s inches away from you. He even smells good. It’s beyond irritating. “Dresses are formal. Therefore - I’m dressed formally. It’s not like I had a ton of options in my closet. I wasn’t gonna go out and buy something new -“

“Sure.” You know you sound flustered, and he clearly thinks it’s adorable. It always seems to happen so easily. And he wants more of it. He tightens his hold on your waist and drags his hand up the outside of your thigh, all the way up to the bottom of your dress, eyes flashing mischievously as you squirm at his touch. “Didn’t realize formal could be so sexy.”

You can’t respond to that - it’s far, far too dangerous. Instead, you glance around the room, suddenly very aware of the people around you - a lot of them are doing more than glancing as they pass by. “You’re making people stare.”

“Me? Pretty sure it’s you doing that.” One finger slips under the hemline of your skirt, his nail scratching slightly against your skin. He presses his lips to your ear, his voice barely a whisper. “You wearin’ anything under here?”

Your face is burning now, and you’re sure he can tell. “Yes.”

“Yeah? Cuz I don’t feel anything.”

“No shorts…just…” You realize what you’re telling him, and force yourself to shut up. “Fuck you.”

“If you insist.”

“Clever.” You’re torn. Half of you wants to slap him. The other half…well. You’ve been holding back the other half for a very long time. And you’re getting tired of it.

“Aren’t I?” There’s that grin again - the one that’s been flashing through your mind more than you’d like to admit in the past few weeks. “You should’ve come out with me tonight. This behavior would draw a lot less attention where I wanted to go.”

“If you’re concerned about that, you could just…” You squirm. “Y’know. Let go of me.”

“But do you really want me to?”

This is your last chance. You could say yes. Probably should. But it would be a complete and utter lie. And those eyes…they make all of your worries so easy to forget.

“Mhmm. That’s what I thought.” His hand brushes over your jaw, tilting your face, insisting that you meet his gaze. “I’m not concerned. About them, or about…anything else.” In that moment, you feel like his eyes are piercing you. He understands perfectly. He’s read your mind. “You’re gonna be just fine. And if you’re still not sure of that…that just means I need to try harder to convince you.”

You look up at him, anticipating his next move even as you ask: “What does that mean?”

“Well…”

He leans in.

Oh god.

He leans in and kisses you.

And your mind goes blank.

You kiss him back, and pay no mind as his hand slides under the skirt of your dress.

Okay. Maybe not no mind. But you certainly don’t mind. Not even a little.

Your eyes flutter closed, blocking out your surroundings. People are definitely staring, but in the moment, you suddenly can’t bring yourself to care. You’ll worry about everything else in the morning. For now…

He pulls back, hands still locked around your waist, your upper thigh, a palpably hungry look in his eyes. “You still mad at me for showin’ up?”

One more chance to walk away – but he knows you won’t. Your answer is obvious, but you spell it out anyways. He wants to hear you say it. “No. I’m glad you did.”

“Mhm. And…” He nips at your ear, his fingernails digging into your leg, the smirk broadening on his face. ‘’You wanna come with me when I leave?”

You quickly nod, breathless. “Yes.”

“Good. Because I wasn’t planning on sticking around here for long.” He sighs dramatically, breathing deeply into your hair. “And I would hate to leave you all alone.”

Again – ridiculous. Infuriating. And…impossible to turn down. It’s all you can do to stay upright, and follow him to the door, his hand laced tightly between your fingers, arm still wrapped around your waist. You forget about your coat, too – it’s still in the backroom somewhere. Maybe you’ll make him go get it for you in the morning. But you don’t want to think about the morning just yet.

[stusautisticgf]

stu macher smut and fluff oneshot

DISCLAIMER: this work contains dubious consent as verbal consent is not given, but the reader enjoys it

KINKS: knife play, exhibitionism, mask kink, masochism, sadism, predator/prey, body worship

it’s been long day after long day. you’ve been trying to save up for a new car since you totaled your first one in the first week you got it.

it’s just for a little bit, just a few more weeks.

it’ll all be worth it when you’re able to buy the car you’ve been eyeing for the last few months.

you kick your shoes off and start getting ready for bed. you gather your pajamas; a long white nightgown decorated with pink flowers that reached down to your mid-calf.

after washing your face, you make some popcorn. you wish your parents were here, but your mom and dad are at a work party. it seemed like they cared about work more than you these days.

soon, the popcorn gets done and you take it off the stove, putting it into a bowl. you sit down on the couch and start flickering through the channels. you see that the exorcist is on, one of your favorites. you watch it, even though the good parts were cut out to make it suitable for tv. you had finished your popcorn and the commercials just started, the perfect opportunity to get a refill. as you get up, you hear the phone ring.

“hello”

“hello there who is this”

“y/n, why?”

“i just wanna talk to someone”

“they have 900 numbers for that y’know?”

“do you like scary movies?”

“well yes i do, they’re my favorite”

“what’s your favorite?”

“i don’t know”

“you have to have a favorite”

“then (your fav horror movie)”

“good choice, i like the one where the guy with the knife fingers kills a bunch of teens

nightmare on elm street?”

“yes, yes that one”

“the first one was good but the second was horrible”

“wanna play a game?”

“no, i’m hanging up”

sigh it’s probably just another creep from school or a prank. it’s near halloween, so the time is ripe for prank calls. rolling your eyes, you start to prepare more popcorn on the stove. waiting for the popcorn to finish cooking, you grab a bottle of soda from the fridge.

quickly turning off the heat, you get your popcorn bowl as your popcorn had gotten done sooner than normal.

ouch you burned your hand and holy fuck did it hurt.

all of a sudden, the house phone rings, so the phone is reluctantly picked up.

“hello again princess”

“hello? why do you keep calling me it’s seriously not funny”

“i’m not trying to be funny.”

“who are you?”

“why do you wanna know?”

“you’re seriously scaring me, i’m gonna hang up”

before you can hang up, the strange man has some choice words.

“you hang up on me again you worthless fucking whore and i’ll gut you like the pig you are.”

“okay okay what do you want”

“i wanna play a game with you. if you get any questions wrong, i’ll give you a little surprise. trust me, you’ll like it.”

you rub your thighs together, how condescending he sounded was hot, so it wasn’t surprised how desperate you were starting to get.

“rubbing your thighs together so soon? but we just started baby.”

you were so embarrassed as you didn’t even realize he was watching you. it made you even more horny.

“warm up question. who is the killer in nightmare on elm street?”

“easy, freddy kruger”

“good girl, you got it right. not hard as you thought? first question, who is the killer in Halloween?”

“Michael Meyers”

“right again! now for the last question, who is the killer in friday the 13?”

“um, jason”

“wrong slut! it’s his mother, mrs voorhes! jason doesn’t show up until the sequel”

oh fuck! you were really getting scared now, you didn’t know what he was gonna do, even though you were so horny you could barely put two sentences together. this man knew what he was doing. your thoughts were interrupted by glass shattering.

terrified, you start running and locking all of your doors. you run into your room and into your closet, trying to be as quiet as possible.

creak

the familiar sound of the stairs creaking, he was upstairs. you hoped he wouldn’t find you. but, then again, your bedroom was the first bedroom and he probably knows it’s yours.

shit.

he opened your door and you knew that it was just a matter of time before he found you. holding your breath and making sure you’re hidden, you hope that he gives up and leaves. he’s wearing a ghostface costume and black boots, just like the woodsboro killer wore when he attacked steve and casey last night.

“i know you’re in here, but where are you? what about here?”

as he opened the closet door, making eye contact. he grabs your hand and picks you up.

“please don’t hurt me”

“oh i won’t, now shut up”

you would be lying if you didn’t like how rough he was with you, how he was treating you like the piece of trash you are.

“i know you like it slut, i know you like how i’m treating you like the filthy bitch you are. why you’re practically soaked. so horny for someone you’re supposedly so scared of. that little cunt of yours is practically radiating heat. you’re practically begging for my cock”

“please fuck me, please. i need your cock please”

he took the knife he was wearing under his long black costume and slowly traced up and down your body, collarbones to your lower abdomen.

“bet you love it when i run this big, sharp, scary knife down your body, don’t you puppy?”

he was so perfect, he knew exactly how to turn you on. you loved knife play, it’s one of your biggest secret turn ons. with your pussy practically aching, you were desperate to get fucked.

“you’re gonna have to wait to get fucked, princess. i’ve got to at least finger your needy cunt first”

he promptly took off your clothes. he started to touch all around your pussy, feeling it’s warmth. he started rubbing your clit slowly while using his other gloved hand to slightly graze your hole. seeing as you had grown even more needy, he started slowly fingering you with his index and middle fingers. after a minute, he quickened the pace.

“gonna cum, slut?”

“mhm, yes” you barely managed to say

“so soon? you weren’t lying when you said you wanted my cock so bad. don’t cum until i say so. and not a moment sooner, got it?”

you shake your head up and down, nodding in agreement.

you didn’t know how much longer you could hold it

“i don’t know how long i can hold it for”

“you can do it, you’re doing so good”

“please let me cum, please i can’t take it anymore”

“cum for me, good girl”

it would be a lie if you didn’t say that it was the best orgasm you had in a while, this man was good. you hear his belt buckle hit against itself, and he pulled his fat veiny cock out. seeing his hard cock, you became eager and determined for him to fuck you right then and there. he slowly put his cock in and started thrusting, groaning in pleasure. he looked you in the eyes with such warmth. it was quite strange since he was being so rough with you a few moments ago. you shook it off, thinking it was just a heat of the moment thing.

“you’re such a good girl for me, you’ve wanted this haven’t you baby?”

after not even a moment of silence he shouted,

“answer me slut”

“yes i have, i’ve wanted this”

then, ghostface looked up from you and remembered the mirror that was right across from your bed. he turned you over and picked you up, so you were sitting on his cock with your hair in his fist.

“look at yourself, whore. look how pathetic and desperate you are for me. and that pretty little wet cunt,” the man said, grabbing your face with his free hand.

you were looking at yourself in the mirror, your mascara was running down your face, you were sweaty and he was right, you looked so pathetic. though, you couldn’t deny how hot it was seeing how much control he had over you and how desperate he made you.

this time though, the thrusts were deeper and rougher.

“enjoying how rough i’m being baby? i know you love it when i treat you like the cumdump you are baby. i know all you want is to cum and have me breed you. isn’t that right baby?”

“yes, it’s true. i’m just a stupid bitch who wants to be bred. please breed me,”

“good girl, you know your place don’t you baby?”

the masked man says, as his free hand now holds his knife. he holds it against your throat, far enough away where it won’t harm you.

“yes, i do”

“look at those fucking tits baby, they’re so fucking perfect. you’re so fucking perfect baby, i just wanna cut you so bad” he says, outlining them with the knife.

his thrusts became faster and his breathing became fast paced, you could tell he was close.

“does my stupid little cumdump wanna come baby? you’re clenching around my cock so hard” he says, rubbing your clit in slow circles.

“yes please, let me cum. i wanna cum, please please please,”

“cum for me baby, come on my cock and i’ll breed you baby,”

just before you come, he takes out a camera.

“look into the lens while you come slut”

obeying his orders, he took the picture of you coming together. you two were exaughsted. he pulled out and picked up the camera and placed the picture on your nightstand so it could develop.

“i’ll help you clean up.”

“look at those fucking tits baby, they’re so fucking perfect. you’re so fucking perfect baby, i just wanna cut you so bad” he says, outlining them with the knife.

his thrusts became faster and his breathing became fast paced, you could tell he was close.

“does my stupid little cumdump wanna come baby? you’re clenching around my cock so hard” he says, rubbing your clit in slow circles.

“yes please, let me cum. i wanna cum, please please please,”

“cum for me baby, come on my cock and i’ll breed you baby,”

just before you come, he takes out a camera.

“look into the lens while you come slut”

obeying his orders, he took the picture of you cumming together. you two were exaughsted. he pulled out and picked up the camera and placed the picture on your nightstand so it could develop.

“i’ll help you clean up.”

he says as he picks you up bridal style to your bathroom so he could run you a nice warm bubble bath. he picks you up and sets you gently in the bath, cleaning you with a wash rag after taking off his gloves. then, he takes off the rest of his outfit including his mask.

“stu? it’s you?”

“yes, it’s me y/n. why? are you unhappy that i was the one that fucked you?”

“no! not at all, i was just surprised since you’re dating tatum and all”

“she’s not important, i want you”

it’s silent for a few moments, but you look him in the eyes and see the warmth and love in them. he’s so happy right now, even though he’s just washing you off.

“y’know y/n. i’ve always liked you. i just didn’t think you would go out with me because you would think i was using you or something or that you didn’t like me back.”

“stu, i like you too. i was about to tell you, but you started dating tatum and i didn’t wanna ruin it”

“i love you y/n”

“i love you too, stu” you say as he bends down to kiss you. you had no idea that he was this caring and sweet, since he was a man whore.

soon enough, you were ready to get out of the bath. stu dressed you in a nightgown and you fell asleep together watching tv on the couch.

[paperstorm]

This is how I know I’m not well adjusted enough for a relationship (besides the heaps of trauma lmao) - cause I have NO CLUE how Carlos trusts TK to not leave again or how he can ever feel confident that TK loves him. All I know is that Carlos is a better man than me cause if I got walked out on that many times and ghosted for 4 months I don’t think I’d be capable of feeling loved by that person again, no matter how much they said it and no matter how much I loved them. Like, I’d probably still stay with someone but I don’t know how you could ever feel secure again, ever stop being worried that the next mistake will be the final straw.

Like - I know that they’re showing two people growing and it’s all well adjusted and good and that realistically TK adores this man and shows it - but my brain can literally not compute how Carlos goes from the hospital lobby wondering if TK ever loved him to the loft scene at all, let alone that quickly. It’s an utterly foreign concept to me. I’d have been catatonic with the rejection. I swear I have to suspend disbelief in that scene more than watching any of the rescues on the show 😅😂

Then again, Carlos be putting TK through the wringer come season 4 so maybe they’re both just insane and match each other well enough it doesn’t matter.

(I got your second message and don't worry I didn't read this as you bashing TK!)

The concept of forgiveness is so interesting to me. Because you totally would be valid in this, if someone had walked out on you and ghosted you for four months the way TK did you would be so valid in never being able to trust them again and that being a hurdle you couldn't overcome. But Carlos does trust him again, and I don't think it makes him better than you at all, I think the concepts of trust and forgiveness are just such completely and totally subjective things that differ wildly from person to person for all kinds of layered and complex reasons.

It's not like there's a universal checklist, right? Trust and forgiveness aren't like "you do this and this and this and then you have objectively Earned my trust or Earned my forgiveness" in a way that is universal and holds true for every person and every situation. There are people in my life I have forgiven for things that other people might not have forgiven them for, and there are people who have hurt me who I will literally never forgive even if they came crawling on their knees begging for it, when someone else might look at that situation and think I'm being too harsh and what they did wasn't that bad.

It's all personal and none of it is something that anyone can decide for someone else. Which is why it's totally valid that you personally probably wouldn't be able to trust TK again, but also totally valid that Carlos does. And it's why I get probably a little bit too prickly when I see discourse about how TK in season 3 and Carlos in season 4 don't deserve the other person forgiving them because they haven't earned it because to me it's like .. earned it how? What is it you want them to do? It's not a formula, it's not like one of them can sleep on the couch for a certain number of days or do the dishes a certain number of times and then they will objectively have been punished enough to have earned being forgiven. That's such a like Catholic notion to me and I don't like it. Sometimes forgiveness requires a demonstration of having learned a lesson, and sometimes it's as simple as "I love you, and I am choosing to trust that you won't do that again even tho I have no proof that you won't". And we only get to decide that for ourselves. TK is forgiven for the break up because Carlos decides to forgive him, Carlos is forgiven for the wife lie because TK decides to forgive him, and that's honestly as deep as it even needs to be, I think. People fuck up because hurt people hurt people and sometimes I think the fact that you're a human being is enough to be worthy of forgiveness.

There's no recipe or magic spell, they're not better people than anyone else because they forgave and someone else couldn't in that same situation, but they also are completely valid in their choices to just forgive and move forward and not punish the other person or make them do penance to earn it.

[giuliettacapuleti]

An obnoxiously long summary of Frank Wildhorn’s Carmen absolutely no one asked for:

The musical was originally put on in the Czech Republic in 2008, and actually became so popular it broke box office records for the theater. Despite this, I’d never heard of it until I read that the Budapesti Operettszínház is putting it on soon. It’s been put on in Japan, Korea, and Austria, and seems to have been popular in Korea but not Austria (not sure about Japan). There’s an English demo but I can only find 2 songs from it.

If you are familiar with Frank Wildhorn’s work you’ll know he likes to play fast and loose with accuracy regarding the source material. The plot is a huge departure from the opera, which is fine with me but probably not so much if you like it.

The musical is allegedly actually an adaptation of the novella that the opera is based on, but it doesn’t really resemble that either. The musical partly takes place in a circus and this makes Carmen’s posse a group of performers instead of smugglers which to me is neat but again, not for everyone.

Overall the plot is. Well. Something. It’s got some trademark Wildhorn-ness going on that if you’re familiar with Dracula and Jekyll and Hyde you will likely be annoyed with but not surprised by.

I am not 100% sure on the time period in which the musical takes place, it appears to be the 50s but there are a few hints that it’s more current than that, so I’m not sure. It’s possible it’s deliberately meant to be vague.

On to the Summary (FULL DISCLOSURE IT’S 100% NOT SERIOUS AND REALLY LONG SORRY)

The musical starts off with a flamenco dance off between a random woman and the sexy and confident Carmen, who more or less steals the random woman’s dancing partner. The random woman isn’t having it. Suddenly a bunch of random people with torches burst in and start fighting with soldiers (???). Then they stop fighting and just chill because I guess the dance-off is more important. Carmen and Random Woman continue their dance-off, which culminates in Carmen either waving a knife at or actually slashing Random Woman across the face.

A woman (possibly fate itself) sings about fate. It wouldn’t be a European musical without someone singing about fate.

Meanwhile, the citizens of a picturesque town in Spain (?) are celebrating the engagement of police officer José Rivera and Caterina, the mayor’s daughter. The mayor gives a speech about how moral and Totally Not Secretly Corrupt the town is. Two seconds later, the mayor and José’s superior, Captain Zuniga, laugh about how the currently moral José will soon become as corrupt as they are (side note: I think they are meant to be Spanish but the officers’ uniforms are giving Carabinieri). We immediately know the mayor is shady because he wears sunglasses and a white suit, has a pinky ring and smokes a cigar. That and the fact he sings about how corrupt and greedy he is.

José and Caterina sing a sweet little duet about how much they love each other despite only knowing each other for a few months. We all know love duets mean impending disaster in European musicals so stay frosty.

Caterina leaves and Carmen and her friends appear in the mist, talking about how they want something fun to do in the boring, vanilla town. Carmen notices José standing there and kisses him after giving him a rose. José has no object permanence I guess, and forgets Caterina, immediately running after Carmen. Prime bf material right there.

The next day, the circus performers are hanging out at the Carnival. Carmen sings a song about how desirable she is, which would sound vain except for the fact that literally everyone wants her, so she’s just telling us how it is. José appears with the rose Carmen gave him. José’s bff and fellow officer Inmar, aka the only sane person in this entire musical, appears and tells José to fucking chill. Zuniga, AKA Officer Creep, suggests they arrest Carmen for no reason so they can take her in for “questioning”. A bunch of men try to assault Carmen, so she pulls a knife on one of them. Zuniga uses this as an excuse to have her arrested, and orders José to take her to the station. Carmen sings a song about how no one owns her (yas queen), and José tells her he has morals and is totally not weak and definitely won’t cheat on his fiancée no really he’s cereal. José is Madonna-Whore Complexing on main and calls her a devil, comparing her to the angelic Caterina. His crisis of conscience lasts LITERALLY two seconds, and he and Carmen start making out, only to be interrupted by Zuniga, who tells José off and gives Carmen the ultimatum of sleeping with him or being put in jail. Carmen rejects him and runs off, while he calls her a whore and chases after her (peak rejected guy on bumble behavior).

Meanwhile, Caterina is in her room worried about José. Her aunt calms her down by singing her a song about how she should totally have sex with José and recounts her own romantic exploits. Caterina is reluctant because she wants to honor her mother’s memory and not disappoint her dad (ew). Later, José comes through her window and basically tries to pressure her into sex because Carmen made him horny (what a guy!). Caterina sings about her conflicting feelings and almost has sex with him, but they are interrupted by Caterina’s sketchy dad knocking on the door. He exhibits creepy behavior and then leaves.

The next day, girls from the town are at a beach, talking shit about Carmen and her crew. Enter Carmen and her crew. The townsgirls make fun of them, but Carmen is unbothered. One of the non-hostile girls asks Carmen to teach them how to be sexy, and we get a song about that. Admittedly, the song starts out about how to be sexy to men, but it turns into a nice bonding moment and ultimately is about being confident so I’ll allow it. Unfortunately, Inmar and José ruin everything and tell Carmen and her posse return to their camp. One of Carmen’s friends says what everyone’s thinking and wonders wtf Carmen sees in José. Carmen and José start grinding right in front of Inmar’s salad, and Inmar is understandably pissed at him for remaining with her. José reminds Carmen he Totally Won’t Cheat on Caterina No Really. Carmen hints that she is unavailable too and is dating (?) a really scary guy who apparently even scares police (more on this later). Then it’s Real Sadgirl Hours for her and she sings about how everyone is ultimately alone and she really wants José for reasons that are still a mystery to literally everyone.

Back at the police station, Inmar calls José out and berates him for wanting to cheat on Caterina. José doesn’t listen and is all ‘it’s so hard being me uwu’. Despite his friend being a fucking idiot, Inmar is a real one and warns him about Zuniga anyway. They sing a song about how José should/should not sleep with Carmen. Listening to José talking about how it’s soooo hard to not cheat on Caterina is like. That’s so sad world’s smallest violin Alexa play despacito etc. Then the mayor and Zuniga join in and sing about how they also want Carmen. Lana Del Rey was right the boys the girls they all want Carmen.

That night, the circus puts on a free show for the town. Everyone goes, including the now Carmen-ified townswomen. Inmar gets a cute moment with one of the girls (fuck everyone else I respect YOU).

Carmen and her girlies appear and perform a very catchy song about living in the moment and having no regrets. The townspeople are vibing but the party is crashed by Carmen’s Very Scary bf (?) Garcia, who owns the circus but has been off somewhere (it’s never explained where but whatever). We know he’s Bad News because he wears a black leather coat, a chain necklace + black boots, has an eye scar, an excessive amount of black eyeliner, a chest AND neck AND arm tattoo, and throws knives around.

Ok, on one hand, the interesting thing about the opera (though not the novella) is that José starts out being a good person but descends into evil and this guy being obviously Bad from the beginning removes that theme, but on the other more important hand, I eat this stuff right up and I’m not mad about it. Dolhai Attila and Homonnay Zsolt are playing him in the upcoming Hungarian version but you know who would have been PERFECT?? Szabó P. Szilveszter that man would make this dude PATHETIC.

Anywhoo, Garcia is pissed that Carmen put on a show for free and apparently he’s another guy who thinks he owns her. Obviously he missed the multiple ‘I only belong to myself’ songs she sang whilst he was off doing fuck all. Where is Elisabeth singing Ich Guhör Nur Mir when you need her? José arrests Carmen again to protect her from both Zuniga and Garcia, who apparently gets a pass for throwing knives at people in front of the entire police force but whatever he’s a knife thrower so maybe they figure that’s just what he does.

Caterina is upset that José is taking Carmen in, but he explains that she’s not safe with the increasingly thirsty Zuniga. Which, ok, is true, but we all know damn well that’s not the main reason.

Carmen and José are about to have sex but are interrupted by Zuniga AGAIN. He pulls a gun on Carmen (or José I literally cannot tell) and demands Carmen have sex with him. But here comes Garcia with a steel chair Garcia has ALSO been following them and attacks Zuniga. Carmen and José run away while Garcia fights Zuniga. I NEED to mention that Garcia is wearing a vest under his jacket but is otherwise shirtless. What does the vest even DO. What is the point of a vest if you are shirtless under it like ugufhddhgddhdh

There’s a neat little fight scene until Garcia remembers he’s a knife thrower and literally has knives in his pants, and stabs Zuniga before shooting him with his own gun. He then frames José for the murder.

Act I ends with the entire town singing about fate and fateful decisions (did you notice they are themes??) while Carmen and José are finally about to have sex without Zuniga interrupting them (RIP asshole).

The police force is not only corrupt, but corrupt and stupid, so they don’t dust for fingerprints on the gun used to kill Zuniga or anything and go straight to assuming José killed him. The mayor is Big Mad, not because José killed Zuniga (lol) but because he cheated on his daughter, who is worried about losing José (girl why, just let the trash take itself out). Garcia is Big Mad and jealous, and gets a line about how he is ‘the fear they can’t outrun’ just in case you weren’t already 100% certain this is the Big Bad. Like. Just in case. In case you didn’t get it.

Now we have a nifty circus scene full of circus performers (I just KNOW Opi will have a field day). Hopefully later productions do without the zoo animals :(

Carmen confronts Garcia over framing José for murder, and he responds by accusing her of having real feelings for José before singing a song about how he owns her and she can never escape him (tbh just typical boss/employee behavior). Despite the (obviously) disturbing lyrics it’s kind of a bop. I do think it’s dependent on the singer - the Czech actor has a rough and unpolished voice that’s perfect for the song, but I can see it sounding weird when sung by guys with a different vocal type. You know whose voice would be perfect for his songs?? Szabó P. Szilv*gunshot*

Despite the fact he spends the entire song flinging her around the stage, the thing that really upsets her is him saying José will never go for her when he has Caterina. I understand the bar for men is in the Grand Canyon but THAT is what upsets her??? The thought of losing the most Mid man on the planet?? Not the increasingly possessive and violent guy following her around ??? Side note: there is a giant circus poster on stage of Garcia looking sinister while holding knives just in case you somehow still didn’t get that he’s bad news by this point. If you didn’t - no worries! You will be reminded many more times before the musical is over.

Garcia warns Carmen that if the police don’t find José he will kill him and everything he loves.

Meanwhile, the police have been given orders to arrest José or kill him. I’m not all that familiar with police procedure but it seems weird they would kill someone outright just because the mayor tells them to. Why is the mayor even giving orders to the police force ?? I understand he is corrupt but ?? ???? ?????

Inmar, who again, is the only Real One, warns his bff and tells him to get out of town. José actually takes some accountability for his actions but immediately ruins it by forcing poor Inmar to sit through a song about how he is stupid and is not going to leave Carmen. Inmar, for reasons I cannot possibly fathom, still cares about José, and promises he will watch for Garcia at the circus. He leaves but José is not done with his song and forces us to listen to his whining for a few more minutes.

Carmen urges José to run away with her, but he refuses because he wants to clear his name. This man is so stupid !!! He is SO stupid !!! He cannot get worse at this point !!!

Carmen warns him about Garcia wanting to hurt everyone José cared about. It takes José a few seconds, but he eventually realizes that means Caterina.

Apparently he can get worse at this point, and urges Carmen to warn Caterina. THIS IS MAYBE ONE OF THE DUMBEST PLOT POINTS IN ANY SHOW EVER ASIDE FROM WHATEVER WAS HAPPENING IN LOVE NEVER DIES. Alas, it is needed because Carmen and Cat need a showdown.

And showdown they do have - in a church no less! They start off antagonistic (and Caterina finally has a Bad Bitch moment!!) but then bond over how stupid they are for falling in love. They are soo right I could not agree with this song more. Girlies you are stupid. They have a cute little moment where they hold hands and you start to hope they will run away together and leave José behind but NOPE. Caterina has the potential to be such an interesting character but noooooo we had to go the ‘personality amounts to loving a man’ route. We had hints Caterina could be an interesting character !!! She mentions feeling desire but feeling guilty about it because of religion and feeling like she is disappointing her family !! More of that !!! More deconstruction of the Good Girl trope instead of playing it straight !!! They could have went with her realizing she didn’t really love José and just was doing what was expected of her but spoiler alert this does not happen !!!

Caterina, who now realizes Carmen actually loves José, suggests to her that they work together to protect José and expose Garcia as the murderer. WHY ARE YOU PUTTING YOUR LIVES IN DANGER TO PROTECT THIS SKRUNKLY ASS MAN MAMMA MIA HE IS NOT WORTH IT. Carmen believes it’s too dangerous for her, but Caterina says she is tired of playing it safe. Caterina’s aunt pops out of nowhere and tells them it’s totally a good plan. They decide to draw out Garcia at the circus (HE OWNS THE CIRCUS AND IS A KNIFE THROWER WHERE TF ELSE WOULD HE BE WHY DO YOU NEED TO DRAW HIM OUT OH MY GODDD).

The circus is about to put on a show (presumably for money this time), and the townspeople are congregating to watch. Jeff Bezos I mean the mayor arrives wearing his sunglasses at night, causing that song to be stuck in my head along with the admittedly catchy songs from this musical. We get more circus performances featuring a lot of fire (I cannot WAIT to see the Does My Health Insurance Pay For This amount of fire the Hungarian version is going to go with).

You came to see a musical but SURPRISE! You’re getting a circus performance too. Does this make up for the wonky plot points? You decide.

Garcia arrives on the scene to sing about how the circus and everyone in it belongs to him and that everyone should be totally scared of him because he has knives in his pants and can kill people. Inexplicably they are scared, even the fucking whole ass police force that showed up. I understand he can throw knives but I don’t think that would be any match for, say, seven guns. CALL ME CRAZY. I also don’t think he has actual jurisdiction over anything just because he has a circus. Call me crazy again.

Anyway, the song is banger but is alas, too short. Why do the bad guys always get the bangers and bops ??? I’m not complaining but it’s a valid question. You know who would play this part perfectly - ?? * gets dragged away *.

Garcia grabs Caterina and makes her part of his knife throwing act. For some reason the mayor allows it. Whatever, I’ve given up trying to understand. Before he can throw the knife, Carmen appears and offers herself as the target. While it’s a badass moment and cool of Carmen to save Caterina, it makes no sense. But whatever! It’s dramatic!

Anyway, Carmen offers to have knives thrown at her by an extremely violent guy who explicitly says he wants to kill her. He tells her that he would definitely kill her in front of everyone because he is not afraid to die. First off, I don’t think the audience (of the circus) was meant to hear him saying that but I wonder about how much they heard considering they look freaked out when he violently grabs Carmen by the neck. Second, you gotta appreciate a villain who talks the talk and walks the walk. So many bad guys are all *surprised pikachu face* when they actually die, so shoutout to this asshole who is actually committed to his cause.

Garcia, being the professional performer that he is, tells the audience they are going to see something they’ve never seen before (presumably Carmen’s death). Before he can throw the knife, José jumps in front of her. Garcia very loudly and explicitly tells the audience that he is going to kill someone, but the police straight up do not care. José accuses him of killing Zuniga, but his dramatic moment is ruined by Garcia straight up admitting it in front of everyone. He waves his knife around and continues telling everyone how he is going to kill someone. Again, the police just casually watch. Go girl give us nothing.

Garcia throws his knife at José (tbh at this point I was rooting for it) but nooo Carmen jumps in front of him and gets stabbed instead. Inmar (who again is the only bitch I ever respected) fatally shoots Garcia but it is too late. Carmen dies in José’s arms before she can tell him she loves him. To reiterate, this bad bitch died for the most skrunkly ass dude on the planet we HATE to see it.

Caterina walks away from both her sketchy dad and José (yas queen) to follow the procession leading Carmen’s body away.

The personification of Fate, who has apparently also been a fortuneteller at the circus this whole time, tells us the story’s over. Carmen, presumably now in Heaven, sings about how she wouldn’t change anything about her life if given the chance. WELL I WOULD, CARMEN. I WOULD.

….AND YET ??? Barring the plot and some character personality choices I ??? Liked it ??? It has a ton of potential if they just change some things about the plot and characters (I’m serious). The songs have been stuck in my head for days and I like the fact they gave Carmen some depth beyond the standard Femme Fatale archetype. Unfortunately, the wonky plot points and José exist.

[writer-and-thrasher]

Fic in Review 2023

Thanks to @trentcrimminallybeautiful for the tag! I'm (fucking hopefully) starting to get over being so deeply ill after two whole weeks, so I decided it was the time to do this! Yay!

tagging: Literally anyone who wants to, plus I'll tag @providing-leverage, @jamietarttdoodoodoodoo, and @trentcrimmisgay (sorry if you've already been tagged or if it's too late, my brain is rebooting)

Total Number of Completed Stories:

I completed 8 fics this year (1 for Dimension 20 and 7 for Ted Lasso)!!! It's way more than I planned to write in a year, especially given that four of them are over 10k words and I genuinely didn't think I was gonna write any fanfic this year. All in all, I'm really really proud of how much I've written!

Total Word Count: AO3's word count put me at 63,919, which... woah. The one D20 fic I wrote this year wasn't even 2k words, which means that I wrote over 60k words of Ted Lasso fanfic in 6 months. I didn't start writing for TL until June, which honestly makes me even prouder and more excited for tackling stuff next year!

Fandoms Written In: Ted Lasso, almost exclusively. I've also written for Dimension 20, and I figure I will more when Fantasy High: Junior Year releases, but for now I'm on a pretty big TL kick.

Looking back did you expect to write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you’d expect: I expected to write way less than this! I'd hoped I'd write some, but nothing was really grabbing ahold of me until Ted Lasso crashed into my brain.

What’s your own favorite story of the year, personally?:

Ooh, that's really tough. I'll split it into two because I can't choose:

In my Dichotomy series (I'm just really proud of it tbh), my favorite of the fics was The Dichotomy of a Captain, aka Roy's perspective. It felt the truest to any of them, though I continue to try to stay true to all of them. It's also the first of the fics in this series that made me realize I really could finish the series.

My favorite one-shot of the year is probably Out of Practice, if only because sometimes I get WIP ideas and rarely follow through, but I worked hard to finish this one. And also, I really like watching through Isaac's eyes as he learns stuff about his best friend.

Did you take any writing risks this year?: Honestly, I think the fact that I came back and started writing again was my biggest risk of the year. I wasn't really sure of my voice or style, and it was intimidating to come back and keep writing, but the community made a world of difference.

Do you have any fanfic goals for the New Year?: I've got different WIPs I want to write, like finishing the Dichotomy series and a few series I have in the bank. I think more tangible goals are to get more comfortable with writing new scenes and being more comfortable with past tense. I've always been drawn to canon-explicit stuff, and for some reason, present tense has me in a headlock lmao

Best story of the year: I don't know that I can say anything is "objectively" the best, since fanfic is subjective as hell anyway, but I feel like The Dichotomy of a Captain is the one I feel is the best written. But that one is also my favorite, so I may just be biased.

Most popular story of the year: I'm stealing @trentcrimminallybeautiful's way of doing this because I think it's good, so shoutout

By kudos: "The Dichotomy of a Couch" with 268

By subscriptions: "The Dichotomy of a Couch" with 52 (This was originally going to be one work I wrote the series on, but someone suggested I turn it into multiple works in one series, and this one was first, so it has the highest)

By comment threads: "The Dichotomy of a Captain" with 14

By bookmarks: "The Dichotomy of a Couch" with 65

By hits: "The Dichotomy of a Couch" with 2604

Overall, definitely "The Dichotomy of a Couch", though I did admittedly post it first. But also, wow, these numbers are super humbling, and I'm honored that anyone has read and reacted to what I've written. It means the world for this fic (and my others) to be so kindly received.

Most personal story of the year: Most definitely Who Tells Your Story. No contest.

Funniest story of the year: Ooh, I genuinely made myself laugh while writing The Dichotomy of a Prick, so I'd have to say that one. It's the least serious, and writing Jamie's thoughts brought a smile to my face.

Story of mine most under-appreciated by the universe, in my opinion: Mmm, I guess Who Tells Your Story.

Most fun story to write: I gotta go with The Dichotomy of a Prick again, it was a breath of fresh air between two very serious parts of this series and amidst other more serious one-shots.

Story with the sexiest moment: I genuinely don't write sexy fics, so the answer is going to be very silly. The best I've got is an illusion to a sexy moment in the past during The Dichotomy of a Prick, but Definitely nothing actually sexy lol

Sweetest story of the year: I gotta go with Who Tells Your Story again, considering that I wrote it for the sweet moment.

“Holy crap that’s wrong even for you!” story: I'm also gonna take this to mean angsty instead of scandalous and say The Dichotomy of a Captain

Hardest story to write: The Dichotomy of a Prick was hard to write on a more technical level as far as Jamie's POV went; I was really conscious about not fucking up his character or writing him too OOC. But considering how personal it was for me, Who Tells Your Story gave me some gut punches as I wrote it that made it hard emotionally.

Biggest disappointment: I think that some fics I liked didn't do as well as others that I didn't like as much, but I also know that my writing got better over time, so I'm really not dwelling on it.

Biggest surprise: Writing again in general, definitely, but also how much love I've gotten for things I've been really excited about. I fully didn't expect so much kindness (far more a me thing than anyone in this community, y'all are wonderful) and it's definitely inspired me to keep going. Y'all are amazing and I'm so grateful for all of you.

[well-its-not-human-anymore]

Do you have any headcanons for s/o who can’t cook like, they will burn the kitchen or mess everything up. They feel bad for it though, she/they for the s/o and Raph + Mikey! Thank you.

I found that writing this was absolutely hilarious because I was literally in culinary school. So I know all of the worst ways to fuck up your food. Don't leave a pot of boiling milk unattended kids. I'm back from my long as shit hiatus. It's nice to see all of you again 💖

TMNT Headcanons

S/O who can't cook for shit but they're trying okay? Their best just isn't great.

Michaelangelo

okay okay okay

Mikey can totally excuse being a bad cook, it's perfectly fine with him

he's great at it so it's not a big deal that you aren't

but

oh my god you suck at it

like he understands you're doing your best and he's proud of you for that

reasonably though, how the fuck do you forget to put water in cup mac and cheese??

and he loves that you want to cook for him because he likes doing it for you, it's a love language, it's cute, everyone's on board with it

thats all well and good

but after 72 burnt dinners, 8 kitchen fires, and 35 choking instances maybe you should consider just buying him a pizza and calling it a day

and you feel awful about it because you just want to show him you love him and at this point as much as you're aware that you suck at cooking you're way too stubborn to admit that to anyone

of course Mikey is way too sweet to say it to your face

he loves you too much to hurt your feelings

but he isn't above ordering takeout everytime before you come over to hang out

and I think at this point you're aware that he's doing it on purpose

hell it's happened everytime you've come over for the last 3 months

are you offended by it?

a little bit, yeah

but you know that if you confront him about it you're basically admitting that you know that you suck at cooking

so eventually you start ordering takeout before going over and presenting it as your own

everyone knows it's a lie

you're fine with that, as long as he thanks you for bringing food you have no complaints

and no, you're not allowed anywhere near the kitchen without at least 2 of the brothers supervising you

Raphael

look

this guy will eat almost anything

he needs the calories

and he has admitted to you on more than one occasion that he would resort to cannibalism if you two were in an apocalypse together

you mostly argue that you probably wouldn't taste very good but he doesn't seem to care

you're not really sure if that's concerning to you or not

so he will eat almost anything you make, majority of the time without any complaint

is he aware that your food sucks

yes

are you aware that he thinks that

also yes

but you both know that if he doesn't have food in his system he turns into a massive bitch

he does often have to carry around a fire extinguisher whenever you're "making something"

honestly he's pretty sure all of the smoke you've been inhaling from your burned dishes has caused you permanent brain damage and that's why your food has been progressively getting worse

he will at some point sit you down and ask you that you let someone else handle the cooking from now on

and you cry

but you're actually relieved

because as bad as you are at cooking you hate doing it even more

you were just trying to find another way to say I love you to him that didn't involve sarcasm

you mostly just buy him snacks now, anything prepackaged is good

Wow am I out of practice. I'm not sure if this is any good and I'm confident that it is not my best work. But I have to start again somewhere. I'm sorry for letting this sit for so long but I do hope you enjoy it. Thank you for all the patience.

-Mars 🌌

[deeisace]

Right I'm sposed to keep it a secret even from my mum but none of you guys know my dad so I can talk here yeah?

Readmore here cs there was more words than I thought I'd say, tw for drugs and idk I hesitate to say abuse but really I guess, in the past

So like a month or so ago he split up with his partner of like almost 20 years - which I am upset for her, obviously, but also happy for dad tbh cs she um she still drinks and and stuff where my dad has been sober for like almost 2 years now, and he's off his not-heroin meds I can't spell for um like maybe two months idk (he told me he stopped taking heroin the christmas I was 15, I think it was, and he's been reducing the meds slowly since he got like alcohol-sober) - so he doesn't want that sort of um in his life anymore, y'know, and they'd been growing apart and all that stuff idk what like that he says - tho she is very very upset and I totally understand why, and why my two eldest brothers/her two kids aren't talking to dad atm

Anyway, all of that

The bit I'm sposed to be keeping secret is that like a week later he's started seeing someone else

And is very happy and she doesn't drink and she's really lovely in every way - she's downstairs now, they're in the garage smoking but I haven't met her cs I've gone to bed - y'know y'know good fine she likes bungee jumping and they're doing a skydive together at some point idk

But like

Hm

I mean

This is. Well I think it's a fair comment. That I haven't made to him but might talk to mum about whenever I'm allowed to stop keeping secrets

I don't like secrets and I'm very very bad at keeping them so

Anyway basically like

He's just done what he has always always done which

Well his relationship with my mum, the way she tells it, was mostly her (18-22, pretty freshly out of a cult and all that) moving away from him to stop him stealing her rent money to pay for drugs and putting his mobile contract in her name, and then him moving back in somehow

And then she finally fobbed him off when I was 4yo, and he spent weeks turning up and like begging her to take him back, and then one day said "we're getting married" and mum said "what the fuck are you talking about. I've told you no. I've told you no every day." And he's gone "oh not /you/" like that's obvious, "Sophie" who the fuck is Sophie? Literally never heard a word spoke of her or anything until that moment. And they were married for a bit, I do remember her pretty vaguely

And then idk how that's ended tbh cs I,, was like 5/6 and obviously not paying attention (reading books so I didn't have to watch dad do the tin foil thing and pass out on the sofa/my bed again, probably, if I was around for any of it and not just at home at mum's (mum didn't know about "the tin foil thing" til I was like 12-ish, big ish I can't remember)), and then pretty immediately he's got with my stepmum/the partner he's just now split with, which I think mostly only worked because they were both completely muntered the entire time and she wasn't with it enough to stop him or he was manipulative enough to stop her stopping him from putting his every bill and credit card in her name ("what's this new bill?" "oh yeah you told me I could last week, don't you remember?" "no? oh I spose" "don't you? god you are mental" actual verbatim when I lived with them when I was 16)

Anyway like now they're sober (or in her case a lot less drunk etc - which is admirable, she has got a hell of a lot better) he's gone, ah don't want that in my life, next

Which I mean

Big sigh

It is understandable that he wants to change his life, y'know, he doesn't want those influences any more, I get that - and I don't know what their like personal relationship was like, recently, because I (thankfully, tbh) don't live here and I've never talked to her much more than I needed to tbh she's,, a lot even when she's not drunk or whatever else - but it does seem. A bit unfair to say the very least. To her, y'know, for him to immediately be seeing someone else a week after they've split up - tho she doesn't yet know that

It just seems,, callous, to be so quick

And I've not met this new woman yet - I'm glad he likes her, but I hope she's not as easily um taken in and manipulated as his previous relationships have been

Mum's not, any longer - it took her 20 more years to get out of a differently-awful/manipulative relationship, but she's. She's really actually good now, and strong in herself, and living how she wants to (and shagging her neighbour from last summer in a fwb "definitely not a relationship and I hope he doesn't think I want that" kind of way, lmao congrats mum)

I don't know if dad leaving my stepmum won't just push her right back to more drinking and drugs again, I can't imagine she's coping well, really - she's got her sons, and friends about her, and nothing I say would be of any any use, even could I think of anything to say, and she wouldn't want to hear it anyway because she never liked me much either - but I hope that doesn't happen

[reincarnatedonthefirst]

Client Recap

First off, I really hate that my perfume and the client’s cologne are on my skin right now. I took a shower last night but the perfume on my dressed rubbed off on me this morning and I was hugging up on the client this morning as well so his god-awful cologne rubbed off on me again. Since yesterday, I’ve probably showered a total of three times and I’m done showering!

Anyway, yesterday, I hit a scheduling snaffu. I tried to squeeze in an FBSM appointment before my two evening clients. I scrambled to meet the client, drove like a madman, but forgot to text the client the address when I was on my way.

This idiot, seeing that we were scheduled to meet at 5:30PM, didn’t bother texting to ask for the address when he saw that I hadn’t sent it. It was 5:25PM when I realized I hadn’t sent the address. I realized this when I asked the client to text me when he arrives. This asshole says he never got the address in the first place. He’s either incredibly stupid (for not having asked for the address), or he never wanted to see me to begin with…

Anyway, we tried to salvage the appointment but I couldn’t because I was one hour away from the airport clients and it was storming and I needed time to get ready for them and head out. I needed to be on time. On top of that, I had another FBSM client who had been waiting for a spot with me yesterday evening as well. Had I scheduled with him, he probably would have had the sense to ask for the address. Anyway, I missed out on all that money. Not having an incall inside the city is messing me up. And the ridiculous thing is that my first airport client of the evening (the 2-hour client) ended up being late for our appointment anyway. 😑

Anyway, because I tried to catch that first FBSM appointment, I wasn’t as ready for my evening clients as I should have been. I arrived at the first client’s hotel early and sat in the car, getting myself together, touching up makeup, using mouthwash, and putting on nail polish.

His appointment went okay. I think he enjoyed himself because he said I need to come visit his city. So, that was a good sign.

I finished up with him on time and was able to go home, shower, and put on makeup for Mr. Asia (I referred to him as Mr. Six in a recent post because I forgot my original name for him). His flight was running late so that gave me time. I left the house with a gorgeous face (I’m getting better at applying makeup) and drove to his hotel.

Right away, I noticed that he felt much more comfortable with me than the first time we met. His personality was emerging. It’s as if the time we spent apart since we last saw each other in the spring, had actually been spent getting to know each other… although it hadn’t! I was glad to see that he was comfortable with me. When we met up at his hotel, I gave him a hug as if he was a boyfriend I hadn’t seen in months.

He suffers for limp penis disease but he actually got it together this time. I also realized that the reason he can’t get hard is because he drinks. Last time, he actually admitted that alcoholism runs in his family and he used to have a problem as well… Well, he still has a problem. I could smell liquor on his breath when I saw him. Based on the fact that his penis is always limp, I’m guessing he has more of an alcohol problem than he thinks…

But that is none of my business…

Anyway, our session started at 12:20 and we fell asleep a little before 4AM. Right before we slept, he was showing me photos of his travels to Korea and Japan. It was actually a cool little slideshow. He’s not a complete meathead and actually has a point of view.

We shared a few good laughs during our appointment. The sex (when we could have it) actually wasn’t bad at all. And he snores SO… FUCKING… LOUDLY. I told him he sounds like a sputtering motorcycle. But the worst part is that he seriously has a lot of difficult breathing when he sleeps. It’s insane. You’ve never heard someone struggle to breathe in their sleep before like this.

When we parted ways this morning, I made sure to hug up on him as if I would miss him. He asked me what I’m doing on Monday so that’s a sign that he enjoyed himself with me.

Anyway, my wallet is stuffed and I need to go deposit this money. It was a good week and things are going to get better.

[asoulofatlantis]

That is one hell of a sudden timejump ^^' Like the game just started, but we have done NOTHING and yet, two freaking months have past.

In case you don't know that yet or you have forgotten it, this very girl is Yun-Ka-Fais very own granddaughter.

I love how games like these ALWAYS find a way to force some weird logic on you that makes you understand that you have no choice but to have a fresh start XD

Oh... do we not have to walk there ourselfs? Nice!

Oh! I totally forgot that stuff like this already existed in this game. That will be fun!

This Prolouge is annoying me for some reason I can not fully explain. The dungeon sucked because of all the levers and now we get thrown into whatever fight awaits us outside, just after one full day of dungeon exploring. But I am probably just salty because that is exactly how the pacing will be for the most part of the game ^^'

They put on quite the show to make it look real, didn't they? ^^' And even tho those two girls have noticed already that they have been training for this, they still didn't realize how awfully convenient all this is.

I totally get that this was training and preparing them for what its to come. You know, real-life situations and all that... but I still think they've overdone it a bit here.

Also... damn was that boring. Even if I had to fight the monsters on the way, it would not have been really entertaining at all. This dungeon sucked even more than the last one, because it pretended to be hard, but it actually wasn't. Once again, the monster in a non-plus-game might have told a different story but the overall dungeon wasn't great at all and this did nothing to the plot even if you didn't find out or knew you were tricked from the start.

Campanelle came with a small airplane. Whats wrong? No teleportation-skills just yet, Campi? XD

Ouroboros is always so overstaffed XD Seriously. Four people plus the two currently talking. Six members of Ourobors. Anguises among them too. Geez!

Oh! I forgot to add the Faceless. Make it 7 members. Seriously Ourobors, that scared of us, or what? XD

I forgot that we've been here before Cold Steel. And it remains a sad place with sad music.

It must have been hard for Joshua to come back here and face his past.

I am pretty sure NO ONE saw this coming. I can not remember much from my first playthrough to be absolutely honest with you, but I can remember that Joshua working with the Capuas WAS quite a surprise. They seemed to be useless silly side characters in the first game. And now here they are... protecting Joshua and being his allies while he would be otherwise all alone.

And then later on you meet Josette back in Erebonia and you like: "W-Wait a minute!" XD

I am kinda glad that this is over. But if Falcom never was good at something, that its been Prolouges ^^'

After all those years and all those games I am kind of confused were the archaism really come from. Obviously, at this point Ouroboros is mass-producing them. But it didn't start out like that, didn't it? Wasn't it rather that they found them somewhere and just reproduced them, like they did with thing like the Auraleole?

But were did they find them first? Cavard, as Kevin words suggest?

Well I mean we ARE running straight into "the end of the world" and I am not sure yet what Cassiuse did to try to prevent it XD

(I am very much aware that I am a bit unfair here. Thanks to our most beloved idiot police Detective Lloyd, most people do not even know the end of the world is coming, so its not like he COULD have done anything about it, given that he didn't have the necessary knowledge... Oh fun! I've just realized, if we fuck this up in Kai we can blame it on Lloyd. The guy who decided to not even be there, as it seems... *achem* moving on... uh... back to the past I mean ^^')

Ouroboros is quite the... colorful bunch in every way possible. Some of them are really good at blending in too. So... uh... how exactly do you want to find someone "resembling" a secret society, Agate? ^^'

I should not pick Agate again this time, as I picked him last time already. But I did have my reasons for choosing him and the reasons still apply. So... sorry Schera. But its the hothead again XD

Yeah... I've got that wrong too ^^' I guess we have to get our heads out of the gutter.

I am two hours into the game and as expected, NOTHING worth of note actually happened. So I am glad to announce that I am taking a break now.

[pqrachel]

Games I Played in November

I never really plan these out but I always like talking about what I've been playing.

So I already talked about Trackmania, but I really hope to stay top 100 in my state for this season. I've got 18/25 author medals and that's better than I've ever done, but there's still time to maybe get a couple more. (I'm super close on some of them.)

Marvel Snap's been fun too, I've been playing a bit more casually. Like not buying anything with actual money, skipping dailys if I don't feel like playing, stuff like that. And I don't care what anyone says Martyr's so fucking fun and cool. I haven't hit infinite yet, been stuck in high rank 80s playing all sort of different decks. But that's okay it's been fun and that's the whole point of gaming.

As far as new games I finally bought Arkham Knight. That was amazing to play at my own pace instead of having to wait to play it whenever I visited my uncle's house as a teen. I got through basically everything, I'm tracking down the last few Riddler trophies on my own. I probably won't bother with NG+ but there are a lot of post-game stories I want to play which I never got to. I've also been watching a bunch of Arkham series lore vids on YT and that's really put me back in the headspace of playing the Arkham series like I did originally.

Handshakes was a fun free indie speed-game. I got top 100 on the steam leaderboards and that was fun.

Chillquarium is great, the demo was fun and cute but somewhere along the way it turned into a card pack opening simulator but in the best possible way. Like if you've ever wanted to open 1000 pokémon booster packs for no reason other to hunt for a super rare or something that's a super fun game to emulate that feeling.

And also Colostle. Obviously I've been posting my journals for that game on here for two years now so y'all know I love it! But it's been great playing it more frequently again I've got basically two chapters finished in one month, which I haven't done in a while. Really trying to get to the Tundrooms and Kyodaina content. The Colostle Patreon's already getting even more content in the Dungeons and maybe more (I've been off it since I'm not utilizing the new content immediately and I'm gonna buy the books when they come out anyways) and I feel like for as much I like the game I haven't experienced all it has too offer which is weird for me as someone who normally goes for completion, or achievement hunting, etc.

---

Daryl Takes Games on YouTube made a video about tackling his backlog and at one point he talks about the importance of writing about games as you finish them to preserve them as a memory for later and that hits home with what I'm doing here with these monthly summaries. That video was beautiful to me as a longtime gamer. I'm gonna take this time to also add games I plan to play in the future. Even if I don't get to them next month, I want to think about games and see how that changes between months.

So yeah, very recent addition to the backlog is Signalis. I've been seeing amazing fanart and it even featured in that video, so once that next goes on sale I'm gonna pick it up.

Rivals 2 looks amazing and I've backed the kickstarter so I hope I get to experience that in some manner once it comes out. Fighting games have dwindled from genres I play since I don't have as active of gamer friends and grinding with someone is the best part, but maybe with rollback and the good online it promises I'll still enjoy that on my own or maybe even find some new gamers to play with.

That video mentioned Sayonara Wild Hearts with a comment that seemed like the ultimate praise: "Every part was my favorite part." Since it's only an hour long I'm just gonna watch a playthrough, but that's totally valid. My fondest memories with Undertale was watching Dodger Leigh (PressHeartToContinue)'s full playthrough of that game, way more than my own playthrough. Even though the grind of beating Sans myself was worth it. Perhaps after watching Sayonara Wild Hearts I'll pick it up but I'm not gonna pressure myself to do that if I don't want to.

Some other games I tried recently but refunded include Dave the Diver (it looks good and was fun but ultimately didn't seem worth it to play the whole thing), Oxenfree 2 (I played the first and love it but this one just didn't hook me and there's no shame in giving a game), Shadows of Doubt (a couple months ago I tried it since it looked like I'd enjoy it after watch GMTK's vid on detective games but ultimately it was too involved and seemed like a chore to play, when I was looking for something else, the figure it out, red string on a cork board yes, the rest of the gameplay no not really), and Word Factori (I think I was just looking for a fun optimization game like Opus Magnum but Word Factori just fell short). In future ones of these I'll make sure to mentioned games I tried as well as played because those can be important when looking back on as well.

And finally, holy crap this post is long, good thing this blog is for me and I'm not trying to impress anyone with my thoughts on these games.

[forebodingprophet]

Moirai || Clotho C4P1

“Shit, it got away,” Minoru spat as he went to collect the unconscious Ofthalmós.

“Wouldn’t have happened if you were halfway decent at your job, fuckwit,” Roul spat.  “Having to do this twice in one day is not my idea of fun, but 3 out of 4 will have to do.  After all, the main prize is this guy.  That thing wouldn’t have kept anyways if it can teleport,” he cackled, hefting Théo as Minoru handed the man over.  “He doesn’t look like he has any powers, but he’ll still fetch quite the pretty penny.  Enough to offset the cost of raising the other two and losing that egg at least.”

“After all the effort we put in though, it’s such a waste.”

“Wouldn’t have needed to be an issue if you’d done what I told you and raised him up the way they said to.”

“And we wouldn’t have needed to sell him if you hadn’t jumped the gun,” Minoru growled.  Raoul scoffed.  “You and I both know that raising him to be one of us never would have worked.  That house would have dug it out of him one way or another, and it’d have been a lost cause.  And even with this plan, it was a crapshoot at best.  We got lucky when he managed to snag the young patriarch, and you ruined it by throwing a fuss over a children’s fight.”

“Hey.  Don’t forget I’m the one in charge here,” Raoul spat.  “Yeah, we lucked out that the holy brat himself came to do the investigation, but the whole thing was too delicate to leave to some kid.  I’ll just be glad to finally be rid of him.  I always thought it was a dumb idea.”

“You’re not the one that had to play dad for 12 years,” Minoru hissed.  “And all we had to do was get him to bring the kid back to the house just once, and we’d be good.  Kids fight all the fucking time.  If you hadn’t taken him outta the picture, catching the other one probably would have gone a lot easier!”

“As if!  I don’t know what kind of idealistic scenario you were imagining, but that guy had no interest in coming into the house.  I doubt that brat would have made the situation any easier.  And I still did a better job in the last month than you did in those 12 years!”

Minoru scoffed.  The man hadn’t lifted a finger in the month or so they’d been there.  He hadn’t even spoken to the boy.

“I swear, I don’t know why they keep sticking me with fuck ups like you.”  Raoul opened a panel in the floor before dropping Théo inside and shoving him in next to Hikaze and Itsu so the panel would close properly. 

Minoru scoffed but didn’t bother trying to argue.  This man wasn’t the type who would accept anything but total agreement.  This was all way too much trouble.  They’d just gotten here a month ago, and now they had to move again.  He’d been excited when he first got this assignment, but now he wanted nothing to do with it, even if the payout was supposed to be fantastic.  It was too much of a long game.

“Now help me pick up the rest of ‘em,” Roul ordered.  “We can’t have it lookin’ like something actually went down.  Damn thing’s useful in the moment, but I’m not using it outside again.”

“It’ll alter their memories and perception though, so what does it matter if they all wake up in the street?” Minoru grumbled, trudging back outside.

“Fucking idiot,” Roul spat under his breath.  “We still gotta clear out.  It’s going to be at least a day.  We can’t have anyone realizing that something’s up before we take off.  Not to mention, the holy brat himself will probably be the one doing the investigating again.  If anything is even remotely off, we’ll be in trouble!  The organization’s managed to stay under their radar all these years because of this thing.  We can’t let those bastards catch onto us.”

Minoru’s eyes drifted to the pocket the creature was being kept in.  The spheres were only good for a single-use, but they were effective every time.  To make them even more convenient, only certain people could see them, although he wasn’t entirely sure of the requirement.  However, they were never given to someone as low on the ladder as Minoru, so he had no idea how to even use one.

“Dammit, the girls get the easy job while we have to clean everything up before we can leave,” Minoru grumbled, picking up one of the townspeople by their arms and dragging them into their house.  “Hurry up!  We don’t have long before someone comes looking for him!”

◊◊◊

               The first thing Hikaze registered was a profound aching that covered almost his entire body.  His back was especially bad, but his shoulders and arms clearly didn’t like anything about the way he was laying.  His stomach and ribs were also in some pretty intense pain.  He recognized the clattering of wooden wheels and the dusty smell of a wagon, but couldn’t immediately remember how he’d gotten there.  The carriage went over a bump, knocking him a few centimeters into the air before gravity mercilessly brought him back down, slamming his head, hip, and shoulder into the hard wood and making him cry out.  He moved to sit up only to realize he was restrained.  No wonder his shoulders hurt.  His feet were bound too.  Hikaze groaned as the memories came back.  Right, he’d been beaten within an inch of his life by his uncle, but he couldn’t remember anything after that.  Did his family decide to move?  He started looking around, trying to find Itsu, but all he saw were unlabeled boxes and bags.  What caught his attention, however, was the sight of another person, laid on his side with his semi-long black hair fallen over part of his olive-tanned face.

“Théo?” Hikaze asked weakly.

               “Good morning, Hikaze,” the man replied, in his usual polite tone.

               “Why are you-”

               “I came to deliver the young master’s pay for you.  They, unfortunately, got the better of me.”

               Hikaze grimaced.  “I’m sorry.”

               “Well, given that you’re also tied up here, unless it’s some elaborate ploy to earn my trust-”

“Never!” Hikaze cut in, looking genuinely horrified.

“-it’s not your fault,” Théo replied, smiling reassuringly.  “But we should probably be quiet.  If they know we’re up, they may come to check on us.”

Hikaze felt his heart stop for a moment and nodded carefully.  Then, as if to further cement that fact, the tarp at the back of the carriage pulled aside.  Hikaze instinctively closed his eyes as soon as the light hit him, but his breathing wavered.  He hadn’t been able to get a good look, but the adrenaline rushing through him made even the clacking of the wooden wheels beneath him sound muted.  Heavy footsteps fell between them, and while he couldn’t see it, Hikaze could feel their owner shifting to stare down at him. 

“You got a shit poker face, boy,” came the gruff voice of his uncle before Hikaze felt himself launched into the side of the wagon.  Having taken another kick to the stomach, his eyes shot open, and he gasped for air, trying to get his bearings but struggling since his hands were bound.  “Don’t try to play dead on me.”

“Well, I wasn’t awake before,” Hikaze grunted out with a cracking voice, “but I am now.  Should you really be manhandling the merchandise?” 

His uncle scoffed.  “You still clearly have enough energy to mouth off, so don’t push your luck, or I really will beat you within an inch of your life.  And enjoy it.” 

Hikaze huffed and blew a lock of hair out of his face.

“Just be quiet and behave yourself.  The more I gotta deal with you, the worse you’re gonna get.  We’re almost there anyways, so just shut up and stay put.”  With that, his uncle turned around and jumped back out of the moving carriage.  Hikaze briefly caught a glimpse of two horses, one of which was mounted, and realized escaping wasn’t going to be as simple as he’d hoped.

“You alright?” Théo whispered, re-opening his own eyes.

“Yeah,” Hikaze replied, still sounding a little pained.  “I’ll be fine.”

Théo sighed in relief.  “I have to say, I was rather surprised when I woke up to see you laying across from me,” Théo added.  “I hadn’t been permitted to meet with you, but I never would have expected you to be here.”

“You and me both…  Hey, they captured Itsu with me.  You haven’t seen him, have you?”

Théo sadly shook his head.  “Apologies.  I haven’t been up much longer than you have, so I cannot say.”  The two of them looked around the carriage as best as they could.  It was filled with boxes and chests stacked at most two high, some of which had toppled over, and although Itsu may have been in one of them, it was impossible to tell unless the little soldier started making noise.  Hikaze sighed and returned his attention to Théo.

“So what-…” Hikaze hesitated, unsure if he actually wanted to ask this question.  “-what’s going to happen?”  Even though he knew some of the stuff Esaias had gone through, what few stories Esaias had been willing to tell him had been vague, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to know what was going to come next.”

“Well…”  Hikaze could tell that Théo was hesitant, and he couldn’t blame the guy.  Hikaze was technically 12 years old, but he had the memories and experiences of an adult in his head, so he should be able to handle it better than a normal 12-year-old.  ‘Should’ being the key term.  “I can’t speak for what will happen to you, but the fact that you haven’t been killed yet despite how beat up you look raises your chances.  I’m not saying they won’t kill you, it may have just been inconvenient for them at the time, but given that you haven’t, they may see some further value in you.  It means they may be thinking about selling you.”  Hikaze pulled a face of disgust, but, in Théo’s eyes, this was a good thing.  Having value meant they wouldn’t kill you or do anything that might lower your value before a sale is completed, which insured some degree of safety, although Hikaze’s perceived value wasn’t particularly great right now, but the man wasn’t about to tell him that..  “As long as you hold value, they won’t do anything that might jeopardize their ability to profit from you.”

“Are you kidding?  I don’t need a mirror to know I look like shit right now.”

Théo gave a wry laugh.  “I can’t deny it.  When I first woke, had I not seen that you were bound, I would have thought you dead.  With any luck, you may receive some degree of medicinal treatment once we arrive at our destination,” he replied optimistically.

“… And?  What about you?”

“If I’m lucky, I’ll be sold off as a male concubine to some noble, I’m sure,” Théo replied.  “I don’t have any powers, but it isn’t entirely rare for the gift to skip a generation.  There’s no shortage of nobility around the world who covet the house’s powers.”

“That still sounds disgusting,” Hikaze replied, his face pale.

“Which is why we should probably come up with an escape plan,” Théo replied.

“Well, I can tell you one thing we have in our favor: all we got holding us back are ropes,” Hikaze pointed out with a smirk.  C’mere, I’ll chew through yours if you chew through mine.  Then we can start looking for Itsu.”

“An excellent idea.  I was about to suggest the same.”

◊◊◊

To most of the rest of the house, Anastasios was almost the picture of a perfect patriarch; calm, always on the moral high ground, and able to solve most any situation without even letting so much as a hair getting out of place, so to say that his family members were alarmed to see him sprinting through the quiet halls would be an understatement.  He all but skidded into the teleportation point and had to pause and lean in the doorway to catch his breath.  The woman there, an aníschyros in her late-20s, stared at him like he had two heads.

“Wow, Stasi, did you run anyone over on your way here?” she asked sarcastically.

“Shut up,” he hissed between breaths as he brushed loose hair out of his face.  “Just tell me what’s going on.  Why is Skirí here, but not Théodore?”

“Beats me,” she replied, exasperated.  “Skirí can’t communicate telepathically yet, so I haven’t been able to learn anything in the ten minutes it’s been since I sent you the messenger.  All I can tell is that she’s pretty shaken.” 

Anastasios looked over at the Espurr in front of her who was holding out her little paws as she walked towards him on unsteady legs.  First things first, Anastasios had to figure out what’d happened.  He crouched down on the floor, reaching forward and scooping the furry thing into his hands.  Skirí had been with Théo since not long after Théo had become Anastsios’ attendant, so she and Théo had gotten incredibly close.  She’d never been able to communicate telepathically, but that had never been a problem… until now.

“Skirí, where’s Théo?  What happened?”

The Espurr squeaked and mewled pitifully, but, unfortunately, Anastasios couldn’t get anything out of her other than that she was scared and confused.

“Celia?”  The Darkrai rose out of Anastasios’ shadow and took the small Pokemon in his hands.  The Espurr mewed at her for several moments, and then Esaias set her down.

“It would appear that Théodore has been abducted.  Unfortunately, Skirí’s memory of the incident is somewhat hazy.  All she remembers is that something was called out and struck everyone present with debilitating fear.  Whatever it is can also tamper with memories, but Théodore gave her the order to run before it could fully affect her.  She has some pieces missing, but she does remember that Hikaze’s family is involved.”

Anastasios was struck with a strong sense of dread.  Now, beyond a shadow of a doubt, he knew that someone was going around abducting members of House Ofthalmós, and, to make matters worse, they’d taken his attendant.  Théo was privy to a number of classified pieces of information about how the house ran itself, including information about where family outside the house was located and, of course, what times Celia left the house unguarded.  Being Anastasios’ attendant gave him far more value than simply being from House Ofthalmós.  He had to find him before they realized that or it wouldn’t just be Théo in danger, but the whole house.

“… Did you see Hikaze?” Anastasios asked, hesitating.  The name tasted like pith in his mouth.  Skirí chirped, and Celia shook her head.

“She doesn’t remember seeing him.  She remembers being told that they couldn’t meet with him.  They said he wouldn’t leave his room, but something about it felt off.”

Anastasios knitted his brows.  Hikaze must’ve left with Itsu on his own journey without talking to his family.  For now, Anastasios needed to think out a new plan of action.

“For now, I’m going into town.  Skirí, I’d appreciate you taking me there.”

The Espurr hesitated, chirping quietly.  She was obviously terrified, and it’d be cruel of him to force her to go back, but, without her, the trip would take hours, and he didn’t have time for that.  Finally, Skirí nodded,, and Celia handed her over to Anastasios.

“I promise, I’m going to find who took Théo,” Anastasios assured her before turning to the other Ofthalmós in the room.  “Cosíma, if I’m not back by dinner, assume something has happened.” 

“Uhhhh… don’t think our Patriarch will be happy with his heir going off on his own like that,” the woman pointed out.

“Well papu can suck it!” Anastasios spat.  At that moment, the messenger Cosíma had sent to him finally arrived, breathing heavily and carrying Fotiálos who vigorously wiggled about in his arms, trying to get to Anastasios.  Apparently, when Anastsios took off, the small flame soldier had tried to follow after him but couldn’t keep up.  Everything about him screamed ‘Take me too!’  Finally, the person holding him let go, and he darted over to Anastasios’ side. 

Celia shook her head.  “The training regimen you’re used to is complete,” she said to a confused Fotiálos.  “We are not going to see your brother and his trainer.”  Fotiálos looked up at Anastasios.  Until now, every day had been spent with Hikaze and Itsu from the day he’d hatched.  Perhaps that had been a mistake.  However, at the time, even Anastasios believed that they would all be going on a journey together.  The fact that such a thing would no longer come to pass made his chest clench.  He didn’t want to admit that he’d been looking forward to it more than he let on.  But he’d made a mistake in how he handled the issue of Hikaze, and now, no doubt, the boy would want nothing to do with him.  He needed to distance himself from anything and everything to do with his former best friend.  No matter how much that may hurt.  What he was doing now was more important.  But the small voice of Esaias inside of him said that there was no way that Kazuya would abandon Esaias over something like this, and that went the same for Hikaze.  If he just apologized properly-

Anastasios bent down again and patted the soldier on the head.  “We won’t be seeing them again,” Anastasios told him, trying his best to keep a neutral face.  “Hikaze and Itsu have left.”

Fotiálos snorted in indignance.  ‘Why would they leave?  We were all supposed to go together.’

“That’s just how it turned out.”  He couldn’t bring himself to tell him that they left because Hikaze was rightfully angry with him.  “We’ll be on our own from here, but right now there’s a different problem.  I’m going to investigate, so you have to stay here.”

“Bring him along.  Was such a thing not the point of all that training he did?” Celia pointed out.

“True.  I don’t expect a battle this time, however-”  He hadn’t exactly expected a battle last time either, and even if he took Skirí, she wasn’t equipped to handle battle.  He glanced down at the small cat in his hands who still seemed to be working up her courage on whether or not to come.  “Yes, you’ll come along too, Fotiálos.  Does that help, Skirí?”

Skirí hesitated but then nodded.  She would take them.

“Good.  Let’s hurry.  The sooner we investigate, the sooner we can catch up.”

[sexyvampkitty]

[RP Solo...Mentions of Damon and Klaus] ‘We Keep This Love In A Photograph’

I stare out the window...watching the landscape go by...absentmindedly playing with the heart-shaped pendent at my neck...wondering for the millionth time since I left the Salvatore house this morning whether I'm doing the right thing or not. Rather...what I'm about to do. I love Damon 'Abandon' Salvatore, more than I've ever loved any other man that I've been with over the past...almost three years now. I really do. I also realize that...to anyone looking in on our relationship from the outside...it would appear that all we ever do is have sex...and we do have a 'lot' of that...amazing...mind-blowing...earth-shattering sex...I mean...the man can make me feel things with his tongue alone that I never knew were even possible...but it's 'so' much more than that. I also know that he'll do anything for me...put his literal life on the line to protect me if necessary...and he's already demonstrated that fact...multiple times. In the short time since we've been together...he's already saved me from dying after I got bit by Klaus...saved me from being marked by a vampire huntress...rescued me from a prison world...all in the space of about two months...and I feel like there's no way that I can ever repay him for any of that. I also don't know how he continues to put up with me...since all I ever seem to do is attract danger everywhere that I go. That hasn't changed...ever since I was human. I wouldn't change what Damon and I have for anything in the world though. After all this time...I 'finally' found something that is real. I finally found the one man who will never leave me. So...what am I doing right now? Leaving him instead...if only temporarily...but I felt like I had no other choice. Something has...shifted between us lately...mostly in the last few days...more on my part than his...and...I'm sure he has noticed...even though he chose not to say anything. Maybe he just didn't know how to address what I was going through, so he chose to stay quiet. It started three nights ago...not long after another round of crazy, somewhat violent sex...which is probably what set it off in the first place...especially when he chose to do...'things'...to me...that I've never done with anyone else before. He's been taking me to dark places lately...and...through no fault of his...it's opened up a gaping void in my mind that is threatening to swallow me whole...no matter how hard I try and fight to close it. That first night...as soon as I drifted off to sleep...I found myself back in Hell again...surrounded by all four of my exes...including my most recent ex...who were all too happy to start back up with the torturing...almost like I never left...calling me a whore and a disappointment to Cade...and...since I had refused to honor my 'deal'...they were all going to make me pay. Even though...in the back of my mind...I 'knew' that it was a dream...that I was actually still in bed...wrapped safely in Damon's arms...that didn't stop the sense that the pain that I was experiencing...was all too real. It sure 'felt' like it anyway...especially when all of my exes decided to have sex with me in turn...and this wasn't the 'making love' kind of sex. This was the brutal...savage...hurtful...'fucking you in every available hole and in every which way' kind of sex. I guess I should've told Damon the part about being sexually tortured in Hell...especially when it came to the idea of anal sex...but I had 'no' idea how or where to start on that. It's not really the kind of thing that you just 'tell' someone. Although...if I had told him...he would've understood why I was hesitant at first at the thought of him entering me...down there. The dream seemed endless...as well as the torture...and the fire...and I tossed and turned all night...able to hear my own mournful moans in my sleep. The same thing happened the next night...as well as last night. This morning when I awoke...bolting upright in bed...totally freaked out...and almost kicking my poor boyfriend out of bed in the process...I figured...enough is enough. Something has to be done about these damn nightmares from my short vacation in Hell...or we are 'never' going to move forward in our relationship. Every time I think that we are actually getting somewhere...something like this happens...and I end up taking about ten steps back. It seems like...no matter how hard I try...I can never get my damn exes out of my head...even though at least two of them I know to be dead...and...I will never be able to...not unless drastic measures are taken. I can't live like this anymore...and there's 'no' way that I'm going to stake myself and end up on the 'Other Side'...or possibly Hell...again. I suddenly knew what I had to do...even if the idea of facing 'him' again...after what he did to me before...totally creeped me out...but I didn't see as if I had any other choice...like I just said only a few moments ago. My mind made up...I gently untangled myself from Damon's arms and carefully and quietly climbed out of bed...so that I didn't wake him up. I tiptoed over to the bureau...opened up one of the drawers and rummaged around until I came out with a pen and a pad of paper. I then scribbled him a quick note telling him where I was going...that I 'hopefully' wouldn't be gone long...adding that he shouldn't worry...both about me and the thought that I 'might' be breaking up with him or something. I left the paper on the bedside table...walked out of the room...made my way down the stairs...through the huge foyer...and to the front door. Taking a deep breath...I opened the front door...put one foot out...followed by the other...then shut the door...leaving Damon...and hopefully my past demons...behind me. Where am I now? On a bus...heading to New Orleans...on the way to try and track down the hybrid that I despise the most. The same hybrid bastard who tried to kill me not long ago. Klaus. He's not my first choice...but I'm out of options. I'm desperate. I have to get rid of these bad memories somehow. I feel like I'm dragging Damon down with my screwed up past...and...being an Original vampire...Klaus is the only one who can compel it away. I want every memory gone since I first set foot in the damn town that I am currently vacating...other than meeting Damon. I know that I will also be loosing other memories in the process...like the other friends that I've met over the years...as small as that number might be...but I don't really care. That way I won't remember Wes anymore either. Just one more bad memory to kiss 'GoodBye' to. Once my slate is 'finally' wiped clean...then I can go back to Damon as a changed woman...not to mention a much happier one. I just hope that Klaus doesn't decide to erase 'all' of my memories...because Damon is the one memory that I can't bear to lose. Without him in my life...I really have no reason to go on living at all...but...I guess we'll both have to deal with that...if it happens...* [END]