#and discovered i liked the variety pack i got last year

[arctic-hands]

I should totally learn how to brew my own mead or cider

[prince-liest]

Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. Let’s spread the self-love ❤

Aw, thank you so much for sending me this! <3 I've written a lot of fics, but my favorites have definitely changed over time... some I still adore, some I have a hard time looking at for a variety of reasons. These are in no particular order, but I'm especially fond of:

Calcium Carbonate, and Other Things That Run Bone Deep - Genshin Impact, Kaeya/Albedo, Rated M for Gore

Fondly nicknamed "vivisection makeouts fic" while I was writing it, this one was a very gratuitous "Albedo's (in)humanity clashes with Kaeya's desire to save Mondstadt" meet-ugly fic that I still really enjoy as a way that I got to wring both of their brains out like sponges. I was a little nervous when posting it due to the, y'know, vivisection makeouts, but it was received with overwhelming positivity that still makes me happy to think about.

How To Lose 800 Years of Cultivation - Heaven Official's Blessing, Feng Xin/Mu Qing, Rated E for Sexual Content

At one point I discovered how good of a method intimacy is for digging around in characters' brains, and this is the fic where I truly went ham with that. Like, there's a lot of sex in this fic, but there's also a lot of picking apart Mu Qing's issues with intimacy and sexuality, class inequality, and his perception of Feng Xin, who has his own shit to deal with but still fields it all like a champ. I've reread this like five times after publishing it and will definitely reread it again.

Dish Duty - Avatar: the Last Airbender, Zuko & Katara, Rated G

This is constantly threatening The Sword of Damocles is Swinging for being my most popular SFW fic (it has fewer hits but more kudos), and I like it because I think I did a really good job with capturing the canon tone of ATLA, as well as digging into the parts of Zuko's character that I was interested in excavating in it. Plus it had a fun little plot and adventure! It just turned into a really nice, self-contained fic that did everything I wanted it to.

Meng Yao's Guide to Sex and Love - MDZS, Lan Xichen/Meng Yao, Rated E for Sexual Content

I literally just finished writing this so obviously it's fresh in my mind, and I do actually have some things I find unsatisfying about it (the chapter arrangement, mostly), but I REALLY loved writing Meng Yao's modern AU version bag of cats brain and using this fic to learn more about both his and LXC's characterizations. Also, I just really like packing in canon-parallel worldbuilding into modern AUs for xianxia danmei series, and writing JGY & WWX friendship in general. Plainly, this was fun to write. My only #ragret is that now I'm really sick of writing cis smut and want to write trans!Meng Yao.

Smolder - Genshin Impact, Zhongli/Xiao, rated E for Sexual Content

I loved this when I wrote it, but now it's been forever since I've reread it and it's one of my favorites not so much for the fic itself but for how ridiculously popular it got. Very legitimately, I was wary of writing this ship at all in a way that was explicitly Not The Healthiest, and furthermore did not expect fandom to be so positive about trans characters (especially in smut). So it's just pleasing and also hilarious to me that my self-indulgent power imbalance smut ended up

And, as an aside: I think that a lot of my favorite fics have ended up comfortably in that 20-30k word range, which is interesting. I don't really write novel-length fics anymore (and only really did so one time, though it got very popular), and I think it's partly because I really just like to concentrate on the bits I'm interested in and write around everything else, letting people fill in the blanks based on what characters think and say.

Honorable mentions:

Both of the Xue Yang fics for having pretty few hits but extremely enthusiastic comments because the SXX community is baller like that.

The Beast of Pont Vanis, the only Witcher fic I've ever written, based on a song I've enjoyed and wanted to make a story out of since literally high school.

The Shinsou's Bad Days series, may I one day have the motivation to finish you.

The fic where I buried Albedo in an avalanche and let people do the math for how many days he was stuck there based on how many heartbeats he counted and how panic-tachycardic he was.

[andstilliam]

been feeling crappy all around lately-- even the walks aren't cutting it so i got up this morning for a quick early run and that helped. i treated myself to a cappuccino this morning as i ran some errands. i'm still not done. need a couple more things i'll get later on tonight.

seriously, i can't stop buying food again. i wanted cheesy crust pizza so i bought the frozen kind, cut it up and put it in a large freezer bag. i also bought boneless sole fillets, a pack of them for $10 so then of course i had to buy tartar sauce to go with it. :P

it's normal to buy food, but have never bought this much when i wasn't b/p let alone condiments like this but that's because i was never much of a condiments person just because i didn't really think about it. i've grown in my cooking so much :) i was more like stocking up on club packs of chicken thighs and things that i liked but always lacked variety. i've just got so much now. it's awesome. and i like that it lasts me. "normal" people will go through that pizza box with a friend or maybe by themselves idk like in one sitting whereas i know that it will last me quite a while, same with the mini muffins i bought. i'm definitely not saving money though because of all these condiments i'm purchasing, plus digestive aids, electrolytes... i am not saving money.

i had to return the Ardenes clothing because the flared pants are way too long. i should've just ordered them from Aerie because they have my size in short, so you can order the length that's suitable for my size. i also didn't like the sweater. i'm just gonna get my Aerie and Lululemon like i want lol. i've got 2 more items from Ardenes in transit and i'll see if i like those.

but really, my next big shopping trip will be value village because i've 60% off due to my big donations :) so that'll be cool. i'll do that next semester i think when i need warmer clothes. i'm good for winter atm. of course i purchased a bunch of shorts when i got to omaha but they were already oversized. some are so ridiculously big that it doesn't even look good with a belt, but some can hang on my hips though instead of my waist so it can actually look kinda nice, so i'll keep them for now.

the hips thing is like so hard for me to grasp lol because i don't think i ever really had big hips. i think i was just bloated. i never had big hips and i think that my hips now definitely grew but idk, i guess time will tell. i believe that they did, alongside my legs and like every other body part. nah it's so weird and icky how growing just like doesn't stop because i swear i grew after age 25. when i was like 20, i could still fit into kids shoes and obviously i can't now. i think someone said online that a lot of undergrads must have eating disorders because they're so small and it's like nahhhh i think they're just still growing. it's not abnormal to look like that. it's the mid 20s that you see change everywhere.... it's true that some are bigger from a younger age and so it seems they don't change very much. but most people get bigger later on just because that's how it works. but yeah, it still feels very hard to tell with me because i have definitely increased in muscle mass over the years and lost fat but the water retention that i go through displays a different story. it's impossible to tell until that's lost/ or managed. that's why i take a water pill daily now. i don't know what difference that makes but when i do actually get healthcare, i know for a fact that i should be prescribed diuretics for my kidney disorder because the fluctuations are absolutely insane for me and i'm glad it was discovered because it never made sense to me. i know myself and i just don't eat that much and that consistently to warrant such a massive increase on the scale especially if you take my gut issues into account. many, many times i will not be consistent because my stomach just doesn't let that happen, so it's like, in light of that, it's even more nonsensical. but at least i know some extent of it and i can try and prevent it the way i know how. if i could eat freely, i would, but it always hurts to. and now that i feel that i have evidence of such, it's like i can't keep making the same mistakes. some people just can't eat that much without pharmaceuticals. and i don't want to overexercise to be able to eat that much physically because the portions are still too big and it will be very bad when i stop because no one can sustain overexertion forever, not to mention with health issues. so i'm pretty confident that i now have the awareness and the ability to apply changes that will prolong this 'way of life' if you will. it's really unfortunate the amount of suffering that i had to go through to reach this point and when i think about it, it's just like, it's so crazy to me because if the goal was enduring anorexia, why didn't you just treat the real problem earlier so i could've gotten here quicker? make it make sense...... so that's been my thought process recently. but anyway, it all lead me to this moment, so. unfortunately the only way for most of us to learn is to go through with it. and most adolescents who go through this enduring anorexia, upon reflection, it just looks like these parents have a lot to do with keeping their kids sick. some kids, they know nothing about cico. i didn't even have the capacity to learn that until i was 25. so like, i don't even think these kids really had that much knowledge or awareness. so essentially, adult AN is an entirely different wavelength. i just feel like my life has been a waste and i'm really insecure about my age. i know that i'm young but also like, my biological clock, you know. and it's just sad to me because i don't have the same life as some of the others and i think a lot of that is because of having been unwell past mid adolescent age but that's just a guess.

being aware of everything is definitely creating some of the best enduring anorexics. that's what happens when you realize nobody's fighting with you, but against you. we all operate from the lens of people helping us to fight our demons, that fighting the demon is the goal. apparently, it's not.

[baenxietydad]

Swynrpwrimo Task #27 - Fairy Talent

[tracker]

I'm not good at anything actually cool like art or singing lmao and I didn't feel like making a gif pack so uhhh what about "accidentally making characters neurodivergent when you didn't plan to, but they clearly are" and "thinking too hard about their music taste" or "knowing what little bits they do in their daily life"

Here's a collection of music-based bits, vocal stims, etc that Mu-yeol will do with an explanation for each below! Not at all exhaustive lmao. Some of these are used as vocal stims others are just song-based "bits" he does.

Like Being Shot By A Bullet - Baek Ji Young

This is is a bit!

Technically this is, like a very popular sad Korean breakup type song, but Mu-yeol will reference it all the time. Like, if Nemo grabs the last dumpling or piece of kimbap as he's also reaching for it, he'll look at him and sing the line that translates to "like being shot by a bullet", as in like, "wow, beTRAYal"

Once In A Lifetime - Talking Heads

This is a bit! He'll use the "well! how did I get here?" sometimes when he walks into a room and forgot why lol

Taeyang Singing To The Crowd

This one is a stim, this moment has been memed on K-pop and Korean internet for years. Mu-yeol isn't super online, like he uses Spotify and reads John Darnielle's tweets, and there's some educational YouTube channels he's discovered and checks periodically for new nerd content, that's p much it, but this video has appeared in the Bae family WhatsApp chats so he knows it and it got stuck in his brain.

Feel Like Cinderella Naega Byeonhae!

Stim, lol. THIS one got stuck in his head because of it being played at K-pop dance night while he was working at Pixie's. And idk Nemo probably likes TXT and everyone who likes TXT got that line stuck on repeat when this song, Cat & Dog came out. Mu-yeol has listened to this song willingly maybe a total of twice but that line is in the stim rotation, comes out while cleaning the house a lot.

Foreign Object - The Mountain Goats

This one is a bit; if something, usually an inanimate object or Karen the squirrel annoys him, he'll deadpan "I'm gonna stab you in the eye with a foreign object."

No Spill Blood - Oingo Boingo

This one is a very ongoing bit and has been a stim off and on for like...over 20 years now. If it's a stim he'll repeat the chorus by himself. If it's in bit format, it's like a call and response between him and whoever else, usually if it's been quiet for too damn long. When Nemo was a kid, to tell him it was time to settle down and pay attention to him, he had to mix up the methods to get his attention. In the rotation was using the chorus of No Spill Blood. "Nam-min, What! Is the law?" "No spill blood!" "And who makes the rules?" "Someone else!" at this point little Nemo would usually come running to see what Appa was going to tell him to do. There was a variety of songs he'd make call and responses out of -- mostly much more Normal ones, a lot of Shinee or 1st gen K-pop songs, but that's probably the weirdest one. Anything that Nemo would've grown up listening to just because his father did could've been used.

Sinaloan Milk Snake Song - The Mountain Goats

This one's a stim lmao. Sometimes WILL do it on purpose though when he's trying to tell someone something - usually Nemo because Nemo gets all of his TMG references even though 95% of them are against his will, just by absorbing it growing up.

Beautiful Liar - Monsta X

This one's a stim, when he's under stimulated in his environment.

Monsta X is like, THE K-pop group he really likes independent of "oh, my son loves them so I got into them" or "I mean it's BTS! Nobody loves BTS more than middle-aged Koreans living abroad." There's a couple groups or artists he follows casually because everyone likes pop music to SOME extent and they make pop songs he likes, but Monsta X is the one he like...genuinely keeps up with. Like he will live-text his brother in the music industry in South Korea his reactions to the albums and music videos, he can tell you who is singing what line without looking it up, that's his silly little group he likes. Joohoney's verse on Beautiful Liar lives in his head rent free, and it's probably one of the songs he'd show someone to try and get them into the group too.

Cà Phê - Min

Stim! One of the man reasons he began learning Vietnamese tbh. Came across this song and "Ngồi uống cà phê đến tối / Không giờ rồi mà anh chưa tới / Cà phê cứ tí tách rơi / Anh quên mất em rồi" simply took over his life. This is also a great song to zone out and like physically stim to, just put in on and do your little dancey dance to while you're doing chore. Idk how to explain it but something about it just scratches the neurodivergent brain.

No Children - The Mountain Goats

Stim!

He'll just be reading in his room and quietly go "...and I hope you die! ... I hope we both die!" for no reason

[sethbywi035]

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[doorplays]

Door Talks: Tilt and its Effects in Gaming

This article was made with some help from monocots! She helped beta read this article for readability.

After a long and stressful day, a certain gamer turns to one of the hobbies that give them joy: gaming. They turn on the computer and boot up their game of choice. They play a few games, but they find a certain irritation growing in them. Maybe it’s because of the constant losses, maybe it’s because of unsatisfactory games, but their frustration just grows and grows. They find themselves even blaming their teammates at some points, or worse, even throwing expletives at them!

How could their hobby betray them like this? A hobby that was supposed to give them joy is instead giving them rage!

They come to discover, later on, that they’re actually tilted after all that gaming. And so, they realize that they should take a break and do something else.

Fellow gamers, that gamer is me. That gamer has been me multiple times across the years. And let me tell you, it is so annoying to be tilted when you want to be the opposite of that! So now, I want to talk about the concept of tilt, my experiences with it, and how I try to manage it.

WHAT IS TILT?

Tilt in gaming doesn’t seem to have a set definition, but the way I define it is that it is this feeling of frustration and anger people sometimes get while playing games. Usually, it arises after trying and failing to beat a boss, getting unlucky with rolls, or after a string of losses. It’s a sort of boiling anger that slowly bubbles over, affecting one’s enjoyment of a game.

People react differently when under this state. Some people spiral into self-pity, thinking if only they were better players they could just claw themselves out of this rut. Some people blame their teammates, cursing their fortune that they ended up getting queued with people who don’t match their energy. And some even end up throwing their controllers in rage!

Being tilted is a rough situation to be in. I’ve experienced it many times, more often than not only realizing I was tilted when I’m already deep into the feeling. Interestingly, the feeling manifests somewhat differently with different games. I find that interesting, and it makes me want to see if there is a common point where tilt can manifest. So thus, I’ve decided to explore my own feelings with this article! I’m now going to talk about the different games I’ve played where these feelings of tilt often manifest.

MAGIC THE GATHERING, OR HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE HEART OF THE CARDS

So, Magic: the Gathering. A game that’s been going since 1993. It’s a two-player card game wherein you build a deck out of cards you collect from packs. You put lands that you draw from your deck on the battlefield so you can cast the spells that you also draw from your deck. Some spells deal damage directly to the opponent, some let you summon minions that can deal damage to the opponent via combat, and others do a wide array of other tricks. You win when you put the opponent’s life down from 20 to 0. The card game has been playable in digital form since 2002 by way of MTG Online, and has once again gotten another digital client with the release of MTG Arena last 2019. The latter digital client is how I got into the game.

The nature of this card game now having a digital client has made it more accessible. It has also given an unexpected replayability to it. Whereas before to find matches you need to find local game stores, now you can just queue up and wait for the game to find you a match. It’s also easier to make decks since the economy in-game is different from in real life as long as you play consistently. You can easily play with cards that in actuality cost $60 or so.

I enjoy the game a fair bit. I enjoy the deck-building aspect, where you can choose a wide variety of cards to play and various ways to win. When you win, especially when you win from what seems to be a bad position, it feels really good. But the losses feel invariably bad. Some of my losses are due to me misplaying and sequencing my plays incorrectly, wherein I should have cast this spell first instead of the other one. Even fewer I feel are the losses that feel good, where both players slung spells and weathered each others’ storms, only for the opponent to draw their winning card. But a lot of my losses are due to plain bad draws, typically where I either draw too few lands to play my spells or too many lands and not enough spells. And losing due to RNG just feels bad.

What’s more, in order to maintain your collection, the game encourages you to win more. The more you win, the more gold you get. Though there are daily quests that don’t rely on wins, there’s still the optional 15 dailys wins AND optional 15 weekly wins. And it gets tiring, chasing those wins when you get loss after loss. With how easy it is to get into a new match, it can be so easy to get yourself into a tilting spiral of a lose streak.

There’s also the limited form of communication MTG Arena has. You can’t chat with other players directly, but you have set phrases you can say to them, like “Hello,” “Good game,” “Oops,” etc. More often than not, however, these phrases are used by players to annoy other players, with them saying “Oops” when the opponent makes a misplay, or right before they win. This is why most players just mute the other player so they prevent the tilt they might cause. Part of me wishes that we can freely chat with other players, but it’s difficult when there’s still the risk of players being toxic just because they can be.

The game itself can be fun, but the way the digital client gives you the opportunity to play more games and reward you for wins and sort of punish you for losses… it feels rather bad.

OVERWATCH 2 (DEAD GAME BTW)

I got into Overwatch around 2016 or 2017. I enjoyed it a lot, and I found some good friends because of it. Then I stopped playing because I disagreed with Blizzard’s politics. I found myself playing it again earlier this year however, and played it more when some friends invited me to play with them.

I can describe it as like… a MOBA, but in FPS form. You play as your hero of choice, and each hero has abilities unique to them. You work with 4 other players so that your team can achieve victory.

I like the variety of heroes. I like how explosive some fights can be. It can be exhilarating to play with how fast it is. However, it is somewhat reliant on you and your teammates being in sync with each other. You can’t just go off on your own and save the day (though there are times you can if you’re good enough).

Blizzard implemented team chat and all chat in this game so that you are able to communicate with not just your team, but everyone in the match. You can use just team chat to coordinate strategies, and use all chat to, well, chat with the opponents. There’s also voice chat so that you can freely talk without having to type, since it’s hard to shoot and type at the same time. While this kind of setup lends to more robust chats, it also allows for more toxicity.

Playing this game, I realize that not only do I need to be in a sharp mindset to be able to frag out and deal with the opponents, but I also need to have a positive mental attitude, lifting the spirits of my fellow teammates when needed. Because when they get tilted, it affects their play, and affects our team’s overall chances of winning. What’s more, they can take their tilt out on the whole team, which would then tilt us too! A sort of vicious cycle…

Let’s pretend to get into a game. So here we are, you go queue up in the night on Quick Play queue. You get matched with 4 people against 5 other people and you brawl out. Your side gets annihilated. No matter, you all respawn, but end up losing again. What’s happening? You think you’re playing okay, so maybe it’s because of the other players! How dare they affect your fun with their sub-optimal play!

But why is it such a crime to be sub-optimal?

I’ve been in this situation a fair amount of times wherein I know in myself that I’m doing good, but if only the other players can just capitalize on the openings I give them, or if they were just able to confirm the kills… This is unfair though. I’ve just met these randoms, I can’t expect them to read my mind. I can only control what I myself can do.

And it’s easy to forget, but I play this game to have fun, not to win. Those are two different things!

Nonetheless… why does losing in itself feel bad? Maybe I should play a game that isn’t competitive…

FINAL FANTASY XIV (WHICH IS FREE UNTIL LVL 70 AND STORMBLOOD)

Which leads us to this game! FFXIV is a game I’ve been playing more of recently. It’s really fun to play with friends and experience the world! I’m done with the main story, so I’m just levelling my classes right now, since with this MMO, you can become every class and level them all up to the level cap instead of just being stuck to one class.

Fights and content in FFXIV are typically done via duties. The term “duty” is what FFXIV uses for most content wherein you explore a different area, fight bosses, etc. Duties are instanced content, meaning that the game whisks you away from the overworld and into unique areas so that you can do certain fights, dungeons, and other quests. There are many unique duties in FFXIV, which speaks to the volume of content its team has managed to churn out over the years!

While I’ve been having a lot of fun recently, there are still points where I’d get tilted. More often it’s while I’m doing hard content like EXs, Unreals, and Savages. These are the terms FFXIV uses to denote duties that are more difficult than usual. The rewards for completing them are 1. the satisfaction of clearing the fight itself, 2. better equipment, 3. better fashion items, and sometimes 4. miscellaneous collectibles like mounts and minions.

The way tilt manifests in this game for me is in these difficult duties. It’s either I try to learn the fights and invariably make mistakes, or when I’ve mastered the fight and am in the farming phase, and for some reason, keep being beaten by the boss. The former feels bad even though I should be kind to myself: I’m still learning! I should cut myself some slack! But there’s always this nagging feeling that I’m not good enough, that I need to be better than I currently am. It’s a terrible feeling.

The latter, however, is just plain RNG sometimes. It’s another case of me cooperating with other random people, though this time it’s 7 other people who should have an idea of the fight itself. In FFXIV, you have the option of making in-game lobbies inviting other people to beat a fight, then have everyone roll for the loot fairly. It’s just, in some cases, you all just plain don’t beat the fight. It feels bad because of lost time, but that really is part of what you sign up for in some cases, and you just have to take the L and move on.

There’s also the in-game PVP mode. FFXIV has a fair amount of PVP duties you can do. There’s a game mode called Crystalline Conflict (CC), with similar gameplay to Overwatch except that you’re still using your class skills. A game of CC feels immensely shorter than a game of Overwatch, though, which is probably a reason why I experience less tilt with this game. Communications in this game mode are similar to MTGA, so there’s also less opportunity for toxicity. I do get annoyed when people spam “Good match!” even if the match isn’t finished, as I usually interpret this as them already thinking the game is lost. There’s also another game mode called Frontlines, where 3 teams, each team comprising of 24 players, fight for victory. The utter chaos and utter volume of players is a bit overwhelming, but once I got used to it I have lots of fun. It does get annoying sometimes though when stuff doesn’t go my way, but there’s something about this game that is rather… chill?

While I rarely get tilted by the casual duties, there are times when I do experience getting tilted, though usually because other players decide to be toxic. In FFXIV, there are daily duties you can do to level up your character and get other benefits. Early on in my playthrough, I had this party in this dungeon. I decided to queue in as a healer since I wanted to practice the role. But there was this player who kept criticizing my choices without giving suggestions. Why am I doing this, why am I doing that? In the end, I accidentally got disconnected, and while I was still willing to continue when I got reconnected, I found they already kicked me out of the dungeon. It was very disheartening.

Ultimately, though, FFXIV in my opinion isn’t as tilting as the other games I’ve listed, but there are some instances of tilt nonetheless.

SO WHAT DO I THINK OF TILT?

Now that I’ve examined these games and how they tilt me, I found some commonalities.

While competitive games can be fun, their competitive nature really incentivizes winning. Even in sports, games have always had winners and losers. So much so that when other players see you aren’t playing optimally, they may accuse you of “throwing,” or intentionally losing a game. It makes me want to ask: is winning really the goal, or is it to have fun? Would the effort you made in a game only matter if you win? Would the fun you had be poisoned if you lose?

This win-lose dichotomy is interesting because as much as I hate to admit it, it matters to most people. Wins feel good, and losses feel bad. I think it would be good game design to make it so that winning doesn’t matter as much, and that players still get to be satisfied even when they lose. But it’s hard to write this when the very DNA of competitive games rewards winning.

And what of the games that aren’t competitive? People still tilt when they farm for hours and they still don’t get that item they want. They tilt when RNG does not favor them in some fights. This leads me to think that tilt is less a win-lose thing and more an expectation thing: when despite all odds, what you want to happen does not happen, you get disappointed. When it stops happening over and over, you get tilted. It seems as though tilt is a factor of patience: how much time are you willing to spend to try and get what you want?

Tilt is also something that can be caused by other people. When people intentionally anger you and troll you, your own emotions can rise against them. Being tilted is an emotional state brought about not just by the misalignment of expectations, but also by unexpected factors like this. It feels like tilt is exacerbated by a loss of control in one’s games.

I think, with all of this, I would define Tilt as an emotional state brought about by the stress of both unmet expectations and unexpected outcomes in games.

HOW DO I DEAL WITH TILT?

Now that we’ve defined Tilt, I think now I want to talk about how I manage it.

I certainly think that when playing games, I want to have fun most of all. I’d like to think winning doesn’t matter as much for me, but on some level, it still does. I’ve realized all the more that your mindset is important when it comes to your games and even your hobbies. You have to be aware of your own mental state and you have to know what you are aiming for when it comes to your games. Are you out here to farm specific items. Do you just want to relax? Do you want to get wins? Know your goals and expectations. Try not to let things get to you too much.

In the course of playing games, there will be some bad apples who sow discord for the sake of it. They’ll try to tilt everyone they could just because it’s fun for them. When I encounter these people, I try to discourage them from doing their thing. Sometimes they’ll still continue being disturbances, however. It is an annoying part of gaming, but you can’t control everything. You can influence your team's strategy, but you can't control their aim and shooting. You can build your deck, but you can't control the cards you draw. While you can try and influence your surroundings, you can’t force the outcome you want. You can only control your own reaction to outside events.

I try to remember this, but sometimes tilt still gets to me. Maybe I played one too many games, maybe I’m chasing that one win that would give me satisfaction despite a chain of losses. Maybe I’m just in a bad mood because of the day’s events. It might take me a while to realize it, but when I see that I’m too tilted, I just stop playing and take a break. If something isn’t giving you joy, you should stop interacting with it for as long as you deem necessary. It might take days or even weeks before you get to play again, heck, maybe you need to stop entirely. In the end, you have to prioritize your own happiness.

Being tilted is difficult. But with enough emotional awareness and patience, you can combat that feeling and enjoy more of your games. Enjoy your day, gamers!!

[potter-imagines]

Smoking 🍃 w/ Your Boyfriend Fred Weasley...

Pairing: Fred Weasley x Reader  Prompt: Thought this was an interesting idea since I think we can all agree the Weasley Twins were def dealers lol

 (I’m still on vacation I just had this one in my drafts so I finished it up)

Warning: mature, sexual, weed, smoking, swearing, probs more.  If mentions of drugs makes you uncomfortable or you just don’t like it, don’t read this please! as implied by the title, this is literally all about what smoking with Fred Weasley would include 

-      Okay lets face it

-       Everyone and their owls know Fred and George Weasley were the best, most trusted, ‘flower’ dealers in Hogwarts 🍃🍃

-       You knew this before you started dating Fred

-       It just came as a bonus after getting together

-       Fred and George are almost always a little high

-       They sell carts, wax, edibles and flower

-       Like they’ve got it all, and the best quality

-      Their edibles are only for the brave; half the time you get an out of this world high, and other times, your skin is bright pink for a week from their trick

-       Lee Jordan also helps them with sales, the three of them are by far the biggest stoners in your year- probably in the whole castle

-       Seeing as most Slytherins’ did lines in the bathroom and in their dorms, Fred and George hardly sold to Slytherins

-       Most of the money the twins make goes towards saving for their dream joke shop

-       But Fred loves to buy you gifts when he has the chance

-       Like flowers, a bracelet, butterbeer, candies, books, etc.

-       He adores spoiling you

-       Fred never makes you pay if you wanna pick up from him

-       But he usually prefers you smoke with him or him and George

-       “You’re just so adorable when you’re high, sweetheart, I don’t wanna miss a thing. Plus, I’m scared you’ll tweak like a minx if you’re alone.”

-       Munchies galore

-       You guys will smoke late at night in their dorm with Lee

-       George is the designated snack man and will sneak into the kitchen before your smoke session

-       Lee shoves towels under the door and closes the vents

-       You would probably be the one enchanting the room so the smell doesn’t get out, but Fred really couldn’t care if anyone smelled it

-       You’ll usually smoke out the window, then trudge over to Fred’s bed and plop onto of him

-       “Jeeze, I think someone took one too many hits.”

-       Fred, George, and Lee will mess around, laughing loudly as they pass a blunt amongst the group

-       If it’s your first few times smoking, you’d probably just sit in Fred’s lap on the ground, staring off at the floor

-       Fred loves to tease you when you’re high

-       “Earth to Y/n- come back to us please.”

-       “Lovie, you’re eyes, they’re bloodshot as hell!”

-       Lots of kisses

-       You guys don’t make out too much after smoking as it’s nearly impossible for the both of you

-       Dry mouth is a bitch

-       Fred is vvv handsy when high

-       Like he needs to be touching your skin somehow

-       Whether he places you on his lap with his arms around you

-       Or laying together in his bed

-       Or holding hands on your walk back to the castle after smoking in the forest

-       Likes to pinch your butt when you’re walking up the stairs

-       He doesn’t really like when you’re high in public

-       He can tell when you’re nervous and start getting fidgety, so he’ll ask you to go on a walk with him to calm you down

“Angel, let’s go to the lake, yeah? Think you could use some fresh air, love.”

-       Fred will help you if you’re using a bong

-       “Here, love, just breathe it in until I tell you to stop and I’ll lift the top.”

-       COUGHING IN A SIN IN THEIR DORM

-       Whoever coughs first is labeled as a ‘little bitch’ according to George

-       Fred scolds Lee and George when they try to make fun of you for coughing

-       Like will murder them with his eyes and slap ts out of George’s arm

-       “Leave her alone… you know she doesn’t smoke as much as us… it’s completely normal, darling.” “Merlin’s sake, Fred. We’re just teasing her, mate. I think you could use the hit next him, maybe it’ll calm your hormones.”

-       George and you will have heated life debates

-       “No, George! Dinosaurs were here before people!” “That is not true, Y/n. Humans ruled the earth before those vicious stompers came roaming about. The dinosaurs- or should I say dinomurders- they killed all of humanity! They stomped on them, trapped the kids in those jeeps trying to eat them and ruined the kid’s fun and made destroyed the theme park-“ “George… that’s Jurassic Parks. It’s a fucking movie, you git.”

-       Fred likes to wrap his Gryffindor tie around your head and putting his sweaters over you “Aw, you look so cute, darling. I love seeing you in my clothes but my favorite thing is seeing you with nothing on at all.” “Fred! You can’t say that in front of George and Lee-“ “Oh believe me, Y/n. We sleep only feet away from you two- we’ve heard a lot worse. A lot worse.”

-       You guys will just lay around laughing for most of the night

-       You favorite times were when Fred and George would start talking about their childhood and sharing hilarious stories

-       George likes to mess with Fred when he’s high

-       For example

-       He’ll throw his arm around you and lazily lean into your side

-       Fred would watch closely from only a few feet away

-       George would then whisper into your ear, causing giggles to erupt from your chest

-       Which makes Fred jerk in annoyance

-       The weed didn’t help control his jealous- it magnified it if anything

-       Typically, he wouldn’t care since he knew George and you were extremely close friends

-       But Fred always got a little more… horny and possessive when the weed hit his bloodstream

-       Fred would pout until you noticed him and would comfort him

-       “Freddie, what’s wrong, bubba? You look so sad, aww.”

-       His jealously would diminish the second you moved away from George to his side

-       He loves when you hold his hand

-       Your favorite thing to do when high is play with his red, vibrant hair or when he would stroke and pet yours

-       Fred likes to attempt a braid in your hair

-       But he just ends up twisting two strands of hair in a coil then wrapped your black hair tie at the end

-       The gleeful, proud look on his face afterwards melted your heart so much you couldn’t tell him he failed miserably at a braid

-       You guys will place bets on who will slump first

-       It’s usually you or George

-       Fred and Lee will stay up until morning talking about life, school, quidditch, life goals, and anything else

-       Nights that you did get high with Fred in his dorm, he’d always insist that you sleep in his bed

-       He didn’t like taking the risk of you walking alone to your dorm room and risk getting caught

-       The last thing he wanted was you in trouble when he could’ve prevented it

-       You guys like to sneak into the kitchen after hours and make edibles together

-      Preferably marshmallow bar edibles or cookies

-       You liked to bring things with you for your smoke sessions with the twins

-       Like coloring books

-       A blanket, since Fred only sleeps with two which just seems criminal

-       A water bottle !!! this is a must

-       And some vanilla cherry Chapstick, Fred’s favorite

-       Fred’s favorite spot to smoke in along the Black Lake at night

-       Coming here with Fred will usually end with the both of you swimming in the lake

-       Whether it’s because he pushed you, you pushed him, or it was decided in the moment mutually that midnight was the perfect time for a swim

-      You liked smoking out by the lake as it was relaxing and fun with Fred

-       But you much preferred his dorm- it was the safest option by far

-       Fred loves getting high alone with you

-       Typically in his room as your roommates didn’t want people constantly in and out of the room as where Fred, George, and Lee were used to it

-       They made a handful of sales from their dorm room

-       Like a sinful amount 

-       It was by far the easiest way

-       Fred would light some candles before you arrived

-       A variety of sweets and snacks were sprawled against his bed

-        And warm fuzzy socks laid out for you 

-       He’d pack the bowl, then open the window

-       A blanket was thrown across the ledge so you could sit more comfortably

-       “What a gentleman!”

-       After smoking, Fred would carry you back to his bed

-       Most nights, you guys would just cuddle and whisper to each other

-       Fred never misses an opportunity to kiss you

-       On your lips

-       Forehead

-       Cheek

-       Nose

-       Neck (which will usually lead to something else with this boy)

-       Anywhere

-       Continuously giggling all night

-       Fred and you share your high thoughts

-       “But, just hear me out here. Is there another word for synonym?”

-       “Babe, who do you think came up with the alphabet? And how the fuck did they put the alphabet shit in alphabetical order.” “Darling, I am way too baked to even remember what fucking goes in an alphabet.”

-       High sex

-       Fred makes you feel so comfortable

-      Compliments you profusely 

-       Lot of laughing

-       He lovesssss going down on you when you’re both baked

-       Cause you make the cutest little noises, euphoria taking over your sense

-       He can stay down there for hours just basking in your sweet moans

-       Favorite is missionary so he can see every reaction gracing your face

-       Is only brave enough to try new sex adventures when he’s either high or drunk

-       Discovers that you both very much so enjoy his hand wrapped around your neck as he thrusts into you

-       And when you get on top

-       His touchy side comes out the most in these moments

-       Sloppy sex

-       But still vvvv fulfilling and pleasurable

-       He’ll whisper in your ear as his pace quickens

-       “You look so beautiful, sweetheart. So pure but so dirty just for me.”  

-       “Merlin, you’re bloody breathtaking with my fingers in your mouth, angel.”

-       “Freddie, you feel so good.”

-       You both finish within a matter of minutes, never lasting long when in this state

-       “…That was the best sex I’ve ever had, ever.” “Fred, lovie, you say that every time we have sex.”

“Cause it just keeps getting better and better!”

-       Cuddling for the rest of the night

-       Always making sure you’re dressed before George or Lee turn in for the night

-       Fred would fall asleep first when it was just the two of you

-       He talks in his sleep, nearly every hour he’d mutter something

-       In an odd way, you found it comforting

-       Especially when it’s your name he’s mumbling

-       Falling asleep in Fred’s arms

[just-day-dreami-ng]

F*ck it. *combines spec bio hyper fixation with murder cat books*

So uh.. I've had this idea for awhile now and finally got around to drawing it so... Warrior cats, right, but millions of years later and they've mutated to the point where you can't even tell their ancestors were cats? Yea idk either... Basically All Tomorrows but with sapient meowmeows. As to how this happened in the first place, maybe some human scientists discovered this population of wild cats with remarkable intelligence and were like 'yo let's f*ck their genes up so bad their DNA turns to silly string', or the cats were some how exposed to intense radiation that caused their DNA to rapidly mutate(remembers my theory from back when i was like 12 that warriors take place in a post-apocalyptic world) or maybe a little of both idk lol but here are some of the possibilities I came up with hehe im so sorry

1. The Thunder Badger, a possibility of a thunderclan cat descendant, far in the future. Since they were known as being one of the strongest/most buff of the clans, I thought it was only appropriate that for their descendants be very muscular/strong. Thunder Badgers were the largest permanent land dwellers during this stage of the clans' evolution, and were fearsome predators. They hunted by night and rested by day. They could no longer stalk prey efficiently due to their inconvenient size and build, and so opted for a precise style of group hunting. They would also creep up on sleeping prey, including Windclan's descendants, (unknowingly) consuming their own cousins. Like all clan cat descendants, they were usually communal, many forming anywhere from families of 5 to prides of over a hundred individuals. Natural selection would take it's course, and larger groups would find themselves much more successful and longer lasting than loners or small families.

2. Deeats, The smallest of the neo clan cats, Windclan's descendants, were extremely vulnerable to predators, including their canabilistic cousins. Their only strengths were in their speed, numbers, and high intelligence. Deeats were at first even smaller than the original cats. They had large, sharp ears and eyes to remain alert in their open moor habitat. They had two small horns upon their heads, short tails, and long legs ending in hoofed feet. Despite these features typically found on prey animals, Deeats maintained a predatory lifestyle, and devised ways to work together to ambush cut off their prey's escape routes. Hunting in packs, they could even take down prey much larger than themselves. Their long legs enabled them to stride across the moors all day if desired, which is just how the nomadic packs would often spend their days. Night-time ambushes were the biggest threat to their diurnal species.

3. One possibility for a more evolved Deeat, the Moor Chasers. They greatly increased in height, larger than modern deer. Their ears grew larger and more advanced, more in tune to their surroundings. Their eyes became more sharp, alert to threats and prey around them, and their legs grew longer and more powerful. Their hooves grew pointed and hooked at the end, useful for a variety of purposes, including traction while running and as weapons. Their horns became longer and stronger, now able to impale enemies. Packs would often sneak up on lone, unsuspecting thunder badgers and swiftly bring them down. The Moor Chasers became so efficient at hunting their brethren, they were one of the driving factors causing the thunder badgers to form tighter social groups and retreat farther into the forest, allowing for more sophisticated intelligence and eventually the formation of societies.

4. The other species deriving from Deeats, the Cavers. Some Deeat began to seek refuge in cave systems, where predators were less likely to find them. As generations of these Deeats progressed, their eyes adapted to see in the dark caves, their bodies becoming smaller and slinkier to slide into smaller tunnels and avoid their predators completely. Unknowingly and completely coincidentally, the Moor Chasers and Cavers would mirror the original structure of the mighty clan they'd descended from. However, the Tunnelers and Moor Runners wouldn't reunite again for a long time to come, following several cultural and historical discoveries. For now, and several million years to come, the Cavers would continue to live ellusive lifes in the dark, while the Moor Chasers dominated the grassy plains just outside the tunnels the Cavers called home.

5. A possibility for a more evolved shadow clan cat, I don't have a lot of info about atm, I'm still brainstorming, but the this concept was bioengineered with tough, furless, "scaly" skin by human scientists, as well as a barb on the top of their tails. Developed venom from their diet and eventually evolved to have spines along their back which distribute the venom.

6. An evolved skyclan cat, with more developed and powerful back legs used for leaping long distances. Has adopted a bipedal stance.

Anyways, these are just some concept art pieces for a big au project, please comment if you have any questions or ideas!

[space-mermaid-writing]

House Arrest [Loki X Reader] Chapter 1

Summary: You are Clint’s 'little' sister and actually a trained Shield agent. But you gave that up a few years ago and became a Chef, because you wanted a normal live. Then one day Natasha shows up at your door and takes you to the Avenger Tower for a while for security reasons.

Tags: Reader is an former Shield Agent, chef!reader, Reader Barton, 2012 Avenger vibes, everything is still alright, Slice of Life, Avengers Family, Loki has a good heart, still the god of mischief, Slow Burn, mention of food and cooking

Read it on AO3

Chapter 1: New Home

It's just before midnight when you finally get off work. You really like your job, but the hours are murder. Being a chef at one of the most expensive five-star restaurants in Philadelphia has its price. You take off your apron, which has hardly any stains from the last few hours on it, and throw it in the wash. The white jacket goes neatly into your locker and is replaced by a cardigan and a scarf. It’s a cool night. With a last good bye to your colleagues, who are still putting the dishes into the dishwashers, you make your way home.

The night is dark, but the streets are lit by lanterns and the windows of closed stores. Even if it had been pitch black, it wouldn't have worried you to have to walk alone through the empty alleys. Last year a guy had tried to rob you and threatened you with a knife. You had given him a broken nose and several stab wounds in the shoulder. After all, you had been trained at Shield. But the poor guy didn’t know that.

Half an hour later you arrive at your apartment. It's more functional than nicely furnished, and everything is a bit of a pick 'n' mix. But you don't mind it, because you spend most of your time at work anyway. At home you don't feel such great importance to culinary variety when it comes to your own food. A pizza or French fries with ketchup were always welcome. After all, you've been standing at the stove long enough at work. Tired, you decide to wait until breakfast for your next meal and, after a quick change of clothes, just fall into bed.

Fortunately, the next day is your day off. You make good use of it and sleep in. Afterwards you have an nice brunch with eggs, bacon and toast and after a short shower you go into town to do some errands. The sun is shining warmly from the sky and it's a beautiful spring day. If this holds up until the weekend, maybe you'd visit the weekly market and see what exotic and rare foods you can grab there. You love these little trips, even if you rarely find the time.

About two hours later and with three full shopping bags, you re-enter your apartment. It's on the second floor of a rather nondescript building, but the interior is very modern, with pastel-colored, high walls. You put everything in the kitchen cabinets and then brew yourself a tea/coffee, with which you make yourself comfortable on the couch and turn on the TV. It's time to relax a little. So you zap through the programs, watch the rest of an episode of your favorite series and then decide to watch a reality series, which is not exactly known for its quality but is entertaining. So the noon goes by until suddenly the doorbell rings. You get up to see if it's the mailman or a neighbor with a package. But a look through the peephole shows you that it is neither. Surprised, you open the door "Nat!" Natasha Romanoff is a friend of you and your brother, as well as the godmother of his children. But due to her job you rarely see each other. "Hey," she greets you with a small smile. "Can I come in?" "Sure." You lead her into the living room, where you turn off the TV. "What can I get you? Tea, coffee, milkshake?" "Coffee is fine." You disappear into the kitchen for a moment as she sits down in the armchair. Natasha was a rare visitor. Mostly she came with some news from Clint. You see him even less because he spends what little free time he has mostly with his wife and the two kids. Understandable. You don't hold it against him and try to visit them on holidays or for birthdays at her farm.

It doesn't take long until you return to the Russian woman with a new cup and some pastries and sit down on the couch again. "Well," you ask her curiously. "What do I owe the pleasure?" Natasha reaches for her cup. "It’s rather inconvenience. But first tell me if you’ve observed anything unusual lately." Questioningly, you look at her. "What do you mean?" "Nothing weird? You sure?", she asks. "Tell me what I'm supposed to have seen, please," you prompt her, both impatient and confused. Natasha gets right to the point. "You're being monitored." "By Shield?" "By Hydra." Stunned by this news, you remain silent. Natasha uses this pause to drink her coffee. "Oh, this is really good." But you don't listen to her at all, because various thoughts are circling in your head. And again you try to remember if you have noticed anything: same people you met, vehicles, anything. But you got pretty used to your life and didn't pay attention at these things. "Anyway, I'm here to pick you up. For your own safety it’s best if you stay with us for a while," Natasha finally breaks the silence and you look up. "What could Hydra possibly want from me? I don't know any internal secrets anymore. There are better to kidnap than me." "That's what we're trying to figure out right now." "Well, the danger doesn't seem to be acute", you note. "If they wanted to grab me, I wouldn't be sitting here by now. Thanks, but I decline and prefer to stay here. I have my job and the apartment." And now that you know what's going on, you can pay attention and take the necessary precautions, too. "Thanks for warning me." Natasha, on the other hand, doesn't look like she gives you a choice. "You know Shield has its ways to convince you?", she reminds you, but you shrug. Why would such a large organization bother with a single civilian like you? "What does my dear brother say about this matter?", you ask instead. "He hasn't been informed yet." Ergo, they deliberately leave him out of it so that he can't protest. You know this kind of approach of Shield.

Clint understands and supports you in your civilian life, even though he protested the loudest back when you announced your exit. "How’s he?", you want to know from Natasha, who is now finishing her coffee. "He's alive." That can mean just about anything from being happy and healthy to badly hurt but breathing. Better than being dead, you guess. "He's out in Africa with Steve right now." "Busy, huh?" "As usual." She stands up as a sign that she has nothing more to say for the day, and you walk her to the door, where you bid her farewell. "We'll talk again soon," she promises, but admittedly you have little desire to do so right now. "Sure," you reply and close the door behind her.

Well, that were some news. You put her empty cup in the sink and pause thoughtfully by the window. How could you have missed Hydra's agent, you ask yourself while glancing out. Your new life made you too comfortable. But it also takes up a lot of time and energy. And anyway, you dropped out because you didn't want to be cautiousness all the time anymore. You wanted a normal life with a normal job and normal problems. Away from agents, assassinations and super powers. You didn't want to check every day on your way to work if you were being followed, secretly monitored or if someone else was out to get you. That's why you’ve chosen this life. With a sigh, you sit back down on the couch. The past never leaves you alone, you guess. But tomorrow would be a long day even without these new old worries.

~~

The advantage of being a chef is usually that you don't have to get up at the crack of dawn for work. Most Restaurants open at noon, some even in the evening. So does the one where you work. There are preparations to be made before opening time, but you can still sleep through the morning, do some housework, and then head to the restaurant in the sunny afternoon. That's where the trouble starts, though. Just as you're about to open your locker to change your clothes, someone taps you on the shoulder. It's your boss, who hands you a letter. You can tell immediately from his serious expression that something is wrong. And when you open the envelope, you discover your resignation. You look up, perplexed, but you lose out in the following discussion. You don't even get a decent explanation, and that’s what annoys you the most. You're pretty sure your skills aren’t the issue, neither is the way you work. Nor the way you treat your colleagues, with whom you get along very well, even if the tone among cooks is a bit rough. You go back to your apartment, now in a bad mood. It‘s unbelievable! The sunny weather seems like a mockery to you now, and the people you meet along the way are in far too good a mood, in your opinion. It will be hell to find another good job as this was.

Arriving back home you immediately get more bad news: your landlord put a notice on your apartment door. The bathrooms in the building will get completely renovated soon and will be unusable for several weeks. Plus the heavy construction noise during the day. And the water would be turned off. It would be best to find temporary substitute apartment, so they recommend. "Haha...ha..." You laugh dryly and unlock the door. Was that a coincidence? When Natasha had been here yesterday? Probably not. You know Shield's methods and that it’s easy for them to take away your job and your apartment just to get their way. You have two options: either you accept the offer before Shield gets any more stupid ideas, or you run away and try to hide. With a sigh you go into your bedroom and throw a suitcase on the bed, in which you pack clothes, the most important documents and some things from the kitchen you need for work. Not everything fits, so you add a second travel bag. Meanwhile, you think about who you could complain to. Your brother was a favorite target of yours, but he a) had nothing to do with this matter and b) was not in the country. Which’s a shame, because you'd really like to have him by your side right now. If you wanted to complain to Shield directly, Fury would probably be the best person to do it. But you hold too much respect for him to vent your anger to him. Maybe just the next Shield agent who would come to you on this matter would have to step in. You know someone would definitely get back to you. With one last look around your apartment, you leave it and lock the door. Then you shoulder your bag and make your way out.

Just as you're thinking about getting a large coffee from Starbucks down the street, a red sports car pulls up to the side of the road. Natasha at the wheel. "Hmph..." You walk over to her and throw your luggage in the back seat. Then you take a seat in the passenger seat yourself. "Just for the record, I'm not happy with this." "I can see that." She tries to give a sympathetic smile, but you know this is just a job to her. "Well then, off to the Bat Cave, Wayne." "Does that make you Robin?", the Russian asks, driving off. "I guess", you reply snippy, not interested in keeping the conversation going. Fortunately, Natasha wasn't exactly the talkative sort either, so you have some peace and quiet to get your thoughts in order.

It takes you just under two hours to drive from Philadelphia to New York with city traffic slowing you down a bit. Otherwise, you would have arrived earlier at the former Stark Tower. It's been the Avenger Tower for some time now, but that doesn't make much difference, except that Tony Stark seems to be too lazy to put the remaining letters back on it.

Natasha parks in the private underground garage and you take the elevator up to the grand lobby. She tells you about the current residents here. There’s the usual staff, who are of course always present. Of all the Avengers, Bruce Banner is living here permanently. "He actually hardly ever leaves the lab," the Russian explains. "I'm currently living here, too. Every now and then Thor stops by, but mostly he prefers to explore the world. And his brother Loki is here. There have been some...problems with him and he's sort of under supervision here. Tony trusts technology more than Asgard. The owner of the house, by the way, is out visiting an outpost right now." "There are even Avengers outposts?" Natasha nods as she walks you down the halls to the living area. "But don't tell Hydra." "Sure", you promise unfazed. "Speaking of which, if I want to go out to visit someone, do I need a key or how does this work?" "It's better if you stay here in the house for now. It's for your safety, after all." "For how long?", you want to know. The answer is short. "As long as necessary." "So I'm sort of locked in here”, you state. That's typical Shield. As soon as there's any problem, an agent is sent in to put everything in solitary arrest or quarantine. As long as it’s shielded from the rest of the world. Natasha stops in front of a door that is now yours, but doesn't look directly at you, which as much of an answer as you get. "I'll be fine on my own now, thanks," you smile politely but not genuinely at her, and after she assures you that you're free to move around inside the building, you head off with your luggage in your new apartment.

[blazehedgehog]

I've been thinking of getting into racing or driving games, particularly those where you're driving through or around cool landscapes (along the lines of OutRun 2 or Ridge Racer Type 4). What would you recommend?

The issue here is that a lot of modern racing games have ditched the idea of having cool race tracks and are now all just open world. To some degree, it's more cost effective -- being able to squeeze 20-30 race tracks out of a small handful of biomes makes more sense than custom-building every single environment for every single track.

There are two upfront that I would recommend wholeheartedly, but note that they are older games for this very reason. But they are both my go-to examples of "they don't make games like this anymore."

The first one is Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2. I grew up playing the PC version, which doesn't work anymore on modern Windows. I later discovered EA actually pulled a kind of scam with games like this where they'd develop a "lead platform" version for the Playstation 2 and then hand off porting duties for other platforms to a different development team entirely that would then effectively make a similar-yet-completely-different game that would release on the PC, Gamecube, and Xbox.

PS2 version gets higher fidelity, more realistic looking visuals. It also gets tweaks to the mechanics the other versions don't have, and some bonus content, too. I want to say this specific game got EA in to trouble in the class-action-lawsuit sense and later multiplatform games had to have better feature parity.

Anyway! All of this is to say: try to play the PS2 version. But obviously I grew up with the janky PC port, so other platforms are... "fine."

I bring up Hot Pursuit 2 because it's the last game before a great sea change hit the Need for Speed franchise. By which I mean the first "The Fast & The Furious" movie came out. After that, Need for Speed began a long journey down the road of wet cities at night, neon lit car skirts, and nitrous oxide.

Hot Pursuit 2 is the last game to use traditional definition of "exotic cars." It is the culmination of everything started with the original Road & Track Need For Speed game from 1997. It is Porsches and Lamborghinis and Corvettes.

But more than that, it's a game about globetrotting, exotic locales. You race around an active volcano in Hawaii. And through the vast forest of California Redwoods. Or around the ruins of Rome. Every track is a scenic locale. It's never outrageous, but I like it well enough that I go back to the game a few times a year.

If Hot Pursuit 2 isn't bombastic enough, then I would recommend Beetle Adventure Racing for the Nintendo 64.

Beetle Adventure Racing is basically just Need for Speed: Kids Edition, and I say that in the most loving way possible. Instead of exotic supercars, you get one vehicle: a 1998 Volkswagen New Beetle. There are different models with varying statistics, so you do at least get a little bit of variety.

But the star of the show are the tracks. A bit like Need for Speed, you visit a variety of exotic locales, but this time, things have been cranked up to be a little over the top. Take the above screenshot, from Inferno Isle: like Hot Pursuit 2, you're racing around a tropical map featuring an active volcano. But here, not only do you race inside of and through the volcano, outside the volcano has plenty of sights to see: extended sections along sandy beaches, through a quaint coastal town, through ruins being sieged by an offshore pirate ship, and through a section that's basically Jurassic Park, complete with a rampaging Tyrannosaurus Rex that tries to chomp your car.

There's only five or six tracks in the whole game, but they're all similarly jam packed full of weird, wacky, wild stuff. Dragons and frozen UFOs and Dracula's castle, all presented in this pseudo-realistic style. It's a weird game but it takes itself absolutely seriously, and for that, I love it to pieces. I also just love how big and varied each track is. There are dozens of alternate paths and secret shortcuts everywhere so replayability is extremely high. Top five racing games of all time, for sure.

If you want something a little more futuristic, may I recommend GRIP: Combat Racing. I won't write a whole lot about this, given I have a review over on BLTN.net, but graphically, it's cut from the same cloth as something like F-Zero GX, but with modern visuals. Space stations, martian landscapes, and wrecked ships await. It's quite a looker, but I maintain my love/hate relationship with its gameplay.

And for my last recommendation of this post, if you want something truly fantastical looking, may I recommend Distance.

Distance is like somebody took the aesthetic of Tron and turned it in to a video game. It's all cyberspace neon futuristic cities. It's very lovely to look at.

The real strength of Distance is just how much of it there is. This is a game with an active and robust Steam Workshop, where hundreds of excellent and varied tracks can be downloaded. A lot of them stick to the base neon aesthetic, but some tracks do try to branch out.

The gameplay of Distance is... well, it's described as a "Survival Racing Game." What this means is that it's sort of like Super Meat Boy with cars. You've got a jump button, and you can pop open this glider, and the whole point is to dodge obstacles and reach the end as quickly as possible.

Once you get past the initial learning period, you can pull off some serious acrobatics. It's become a very zen game for me and I love it to death. And like I said, there's basically infinite content for it at this point.

[victorluvsalice]

Sims Challenge Wednesday: Fallout 4

And for my second challenge -- one themed around the settlement-building mechanics of Fallout 4! Because that felt like a better fit than trying to do the main plot. . . here we go!

Fallout 4 Sims 4 Challenge

Premise: It was all going – fine, you suppose. Sure, you were living in an embarrassing imperialistic and xenophobic nation, which was fighting a terrible war with the other superpower over the last of the oil reserves in the world, but you yourself were doing good. You had a nice home in a little suburb, you could take advantage of personal domestic robots, you were getting enough to eat despite the food shortages – all in all, your life was pretty okay!

And then some asshole had to go and drop the bombs. By sheer luck, you’d been admitted to nearby Vault 111 mere minutes before the alarm sounded, and you made it there just in time. The staff there was very friendly too, telling you that your new life underground could start just as soon as you were decontaminated in these weirdly-cold pods. . .

210 years later, you wake to discover that:

a) you were totally lied to and you’ve been frozen for the past two centuries as part of some mad experiment

b) you are the only survivor of that experiment – everyone else’s pod failed, and a revolt by the security staff six months into your freezing means they all either died or skedaddled long before you woke up

c) oh, and the revolt was over dwindling food supplies, so you can’t even stay in the vault, you’ll starve

So out you venture into the world, to find – hmmm. People seem to be surviving, but they could probably use some help. Good thing you’ve got nothing but time on your hands. Time and the desire to make proper homes for the new friends you’re finding. Time to build a settlement and make it something this post-War world can be proud of!

Now if only you could shake the feeling you ought to be looking for someone. . .

This is a challenge loosely based around being the Sole Survivor of Fallout 4, specifically being the General of the Minutemen and building settlements. The goals are to build up the world of Brindleton bay from some ramshackle farms into a bunch of thriving settlements, create and manage a club for helping others and improving the world, and defeat the nasties that are making life harder for everyone else.

Packs required: Get Together, Get To Work, Cats & Dogs, City Living, Eco Lifestyle, Cottage Living, Island Living, Discover University, StrangerVille

Your Sim: Create your “Sole Survivor” in CAS. They can be a Young Adult or Adult, and have any traits. However, they are only allowed to have two outfits – a set of everyday wear (for everyday, formal, athletic, party, hot weather, and cold weather), and a set of underwear (for sleeping and swimwear). They will get more clothing as they survive out in the world.

Optional: Rather than start right out of the vault, you may play a brief one-week “pre-War” period with your Sole Survivor to gain some skills and whatnot. The Military or Law career is recommended if you want to follow the actual given backstories of the Fallout 4 Sole Survivors (Nate and Nora respectively), but you’re welcome to give them whatever pre-War occupation you like.

Their World: Set up the rest of the save file as per these guidelines:

Go to Brindleton Bay and wipe out all the existing architecture – you can keep the pre-made families, but not their houses. The apocalypse has happened, and the world has got to look the part! (If you really want, you can keep the lighthouse on Deadgrass Isle, but give a makeover to look wrecked.)

Pick one lot in either Sable Square, Whiskerman’s Wharf, or Cavalier’s Cove to serve as your “Diamond City” marketplace. This should include a small bar, a small clothing store, a grocery stall, a food stall, and whatever other stalls and vending machines you think your Sole Survivor could use to survive out in the wasteland.

In a different neighborhood to “Diamond City,” pick another lot to serve as your “Goodneighbor.” Build a lounge there (The Third Rail) with a bar, microphone for a singer, and plenty of seating. If you want, you can double up and have your lounge in the basement and put a little spa-type building (The Memory Den) up top. Feel free to throw in a goodies stall too.

All remaining mainland lots should be residential, and need to have the “Off The Grid” and “Simple Living” lot challenges enabled. You may enable other lot challenges or traits at your discretion (“Filthy” is recommended, given the state of post-nuke Boston in Fallout 4).

Pick two residential lots on the mainland (in different neighborhoods) to serve as “raider outposts.” Build up these lots to have three or four beds under minimal shelter, and off-the-grid compatible appliances. Each of these lots should have three or four Sims on it, all with either the “Mean,” “Hot-Headed,” “Kleptomaniac,” and/or “Slob” traits. Put all these Sims into a “Raider” club (you may choose your own gang name) and set their club activities to encourage them to “Be Mean,” “Fight,” “Swipe Items,” and “Sabotage Items.”

Set up the remaining residential lots with the bare minimum for survival: If the lot has Sims living on it, make a small hut for them to sleep in, with just enough beds for everyone, and one outhouse with a toilet and sink. No working lights, and they must have only a small fridge or cooler. If the lot doesn’t have Sims living on it, you can only have two beds maximum, and no food source at all. You can build whatever structure you wish there. Regardless of whether or not it is occupied, each residential lot must have a woodworking table, and an outdoor cooking station of some description. Other crafting items (candle-making, juice-fizzing, fabrication machine, robotics station, etc) may be placed at your discretion.

Choose an uninhabited lot for your Sole Survivor to start on – once they are moved in, set their money to zero.

Goals: Your Sole Survivor is looking to complete the following:

Build up every empty residential lot in the world so it can support at least five Sims, one pet, and one robot helper

Improve the occupied residential lots so everyone has adequate food, water, and shelter

Complete the Master Maker aspiration

Complete the Leader of the Pack aspiration as the “General of the Minutemen” and build up the club to full strength by befriending the other “settlers” in the world

Defeat all of the raiders in fights and force their club to disband

Rules:

Your Sole Survivor cannot have a normal job, as those just plain don’t exist anymore. They must earn their “caps” via selling things they have found or made (or, with the right traits, swiped) to other Sims, or via doing Odd Jobs for the people already living in the post-War society.

Your Sole Survivor is only allowed to purchase basic build mode items (e.g., walls and wallpaper, floors and flooring, roofs, doors, windows, columns), animal sheds, chicken coops, and basic pet supplies (food bowls and beds) directly from the catalog. Everything else must either be obtained by scavenging (dumpster diving for items or harvesting wild plants), building it themselves (making furniture at the woodworking table or using the fabricator), or “purchasing” it at the DC marketplace (either by genuinely buying it from a stall or visiting the lot and spending money on SOMETHING to represent a shopping trip). This includes clothing – you may either visit the marketplace once every three days to buy a new outfit for any category, or “scavenge” one by finding something that could reasonably contain clothing from a dumpster.

In order to increase the variety of their scavenging, your Sole Survivor may visit the Bramblewood of Henford-on-Bagley, or go on brief vacations to Granite Falls. Other locations depend on if you can make them look suitably post-apocalyptic (for example, creating a post-apocalypse Newcrest or Forgotten Hollow shouldn’t be too hard, but I think you’d be hard-pressed to justify San Myshuno!).

Your Sole Survivor must build up every lot in their world to the standards of a good settlement – enough food, water, and sheltered beds for all residents, along with power for items that may need it: Food is produced by farming crops and owning livestock. A small crop counts as 0.5 units of food; a tree or over-sized crop counts as one unit of food; a chicken coop with at least four chickens, a cow, or a llama counts as two units of food. (Yes, you are strongly encouraged to regularly trade animals for meat – or, if you feel bad, ingredients and produce.) You must have enough units of food to cover all residents (so a minimum of six). Water is produced by setting up dew collectors or water generators. Each dew collector or water generator counts as one unit of water. You must have enough units of water to cover all residents (again, a minimum of six). Sheltered beds are beds in an enclosed area with a roof. There must be one bed per Sim – you may use double beds, but they only count as one bed for one Sim! (Think of it as making sure there’s “spare beds” for anyone passing through who may stay overnight – Fallout 4 has traveling traders, after all!) Power is generated by generators, solar panels, and wind turbines – each provides one unit of power. You don’t technically need any power on your lots, but it will make your settlements happier if you can actually power things like salvaged TVs and computers.

Once a settlement is set up with all the basics, if it is empty, your Sole Survivor should go out and find homeless Sims to populate it. You may move the Sims in normally, or ask them to be roommates – though given your Sole Survivor will be moving to each settlement in turn to “renovate” it, it’s recommended you move in at least one Sim normally to look after everyone. Once you have all the human Sims, your Sole Survivor should adopt a stray cat or dog, then build a helpful robot to help with gardening, repairs, or generally just keeping people happy. Optional: If you have the Dream Home Decorator game pack, you may, at your discretion, allow your Sole Survivor to join THAT career and make use of it to renovate the lots of settlers who already live in the world. Given how buggy the pack is reputed to be, though, I’m not sure how much I recommend this! (Though I guess if you’re just willing to go room by room, since those gigs seem to work relatively well. . .)

Your Sole Survivor needs to form the “Minutemen” club to help out others in the wastes, by befriending other Sims living in the world and inviting them to join. The club’s required activities should include any of the activities from the following list: Be Friendly Tend Animals Tend Garden Fish Woodwork Work Out Build Robots Fabricate Objects Fight (Raiders)

Related, your Sole Survivor needs to get rid of the Raiders making life harder for the people just trying to survive in this world! Have regular fights between your Sole Survivor and their Minutemen versus the Raiders and keep track of the winners and losers – once each Raider has been bested in at least one battle, disband the club. Your Sole Survivor will then take over their outposts to turn them into functioning settlements. The Raiders themselves can either be moved out or rehabilitated and allowed to live in the new world so long as they don’t start too many fights.

Optional Hard Mode – Expand The Map: More space, more problems – rather than setting up in Brindleton Bay, set up in WINDENBURG. You are allowed two community lots to build up “Diamond City” and “Goodneighbor” in this instance, and a third of your choosing.

Optional Hard Mode – Join The Clubs: Your Minutemen are not the only faction out there in the Wasteland – there’s three others, and oh look, they all seem to hate each other. Set up three other clubs, one each for each of the mainland neighborhoods:

The Railroad – required activities “Debate,” “Hack,” “Be Mean (Institute),” “Be Mean (Brotherhood of Steel).”

The Brotherhood of Steel – required activities “Swipe Objects,” “Work Out,” “Be Mean (Railroad),” “Fight (Institute)”

The Institute – required activities “Build Robots,” “Use Science Objects,” “Fight (Railroad),” “Fight (Brotherhood of Steel)”

All members of these clubs should live and hangout on the same lot (The Old North Church and its basement for the Railroad; the Boston Airport for the Brotherhood (though if you think you can make the Prydwen, go for it); the CIT Ruins and the labs beneath it for the Institute). Make sure they all dislike each other, and make them all “invitation only” clubs. Your Sole Survivor needs to join all of these clubs, work toward becoming the leader of each other, then decide who stays and who goes based on your “ending:”

Railroad Ending – Disband the Institute and the Brotherhood of Steel once you’re the leader. Exile the members of each from the world.

Brotherhood of Steel Ending – Disband the Institute and the Railroad once you’re the leader. Exile the members of each from the world.

Institute Ending – Disband the Railroad and the Brotherhood of Steel once you’re the leader. Exile the members of each from the world.

Minuteman Ending – Disband the Institute once you’re the leader – at your discretion, the members may keep their lot, though they have to give up their basement labs and live in the ruins up top. The other two clubs may remain depending on how friendly their members are with your own Minutemen club. Check everyone’s relationships with each other – if the majority of either club hates the majority of the Minutemen, that club must be disbanded.

Given the size of this hard mode, I would recommend running it in tandem with “Expand the Map” above so you have more room to breathe with each club!

Optional Hard Mode – Automatron DLC: Create a placeholder Sim, get their Robotics up to ten, have them make a Servo, then kill the Sim and either let the Servo live on the lot alone or have them wander as a homeless NPC. In order to get access to the Robotics station, your Sole Survivor must find and befriend this Servo.

Optional Hard Mode – Vault-Tec DLC: One of your lots is not a traditional settlement, but an unfinished Vault-Tec vault! This settlement must be built entirely underground, and does not have any beds, water, or food when your Sole Survivor arrives. However, it does have at least three generators for power! Also, the first Sim you recruit to live there must have either the “Good” or the “Goofball” trait.

[asunshinepuff]

It Started with a Piano

🎶 Hello! Honestly, this may be my most anticipated fic ever. Not because it’s been requested of me a lot, but because I have wanted to write a fic with this song probably since I saw a marauders CMV with it.

Until today, I had no clue how to write this and never thought too hard on it, then suddenly I’m listening to the song and it clicks. Talk about Inspiration. So anyway, enjoy this piece of wolfstar fluff from their Hogwarts years!

If you want to listen along, here’s the link to the song that inspired me to write this. Or you could listen to the piano cover.

The song technically doesn’t start until Remus begins playing the piano but do with that as you will.

Anyways, I hope you enjoy! 🎶

.

When life leaves you high and dry, I'll be at your door tonight. If you need help, if you need help.

I'll shut down the city lights, I'll lie, cheat, I'll beg and bribe. To make you well, to make you well.

Remus opened the doors of the fifth-floor classroom, grateful to find it empty, not that he hadn’t asked Professor Flitwick for permission beforehand. He didn’t know how he would've explained this - given that he wasn’t taking music as an extracurricular. 

Avoiding his fellow marauders was easier than he had anticipated, though to be fair, he had already told James and Sirius the plan for their next prank. He had some spare time as they brewed the necessary potion.

Walking towards the piano in the back center of the room, he gently lifted the lid and propped it open before taking a seat at the bench. Running a soft hand over the ivory keys, he thought about the cords that he had put together late last night in the dorms. 

Listening to the song over and over until it was ringing in his ears. Humming softly under his breath, he pulled a notebook out of his pack and flipped through the pages. 

Taking a breath, Remus began to play the first notes of the instrumental beginning, relaxing as the familiar tune began to fill the air and his strong focus lessened as it neared the first verse. 

“When life leaves you high and dry, I'll be at your door tonight, if you need help, if you need help.” He sang aloud, content at this moment to be on his own.

When enemies are at your door, I'll carry you away from war. If you need help, if you need help.

Your hope dangling by a string, I'll share in your suffering. To make you well, to make you well.

Sirius had a song stuck in his head, it echoed throughout the day ever since late last night. He knew it was because of Remus, though he had no idea what that song meant. Remus had him listen to countless muggle songs on his tape player that were his favorites or songs that they had discovered together. 

It was fascinating to hear the variety of music that could be created with instruments and recorded, to the point that it became a habit for them within their dorms. 

Something seemed strange though, he couldn’t help but muse as James stirred the fluxweed and knotgrass together for their Polyjuice Potion. Why is it that Remus took off after class? The moon wasn’t for another few weeks so he wouldn’t be headed to the hospital wing. 

He found himself unconsciously humming the tune again. What was Remus’ reasoning for the song? Wait, he was writing while he was listening. Was that song the reason why he avoided the preparation for today? 

His eyes widened slightly at that. Wordlessly, he got up from his chair, grabbing his pack, and headed out the door- ignoring the protesting and curious voices of Prongs and Wormtail that followed.

Give me reasons to believe, that you would do the same for me.

There was no sign of Remus in his usual locations. Not in the library, or the courtyard fountain, by the fire in the Gryffindor common room, or the tree by the Great Lake- actively all the spots where he could be alone and have the Marauders come and find him.

Sirius found himself walking up the grand staircase to the fifth floor, lost in thought about Moony when a soft piano piece seemed to flow through the air from the closed corridor doors. Once again, he thanked the fact that his animagus was a dog. There was no way he’d be able to hear it clearly otherwise.

As he walked down the halls of the corridor, nearing the classroom, the piece grew louder. He recognized it. The song. But, this was different than just hearing the words of the original singer or the instrumental melody. 

Remus was singing? Not the quiet hums he was used to hearing, but strong and carefree. His voice was hypnotizing, melodious, and the song seemed effortless to sing. He couldn’t help but smile, Moony always seemed to surprise him. 

And I would do it for you, for you. Baby, I'm not moving on, I'll love you long after you're gone.

For you, for you. You will never sleep alone, I'll love you long after you're gone.

And long after you're gone, gone, gone.

“Give me reasons to believe, that you would do the same for me.” Remus sang to himself, faintly hearing the approaching footsteps of someone but it was already too late to stop.

“And I would do it for you, for you. Baby, I'm not moving on, I'll love you long after you're gone.” Another voice joined his own, one that was familiar. That brought a smile to his face, but right now made him only feel embarrassed. 

Pausing with a gasp and widened eyes, he quickly turned behind him. Sirius stood at the entrance of the classroom, leaning against the doorframe with a smile upon his face. Most likely filled with zero regrets, meanwhile, Remus could feel his cheeks beginning to flush at the fact that Sirius absolutely heard him. 

“Why’d you stop? You just reached the chorus.” Sirius said teasingly.

“Pads what… why are you here?” Remus replied with caution, pulling his hands away from the keys. The ebony-haired boy didn’t respond to him exactly, just pushed off of the doorframe and began making his way over to Remus’ side until he was at the bench and Remus had to look up to meet his eyes. 

“Well Moons, I wanted to find you. That, and you’ve gotten that song stuck in my head with your long hours of playing it last night.” He said with a chuckle as Remus’ eyes widened even further if it were possible. “Scoot over.”

Without waiting, Sirius placed his pack down on the floor beside the leather satchel that was already by the bench, then sat down to join his friend. Giving Remus a smile, he looks to the makeshift music sheet within the notebook, putting the melody together.

Remus stared at Sirius for a few seconds, stunned that he wanted to stay. Glancing down to their hands which were quite close together, he could feel the warmth radiating off of the other boy. 

He looks up to the notebook, then back to Sirius, watching as his grey-blue eyes scoured over the pages. “... Can you play?” He asked in curiosity.

Sirius looked at the tawny-haired boy beside him and nodded, “Mother dearest had a private teacher give Regulus and I lessons since I was five.”

At the look upon Remus’ face, which frequented whenever he spoke of his previous home life, he shakes his head. “I don’t play too often anymore, but I’ll make an exception for you.” He continued with a wink.

Remus chuckled exasperatedly, with a shake of his head, worry seeming to bypass for the moment. He stared silently at Sirius, watching as pale hands rested upon the ivory keys and began following the scale, then began playing the melody of the chorus. 

“You will never sleep alone. I'll love you long after you're gone, and long after you're gone, gone, gone.” Sirius sang softly, and it was Remus’ turn to be surprised. How much of the lyrics has he memorized? Enough he supposes, given that he had apparently forgotten to cast the silencing charm on his bed. 

When you fall like a statue, I'm gon' be there to catch you. Put you on your feet, you on your feet.

And if your well is empty, not a thing will prevent me. Tell me what you need, what do you need? “I surrender honestly, you've always done the same for me.” He continued, increasing the tempo of the piece as the chorus nears once again as he looks back to Remus with a smile and encouraging nod. Sing with me. His look said, and honestly, when has he ever said no? Or wanted to? 

“So I would do it for you, for you. Baby, I'm not moving on, I'll love you long after you're gone.” They sang in unison, voices melding together in a harmony that seemed rather perfect. Remus carried the melody as a guide as Sirius continued the rhythm. 

For you, for you. “You will never sleep alone. I'll love you long after you're gone, and long after you're gone, gone, gone.”

It was as if they were being pulled by a string, Remus found himself ever closer to the warmth that Sirius always provided. With a short pause, Sirius pulled his hands away and pulled Remus ever closer, shifting himself in the process.

You’re my backbone you're my cornerstone. You're my crutch when my legs stop moving.

You're my head start, you're my rugged heart. You're the pulse that I've always needed.

Like a drum, baby, don't stop beating. Like a drum, baby, don't stop beating.

With Sirius now flush behind him, Remus couldn’t help but blush, yet he did not pull away. It was warm and comfortable within his friend’s arms, and he found himself never wanting to leave Sirius’ embrace. He could hear his heart beating in his ears, and felt the fast pace of Sirius’ own heart.

Remus hesitantly reached down, and took hold of Sirius’ hands, intertwining their fingers. Just to see how he’d react. When he didn’t pull away, he sighed in relief and lifted their hands so that they rested together upon the keys.

Turning to look behind him, he saw the soft smile upon Sirius’ face. And he knew. That smile, it was only for him. He found himself mirroring it unconsciously, “Sirius…”

“I know Re,” He said softly, almost in a whisper. “Come on, we’re almost there. Want to sing this?” Remus nodded in reply, and turned back to the keys as he began to play again, Sirius’ hands never leaving his own.

As the song began nearing its end, Remus began to relax leaning back slightly into the warm weight behind him, causing Sirius to chuckle fondly. What the tawny-haired boy didn’t know, was that he had been watching him as he sang with a smile. 

Teasing from James be damned, he knew he was in love with Remus. And from the way Remus’ head leaned against his own, intertwined fingers tightening as the tempo began to slow, after placing a kiss upon his flush cheeks, he didn’t doubt that Remus felt the same.

Like a drum, baby, don't stop beating. Like a drum my heart never stops beating for you. 

And long after you're gone, gone, gone. I'll love you long after you're gone, gone, gone.

.

Tag List:

@epithymiahua​ 

@whataboutmyfries​ 

@fleetingpieces​ 

@wonder-womans-ex​

@heyitssmiller​

@spookypotato​

[crystalstar8]

Knights of the Night (chapter 1)

Chapter 1

Ch 1, ch 2, ch 3, ch 4, ch 5

https://archiveofourown.org/works/29139240/chapters/71536491

pairing: Jungkook x oc

genre: vampire au, college au, twilight, romance

word count: 2,426

warnings: blood (obviously), kidnapping, child kidnapping, needles, France

notes: vampires, vampire au, college, college au, so many twilight references, blood, needles, kidnapping, children, homelessness, dance, ballet, flashbacks, romance, slow burn, probably no smut, idk yet tho, France, French things, attempted genocide, inaccurate French history, bisexual main character

summary: Catalina starts college in a small town all the way across the country. She doesn’t know anyone and isn’t exactly looking for friends. She just wants to focus on dance. But when she meets fellow dance major, Jimin, and adventurous, fellow freshman, Jungkook, Catalina ends up discovering a whole new side to the small college town; one that is dangerous but oh so enticing... 

              Catalina gazed out of the window as the city flew by. Full Moon, by the Black Ghosts was playing on the radio. She wondered what her apartment was going to look like. She should have listened to her mom when she told Catalina to take a trip out here to set it up before school started, but she never found the time. She had been too busy saying her goodbyes to friends who didn’t care about her leaving.

               The taxi finally entered the small town of St. Briggs. The sky was dark and bleak; when Catalina pictured California, she didn’t imagine this. She was hoping to see a different environment, but it kind of looked just like Michigan. It would still be a change though. Hopefully a good change. This was one of the most highly recommended performing arts schools in the country and Catalina was looking forward to a fresh new chapter of her life.

               She was dropped off at her apartment building and the taxi driver asked if she wanted him to help her carry her bags up the stairs. She said no and hurried to pay him. Catalina somehow managed to drag her bags up the stairs on her own, breaking out in a sweat and making her twenty-year-old back hurt. The apartment was lightly furnished already, the bare furniture from the last student still there. So Catalina started unpacking her clothes, toiletries, and bedding. Once everything was unpacked, she looked around at her new living space. It was small, only three rooms: the bedroom, a tiny bathroom, and a kitchen connected to an empty living room. She’d have to get a couch, and maybe a TV. Or she could just save her money. Yeah, that sounded better. She would usually just watch Netflix on her laptop anyway.

               Speaking of her laptop, she pulled it out of her backpack and flopped onto her bare mattress, opening it up. Classes started in a week and she needed to review her schedule and figure out what materials she needed. Her dance class stared back at her from her schedule on the computer screen. She was most excited for that one.

               Catalina sent the schedule to her phone and then closed her laptop. She decided now was a good time to explore the campus, if only to check out the dance studio.

                 It was chilly here, the wind coming off the water brisk and wet. Her hair frizzed up and she mourned the fact that she only packed light clothes, expecting the typical California weather. She should have realized that Northern California would be pretty much the same as where she lived before in Michigan.

               Despite the gloomy weather, the campus was beautiful. It was bustling with students and their families, taking tours and lots of pictures in front of the old buildings. She glanced at the wrinkled campus map in her hands, which she had printed out back at home. The dance studio was closer to the back of the campus, so she trekked through all the freshman and found herself in an emptier part of campus. The buildings here were very old. Big willow trees grew between the buildings, their leafy curtains giving those spots a sense of privacy on the lawn. The dance studio was in a building that looked like it was a refurbished, converted old house. Catalina walked up to the porch and tried the door. It was unlocked.

               Inside the house, it was a bit more modern. There was a tiny lobby and then a hall where there were bathrooms. Then past that was the studio. The door was closed. Catalina reached for the doorknob but paused when she heard music coming from inside. The music stopped, then started again from a previous spot. It continued like this for several minutes, Catalina standing there listening to the same part of the song over and over. Finally, she decided to put whoever was inside out of their misery and she opened the door.

               The guy inside stumbled on the move he was practicing, startling and spinning around towards the door. His chest was heaving and he was sweating, staring at Catalina with wide eyes.

               “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you,” she said. The guy seemed to snap out of it and he went over to his phone, which was hooked up the speakers, to pause the song.

               “No, it’s okay,” he said. “I just wasn’t expecting anyone to come in here. Usually it’s pretty quiet in the dance hall when there aren’t classes.”

               “Well, I wouldn’t count on that today,” said Catalina. “There’s a million freshman and their entire families out there. It’s only a matter of time before they find you.”

               He giggled and said, “I forgot it was orientation day. My name is Jimin, by the way.”

               “I’m Catalina. This is a really pretty campus.”

               “Yeah, I guess,” said Jimin. He went over to his dance bag and pulled a towel out, wiping his face.

               “I guess?” asked Catalina.

               “I mean, I grew up here. Everything in this town is old,” he said.

               “Oh,” Catalina then realized that she had interrupted him in his practice. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt you. I know how it is when you’re in the zone. I’ll get going-“

               “No, it’s okay! Honestly, I was about to pass out or something if I kept going,” said Jimin. “I just couldn’t get this one move, and it was driving me crazy…”

               “What was the move?” asked Catalina, stepping further into the studio. “Can you teach me?”

               “I mean… I don’t know if you can…”

               “Try me,” said Catalina. Jimin led her to the center of the floor, facing the mirror. He walked her through a complicated move, which led into a jump turn. He broke it down and Catalina followed, nailing it on the second try. Jimin then did it at full speed, perfectly.

               He turned to her with wide eyes.

               “That was the first time I did it right!” he cheered. Catalina clapped along with him.

               “Sometimes all it takes is breaking it down again,” said Catalina. Jimin narrowed his eyes.

               “So, you tricked me?” he asked in a playful tone.

               “Into getting the move right, sure,” Catalina grinned.

               “Well, thank you. You’re pretty good,” he said.

               “I’m majoring in dance, so I should hope so,” said Catalina. “I’ve only been doing it since I was four.”

               “You’re majoring in dance? Me too!” he said. “I’ve never seen you here though. Are you a freshman?”

               “Yeah, this is my first year here,” said Catalina. “I heard the dance program is really good.”

               “It is. It has a good variety too. I’m taking a hip hop class this semester. You should take it with me, if you have room in your schedule.”

               “I’ve been dancing ballet all my life, I don’t think I’d be very good at hip hop…” Catalina scratched the back of her head. Jimin shook his head.

               “No, that’s a myth! Teachers only say that about ballerinas who don’t care about learning other things. I’ve also been doing ballet my whole life but I’m learning a lot of new things here, and I really love it,” said Jimin.

               Catalina laughed and said, “I guess you’re right. I should…broaden my horizons, as my mother would say.”

                 Catalina left the studio that day with a new number in her phone and a more hopeful outlook on her upcoming journey through college.

                 The next week passed in a haze as Catalina readied herself for classes and thought about furnishing her apartment some more. She never did furnish it, but at least she made the bed and filled the fridge. She also got into the hip hop class with Jimin, which she was excited about. She was ready.

               Finally, the first day of classes came and Catalina woke up bright and early. She got dressed; she knew these first few days were going to be the only days she would bother with anything other than pajamas, so she actually made an effort to look cute. Her first class was French, which, honestly, was going to be torture. She needed to learn French to reach her ultimate goal, so it was a necessary evil. It sounded pretty, so maybe it wasn’t the worst language to learn.

               When she got to her French classroom, it was already pretty full. She found a few vacant seats in the back of the room, which she took. There was still one behind her, so she wasn’t actually all the way in the back. That was something her academic advisor had told her – don’t sit in the back. It was supposed to be a subconscious thing where the closer you sit to the front, the better you do in the class. Catalina didn’t know if that was actually true, but the front seats were all taken and she was used to sitting in the back, so here she was. Second to last row. It was a start.

               Catalina pulled out her notebook, a pen, and her phone. She had a text from her mom.

 Mom: Are you settled down okay at the apartment? How is campus? Did you make it to class okay this morning?

Cat: The apartment is good. Campus is pretty. I’m in class right now. Everything is going great. I even made a friend.

Mom: a friend?

Cat: yeah, he’s in the dance program too. We’re taking a hip hop class together.

Mom: This is great news! Is he cute?

               Just then, the professor walked in and introduced herself. Catalina let out the breath she was holding, glad she didn’t have to answer that. That was one of many reasons she was so excited to move across the country. Ever since she came out as bisexual, her mother had been trying her hardest to get Catalina a boyfriend. Sure, Jimin was plenty cute, but that’s not what Catalina was here for. She’d just really rather not talk about her love life, or lack thereof, with her mother.

               The professor mostly just went over introductions and the syllabus, which she passed out copies of to the class. Then she took attendance. A few names in and the door opened. A boy walked in, his eyes wide as he scanned the room for empty seats. He spotted the one behind Catalina and sped towards it. The professor eyed him.

               “I guess you came just in time, since I just started attendance. I do not take absences lightly in this class young man,” she said.

               “Sorry,” he mumbled. The professor grumbled and handed another syllabus to the person in the front row before continuing with roll call. When Catalina handed the packet back to him, she caught a glimpse of the new guy. He looked only half awake, his hair a mess, bags under his eyes and rumpled sweats. He didn’t have a backpack, only a notebook. Catalina winced in sympathy. He was going to have a hard time in this class. He reminded Catalina of herself in high school. She was a new woman now though. Things were going to be different in college.

               “Catalina Cruz” was called and she raised her hand in acknowledgement. The guy behind her answered to “Jeon Jungkook”. After class, Catalina turned around in her seat and smiled at Jungkook, who still looked frazzled.

               “First impressions are important,” she said.

               “Ugh, I know,” he moaned, sliding down in his seat. “I slept in…”

               “Yeah, she probably hates you,” said Catalina. “You’re doomed.”

               Jungkook covered his face. “Don’t say that!”

               Catalina laughed and said, “Dude, I’m kidding. You’ll be fine.”

               Jungkook let his hands fall. “I just think it’s stupid that I need a language class for my major.”

               “Everyone needs a language class. What are you majoring in?” asked Catalina.

               “Film. What about you?” he asked.

               “Dance,” she said. The two of them got up and made their way out of the classroom. “I came on a scholarship too, so I can’t really afford to fail any classes.”

               “Yeah, no scholarship for me, but my parents will have my head if I fail anything,” said Jungkook. “They’re paying out of pocket for me and my brother.”

               Catalina giggled. The two of them walked over to an empty patch of grass under a tree, where they sat. “Do you live on campus?” she asked.

               “Nah, my parent’s house is right around the block, I’m just gonna live with them until I graduate,” said Jungkook.

               Catalina hummed and nodded. “You’re lucky. I have an apartment that’s going to drain me. I can’t even afford furniture,” said Catalina. “Actually, I should probably try to find a job…”

               “Oh! My aunt owns a tourist shop up in the mountains and she needs weekend employees for tourist season,” said Jungkook.

               “Tourist season? Summer is almost over,” said Catalina.

               “There’s a big ski resort up there. It gets pretty busy once the snow comes,” said Jungkook. “You should take the job with me! It’ll be so fun, we can explore the mountains.”

               “Ehh, I don’t know how much mountain climbing I’ll be doing, but the job is kind of perfect,” said Catalina. “How far away is it? I don’t have a car.”

               “I mean, I have a car, but there’s also a hiking trail that gets you there, which I’ll probably be doing, cause’ it’s more fun,” he said. “It’s not that far, like, a few miles?”

               “A few miles? That’s far! That’s a long walk!” said Catalina.

               “Oh, come on! I backpacked for five days once, that’s about fifty miles. And I’ve heard stories about people who backpack for weeks,” said Jungkook.

               “Okay well, you may be super fit and sporty, but I’m not-“

               “What were you majoring in again? Dance?”

               Catalina shoved him. He fell over, laughing hard. Catalina scrunched her nose to contain her laughter. “Oh shut up! Okay, I get it. Hiking might be fun, but not every time,” she said.

               “No, I’ll totally drive us to work every now and then,” he said. “I’ll call my aunt tonight about the job. Here, give me your number so I can tell you what she says.”

               Catalina typed her number into Jungkook’s phone and then handed it back.

               “Anyway, I’d better get going. I don’t want to be late for another class,” said Jungkook. “I’ll text you.”

               He got up and walked away, waving. Catalina waved back. Two new friends. And they were both so much nicer and more genuine than her friends back in Michigan.

[yikesimonfire]

Scavenger Hunt (Part Two) || Solo

Timing: September 2014, immediately following the events of part one. Location: Outskirts of Dark Score Lake Summary: Alfie is once again in the woods and is getting tired of his own shit. This time he discovers something horrifying. Content: memory loss of the phoenix variety

Why did it have to be Dark Score Lake? Out of all the places in White Crest his previous-self could have brought him to, why did these godforsaken coordinates bring him here?! The lake itself was a good distance away from the ramshackle little cabin in the woods before him, but the idea of it being nearby didn’t sit well with him. 

As if the location wasn’t enough to put Alfie on edge, the condition of the house was just as worrisome. The area around it was overgrown; a large fallen branch leaned precariously against the awning of a porch which had seen far better days. Assuming that the coordinates were correct, the place must have been abandoned for nearly two decades now — when Alfie last died. 

Actively fighting against his better judgement, Alfie reluctantly walked around the perimeter of the shack, peering carefully into each window with his hands cupped like binoculars. Much to his dismay, not all of the windows granted him viewing privileges; two of which seemed to be boarded up from the other side. From what he could see, however, the interior was equally as shabby. 

“Gee, I sure can’t wait to breathe in all this asbestos,” Alfie scoffed. He pushed himself away from the last window and meandered back to the front steps.

Reaching into his pocket, Alfie fished the key he found in the lockbox earlier that day, and slowly made his way to the front door. The porch groaned underneath his weight; a testament to how long the place had been derelict.

“If this works…” he grumbled under his breath, gliding the key into the deadbolt. 

A smooth turn. A faint click. 

Alfie hesitantly twisted the doorknob and, as luck would have it, the door creaked open to reveal a dismal living room. Damn it. He was banking on it to be a fluke. 

There was no turning back now.

His hand fumbled against the wall by the door, barely half-way through the threshold, when his hand snagged against a light switch. It was a shot in the dark (literally), but by some miracle, the electricity hummed. A single light dimly sputtered to life. Under its illumination, Alfie could make out a single sofa; slightly askew and draped in plastic. The room was devoid of any other furniture. He couldn’t help but wonder what it said about the person that used to live here. Whoever he was in his last life, he must have been incredibly lonely. 

He also wondered if he’d just inherited an exorbitant electricity bill, considering it was still up and running after all this time. That, he easily decided, would be a problem for future Alfie.

Curiously, Alfie continued deeper into the house after allowing the front door to click behind him. It wasn’t much. A short hallway carved into the back wall of the living room. To the right, it opened up to a modest kitchen. Directly across from there was a door, caddy-cornered with another at the end of the hall. The latter, he discovered, led to the shack’s only bathroom. 

Deductive reasoning told him that the door to his left must have been the bedroom. Frankly, he half expected to open the door to a squatter — or perhaps a family of raccoons. Neither rang true. There were, however, thick pieces of cardboard haphazardly taped against the room’s windows, shrouding it in darkness. 

“Blackout curtains would have been my first choice,” Alfie remarked, almost hoping to incite rage in whatever existing part of him decided this was a solid solution. 

As he flipped the light switch, the rest of the room came into view. Once again, it was nothing spectacular. A full-size mattress. A chest of drawers. A single nightstand decorated with an old pack of Pall Mall 100’s. 

Wait, what? Alfie did a double take when he noticed the pack of cigarettes.

“You’ve got to be shitting me!” He ran his hand down the length of his face and let out an exasperated sigh. First it was Dark Score Lake, and now this? Alfie was very quickly growing tired of his own shit. In fact, he didn’t even want to know what else was in store for him here. He realized, of course, leaving now would defeat the entire purpose of his scavenger hunt.

Begrudgingly, Alfie decided to poke around the room — starting with the chest of drawers. At first glance, the uppermost drawer didn’t seem like much. A tin of hair balm. A leather-bound journal. More packs of cigarettes. A flat cap. And it wouldn’t have been a proper time capsule without vintage photographs strewn around for good measure.

The journal was the first to be pulled. Alfie tucked it under his arm before he reached for the cap which he quickly placed atop his head — strictly for educational purposes. Finally, he grabbed a handful of photographs before making his way over to the bed.

The images ranged anywhere from the early 90s to as far back as what he could only assume were the 1930s. It wasn’t difficult to figure out who the people in the photographs were. Siblings, parents, cousins — various family members whose faces he knew all too well. One in particular showed Alfie just as he was now: a young man, smiling brightly as he hugged an older woman. A rush of emotions came over him as he examined the picture.

“Mom,” Alfie acknowledged, gently running his thumb over the image. Just like him, she had a brilliant smile plastered on her face. As his finger brushed the surface, Alfie noticed a raised pattern near the bottom. It didn’t make sense at first; how neatly tucked the series of elevated lines were in the corner. Flipping the photograph over, he realized that it was an inscription.

Alfie & Lia 1956

His brow scrunched as he ran through the lines of text.

Alfie.

Lia.

1956.

That couldn’t be right. That was only 58 years ago. He hardly looked any different than he did now. 

And Lia?

Lia. Lia. Lia… 

Suddenly, Alfie’s heart sank into the pit of his stomach.

He wanted to believe the year was wrong. That the entire inscription was inaccurate scribbles made by someone who didn’t pay attention to dates, or names, or anything for that matter.

But this was intentional.

Precise.

The face of the woman in the picture told Alfie everything he needed to know.

Alfie & Lia 1956

She was Leah. And Leah didn’t get dates wrong.

[silence-burns]

Please Hate Me //part 33

Fandom: Marvel 

Summary: Based on “Imagine having a love/hate relationship with Loki.” by @thefandomimagine​

[Somewhere in a universe far, far away…] 

There was a soft brush of fabric on the polished floor that accompanied the approaching steps of leather shoes. Frigga stopped a little to Heimdall's left. 

"What do your golden eyes see, my friend?" 

"They see many things, my queen." 

Bifrost glimmered in the million colors under their feet. Lines and flashes passed faster than the human eye could see. The sword that was the key to every way, waited in Heimdall's hands.

"What do you see of my troubled sons?" 

"They are both learning through new experiences." 

Frigga sighed. "Which usually means they’ve gotten in even more trouble. Tell me, what is it this time?" 

Heimdall stood tall on the dais, the armor forged in ancient times by the hands of legends half forgotten by time still impeccable. The worlds moved before his eyes, with no secrets hidden from the gaze of the All-Watcher. 

"They are faring well, my queen. Even Loki." 

"I had hoped that banishment to Earth would be a better choice than the dungeons." Frigga's hand clutched the gown over her heart. "What did he do this time?" 

A smile ghosted on the lips of the All-Watcher. "It appears that he's made friends. Quite close ones, I dare say." 

"Oh, dear," Freya repeated in a completely different tone. A wicked light played in her eyes. "Do tell, my friend." 

*

[The same universe, a little closer] 

Life in big cities bears a certain strain on everyone's minds. Despite what the newspapers, thirsty for anything and everything worthy and unworthy of filling the pages with, would like you to believe, life had always been difficult. 

Time is always lacking, and money is never enough, and no matter how much you strain your brain, it just sometimes happens that you might not remember about the things stored at the very back of your tiny shop, tucked cozily into the corner of a very calm street. 

"Well," the man said. "I had no idea that I still had those in the freezers. I could've sworn that I have cleaned them before the winter and left nothing except for the packed broccoli. It must be your lucky day, my boy." 

The boy indeed felt very lucky. It was not everyday that one could be sent out to fetch ice cream for a living god in the middle of winter. 

"Have a nice day, sir!" he called on his way out. 

The chilly breeze bit into his cheeks, warmed up in the comforting interior of the grocery. Snow shined on the few surfaces not yet stamped on. The sidewalk Peter chose was a slippery trap that only his spider senses got him through unscathed. 

Loki sensed his coming, and looked over his shoulder at the approaching boy. His other arm was currently wrapped around your shoulders, tucking you closer into him. Peter tried his best not to stare too openly, but couldn't stop the grin from splitting his face. He sat on the other side of the god, the bench icy cold. 

"Thank you, my boy." The god took the ice cream with obvious delight. It had been your idea to spend the few hours before Peter's totally-not-a-date trying out the goods New York had to offer. At first, Loki had snickered at the suggestion of trying out whatever ice cream was available in the middle of winter, but after a few interesting flavors were discovered, Loki apologized. There was an almost disturbing variety of flavors Loki couldn't even imagine existing. 

"You're welcome, Mr. Mischief. I'm sure there would be a bigger choice if it was summer. I always go to that one vendor two streets away from my house, because he has this special recipe that absolutely blows my taste buds away every time." 

"Sounds intriguing." Loki's mind conjured the last time his taste buds had been blown away. If he recalled that unfortunate event correctly, it had something to do with pizza and a bet. "But I think I'll pass for now." 

The look of pure adoration in the boy's eyes hadn’t  perished. 

"I still can't believe you won't get sick after having so many," you said, and watched Loki devour the caramel. 

"It must be nice to be a god," Peter sighed. "You have awesome superpowers, get to do what you want and they even make action figures of you…" 

Loki frowned. "The what?" 

Peter blanched. He started fumbling with his jacket and 'accidentally' looked at his watch. "Oh, I think I’ve gotta go, it's getting so late and I don't want to make MJ wait—" 

Loki reached out and fixed the hair Peter had been nervously fighting with for the past few hours they'd all spent outside. "Don't forget the ring, boy." 

"Thank you!" 

The boy was beaming on his way out of the park. 

"I'm never washing my hair again." 

The totally-not-a-date that was steadily approaching was something Peter wasn't sure he was ready for. So many things could go wrong—and he had already imagined most of them. It wasn't as if he couldn't sleep all night thinking about it, he just… Was busy. Thinking. 

Peter straightened the jacket that was in absolutely no need of straightening. His hand moved to his hair, but he stopped it halfway with a smile. It'd  been touched by the hand of god, so it was as good as it could ever get. 

On his way out of the park the three of you had been resting in for a while, Peter's mind was in a strange disarray of thoughts. However, he was still capable of noticing the interesting new graffiti decorating the Avengers' statues set up in the middle of the park. Whoever decided to redecorate them this time, certainly had a pair of skillful hands. The wild mustache covering half of Iron Man's face looked almost lifelike. 

Loki and you watched the boy leave, nervousness apparent in his every too-stiff step. 

"They grow up so fast," you sighed, leaning further into Loki. 

He nodded. His finger circled lazily around your shoulder, drawing spiralling patterns. Loki turned his head toward the memorial statues raised in the central part of the park. People took pictures in front of them, posing and smiling as they milled around. Those were the heroes, after all. Saviors of the day. 

Loki added a mustache to another statue. 

You noticed and eased a giggle. "They're going to be so pissed." 

"My very soul aches at that thought. What a terrible crime." 

The patterns changed as you shifted slightly. The presence on his shoulder was warm and softened by the fabric of clothes that kept the winter frost from you. 

"I thought using magic in this world was difficult." 

"It is.There's a lot more focus required to make it work than I'm used to. It's nothing dramatic, though. I've heard of worlds where the trickle of magic is even more strained, to the point where it barely exists at all." 

"Do you miss them? The other worlds, I mean. Like Asgard." 

The patterns changed again. They slowed down, became more deliberate. 

"Sometimes," was the honest answer and the one he gave after careful consideration. 

"Will you leave, then?" 

Loki looked down at his wrist, where a thin band of metal used to reside, blocking every and all effort he might take against leaving Earth or using magic in any form. It was no longer there, which meant, although it would be extremely difficult to conduct, Loki could technically leave. 

The only obstacle was that it was no longer his priority. 

"I've never been one to sit aimlessly on my ass for too long, and especially not when and where I had been forced to do so. I think I could name more than a few places I'd like to pay a visit," he admitted, putting his cheek on the top of your head. His throat bobbed slightly. "The only problem is that I just recently found out how terribly boring touring alone might be. It's a real wonder why anyone bothers to do so anymore, and," he swallowed, "I think I could use some company." 

Loki cursed himself for putting his head on top of yours, and blocking the view of your face. Especially as he still didn't get any answer. His heart jumped into his throat, making it difficult to breathe. 

"...I mean, I know it's still so early, and that's okay if you feel overwhelmed or unsure and I won't force you into anything more than you're willing to do—” 

Loki's rumbles were cut short when you finally moved to look up at him. The wild gleam in your eyes and a wicked smile so similar to his struck him dumb. 

"You'd never be able to leave this planet without me." 

A choked breath, so similar to a whispered name ghosted over his lips. "Of course I wouldn't. What would be the fun in that?"

*

[The galaxy, elsewhere] 

"Oh, dear," the queen broke the biscuit in half with perfect manners. Barely any crumbs dared to ruin the fragile dessert. "I guess he really is experiencing something new." 

Heimdall sipped the tea. Servants at the queen's quarters left them with a small table full of goods of the highest sort. The warm breeze played with the curtains with the subtle shimmer of gold. The trees rustled on the wind, losing old leaves to it. 

"He's also plotting an escape," Heimdall added. His helmet laid on his knee. 

Frigga waved the biscuit in a gesture that had very little to do with manners. "That sounds more like him." 

The softest hint of a smile graced her features. 

"I wonder what will become of him. Maybe it's in my nature as a mother, but no matter how much I try, I can't help but continue to worry about him, even after all these years." 

"I swore to keep an eye on him, and I will." Heimdall put a hand to his heart. There was no smile on his face, only seriousness as he recalled an oath he'd never break. 

"Thank you, my friend."

[dana-chan-the-control-brain]

Happy new year everyone 🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉

I know 2020 has been hard for everyone.

And I want everyone to know, suffering isn't a contest and we all suffer in different ways. But I feel I should give my year in Review. Just some things that happened to me personally.

This was an intense, and long and spiritual and emotional journey for me...

I really discovered what it meant to have community, family and what my life means to me.

But I feel I need to get this in writing cause I can remember the year with vivid detail and I will probably forget if I don't get it down.

Do I have to share this publically online to my tumblr account for a bunch of strangers to see? not really.

Do I want to?

Yes. I think so. Just from how so many people on tumblr and real life have touched me.

This is kinda long and no one needs to read this.

(idk how to do a readmore on mobile. But this is where I would add it later. No one needs to read if they don't want to.)

January/February: (and some background on the last five years of my life cause.....well. it's important.)

As people knew, I got way into Invader Zim last summer. I spent most of my waking life working a dead end job at a grocery store. I lived a sad lonely life, going straight home to a single dark studio apartment. With not many material possessions outside of games, my laptop and my tablet to my name. Half of my material loves, such as home furnishings and books were still in boxes from when I moved in. In case I ever had to move again, or get some "big screenshot or copywriter" job in the city.

....

I lived in that city in the same dead end job and apartment for five years.

No friends. No social life. I often refused to make doctor appointments or attempt to establish myself in that city. I didn't even talk to anyone in my workplace.

Work. Go online. Go to sleep.

I lived like that for five years.

I thought it was good.

Even my therapist thought I was doing well.

When I really wasn't. My main character flaw I struggle with is motivation.

I can talk to someone about very detailed plans I have to fix a problem... But I tend to never follow through.

Just because I can describe in detail how to fix my personal problems, it doesn't mean I will do it.

(I have gotten better at this but it's a major struggle)

I might have been a Zombie during the day...

But by night I was pouring my soul into my AU and my analysis.

After being so thoughly ignored or overlooked by the Naruto fandom and the Undertale fandom, I felt like I had finally found my home and was settling into a community there.

I just loved that people loved what I had to say.

Especially my AU.

It's no secret that a lot of themes in my au revolve around found family, grief, and loss.......

Fatherhood, in particular.

What it means to be a father, how much do you need to try when you mess up, how willing should a child forgive their parent, especially those that have wronged you and how much of it is factually accurate and simply a self projection of what children want their parents to be and visa versa... What amount of forgiveness and change is nessasary...is it needed?

....

It's no secret that a lot of my AU is a giant coping mechanism for my Dad's death. Espessially the falling out and growing closer with a lot of my family members throughout the years following his death. (Most of the time I keep it ambiguous to how it relates to my personal life unless I include a readmore that states so outright. I feel my au can be enjoyed by a variety of people in the fandom who don't need to know me as a person or my life story.)

My Dad passed away in 2016 in February and my family still feels the aftershocks to this day.

It's part of the reason I moved to the city, alienated myself from my family and people that loved me and refused to experience life for five years.

My entire world was Zim, and I was okay.

March: When America finally realized and started to feel the effects of the pandemic....

A lot of people got scared.

Me included.

I didn't have any streaming services or access to the news. So I only heard accounts from my mom.

I didn't understand why the store was so dead quiet and empty for a few days, then it went into mass chaos and panic in the span of two days.

It felt like Retail black friday in the worst way. Everyone was packed like sardines. Everyone was yelling. The lines at the registers bled into the clothing department.

I was witness to customers shoving others for toilet paper, being rude to cashier's and just overall unpleasantness.

At the time, I didn't even fully grasp what the pandemic was, and I feel a lot of people at the time didn't either.

I ended up absentmindedly scratching my eyebrow in front of a customer and she screamed and villanised me for it. That they didn't want groceries touched by my "unclean hands"

I ended up breaking down into tears.

The customer behind me gave me a hug and told me I was doing a great job.

But the damage was done. It was the final straw, I couldn't stop crying and I was breaking apart.

Thankfully my Boss (the one who likes me) pulled me aside and asked what's wrong.

It was then that I quit. No notice. Same day. I had to get out of there.

I was planning to move to an apartment with my sister in the summer, but my Mom offered for me to move back in with her temperarily just so I can get out of the city and away from the pandemic.

So I did.

I got scared, broke my lease a month early and quit my job of five years that gave me nothing back.

He told me, "take care of yourself and your family, I won't keep you here, do what you need to do."

So I did.

April-June:

A very eventful few months.

My mom offered for me to live at her place, but for some reason she was acting like I would live there forever. That this wasn't a temporary arrangement, and that I didn't have an apartment set up already.

This was in large part to my sister, who had lived with my mom taking advantage of her for years.

Even though my sister and I were going to move in together, I was just never sure about it cause of how she never packed her stuff or made any effort to find a job.

My mom often acted like I was lazy and not searching and was treating me like... Well, an unruly teenager instead of a woman of 29 years. She acted like I was a failure for returning home when it was her idea in the first place.

I would have just been petrified in the city.

Like usual, I retreated to my au again.... And in the spring, something eventful happened.

In may, 8th 2020:

I was invited by @rissynicole to join an invader zim discord.

Now, I've never really used discord before. I always thought it's interface is too confusing.. and I'm a member of a few other iz discords and I usually don't follow them that closely.

Rissy assured me it was different cause some friends of thiers made it and it was smaller.

Before I knew it, I was sharing memes and getting to know everyone there.

It wasn't long after I invited my partner in IZ crimes, @paketdimensioncomic who was genuinely wary of iz servers due to a bad experience with the last one they were a part of.

But soon they were sharing memes and laughing with everyone else.

My eyes were starting to open and I was able to connect to fans of my work in an interpersonal way. And I was able to discover new artists and aus I never knew about.

I was also able to meet so many others of the community and invite them to the server myself.

The moo-ping 10 server kept me sane while I was living with my judgmental mother.

Not only that, the summer was very productive for my au.

Drawing was all I did, and it was a huge break from the job as a cashier I had.

Not only that, June came, and with it, me and Ceph's first collab fic:

A result of us just going back and forth in our DMs constantly about Professor Membrane and how he changed in ETF for the better and how much we adamantly stan "trying-to-be-a-good-dad-brane" and how much of his ETF development has to be implied off screen in order for the emotional resolution in the movie to matter.

The only reason I never professed my love for Membrane as a character in the fandom before the fic dropped was.... Well....

Membrane can be a decisive character in the fandom and I was so worried people would hate me if I did an analysis on him, simply because he's not the best parent in the world. (As an understatement)

Ceph and I really encouraged each other to scream our love for the science himbo loud and proud more frequently and so often.... I actually start to see less Membrane hate posts and breakdowns then their used to be.... I like to think it's a combination of Me and Ceph's influence, along with ETF and the Quarterly's painting Membrane in a slightly more nuanced light then he was previously.

I never wrote a collab fic before and it's such a rewarding and fun and unique experience that I don't think I'll ever have again. And I love working with Ceph on our fics so much.

So much so we did it again...

July-August:

I never thought I would be one of those people who writes NSFW IZ fic... But here I am.

The Brainbrane au started.... An au of my au where Membrane and the Computer fall in love and Membrane makes him a body.

This ship was based around the idea where we joked that Membrane and Zim's Computer would have funny interactions if they ever met, under the pretense Membrane thinks Computer is Zim's parent.

Our headcanons morphed and shifted until we just full blown started shipping them.

Just because Membrane and Zim's Computer have overall REALLY entertaining chemistry.

It's a character dynamic never seen in the show or comics (yet) and I imagine thier interactions to be nothing but entertaining banter.

The fic was also born from spite... Making fun of the troupes and cliches that we found personally destestible in some questionable zadr fics.

So an angry ace and a demi-bisexual collab on a porn and end up blessing the fandom with

Compapa headcanons,

Computer being recognized as a more common used fanon character,

The ship of Brainbrane.

The fandom having a crisis of "oh God, not only are we xenophiles we're technophiles too!!!" Or "why you gotta give Zim's Computer an ass"

More android Computer designs

It was an eventful summer.

In the midst of all this, I moved into my new place, got a new job, and I was able to see my friend (who is def my platonic straight soul mate) who lives in Indiana.

She came to visit, showed me how to decorate and how to take care of my body better! Things were looking up! It was great.

September-November:

My job was at a boat store. If was approaching the fall and my hours were being severely cut.

I was getting into a rut of depression again.

I thought things were changing but the same routine I was trying to escape from was the same thing coming back.

But instead of letting it take hold, I decided I was going to do something about it... I was gonna visit a museum and go with my sister. Just... variety stimulation.

Well that didn't happen.

I talked about this shortly in my au itself...but..

My sister had a complete mental breakdown.

She stopped taking her meds, went off the deep end and was in the hospital a total of five times throughout November.

A lot of it was acting out and the perfect storm of environmental factors that made her scream and act out so she would keep going back to the hospital.

It was traumatizing for me.

I just can't explain what it's like. For her and for me to be in that position.

I'm not telling the full story and a lot of bullshit things happened I won't share here.

She got diagnosed with bipolar one and my mom expected me to be a caretaker for her.

I threatened to disown my family and move away out of state.

It was just too much for me to handle.

So much I was a nervous wreck.

I tried to pick up a second job... Cause my sister was in the mental ward so frequently and couldn't pay the bills.

But I was fired within a week cause I was so stressed I couldn't retain the basic information they were training me for.

It was an office job.

My dream.

It could have been.

I was fired from something I really wanted.

I was only there for three days.

I could not retain any information.

I was a mess.

My sister was a trigger, my mom wanted me to live with her. I couldn't live like this.... I had to get out.

I had to get out.

December:

Remember my Indiana friend?

Well the first week of December is my birthday.

My 30th to be exact.

While I did pick up a seasonal position at Target (not my first pick)

I took the first week of December off so I could spend time with her. Cause she agreed, I needed a break from this crap.

Surviving 30 years is cause to celebrate and if I had to celebrate with my sister I would have cried.

I know there was a risk traveling out of state during a pandemic...

But I needed out, I needed a friend..

And I kinda wanted to look at the place since I was considering moving there.

My friend's mom was sick so she avoided me and her daughter and got us a hotel room.

It was fun! I got to swim in a salt water pool, we talked about Naruto, I showed her the iz and su art books I brought, also Computer and Membrane tea.

I also got to meet her other friends and get crunk. And her bf who is super nice and funny!

I had a super fun birthday....

Until her mom told my friend that her grandparents had covid and that was what she had. And my friend got sick within that same day.... As did I.

I owe so much to her family.

I was an entire state away...about a ten hour drive from home.... She let me stay at her house. "The covid house" we called it.

Cause everyone (except the father. He avoided everyone and booked a hotel immediately cus he was an ER doctor) had covid within a day.

I called in, the test results were positive and I had to stay with her family for ten days quarantine before I could work again.

Which would have been fine....

If my tumblr didn't log me out perminately of my old account. @dana-chan325 .... Which really sucked cause I had a constant headache and was too sick to engage with tumblr or much of the fandom. I didn't want to make a new account when my head was in a bad fog and I could barely breathe or smell.

It's not like I saw much of my friend either.... We all slept at different hours and she had more symptoms then I did.

It was just netflix, danganronpa v3 and cry.

I was miserable, but at the same time.... Not?

I really feel like God himself was the one who pulled me off from tumblr, and my living situation.

Maybe a whole extra week feeling like a bobblehead was what I needed.

It gave me some much needed clarity on my relationships with my mom and sis and friend.

Running away to Indiana was not the solution here.

Once I was better within ten days and no longer had a leave of absence, I drove home.

I am glad I fully recovered (but from how I understand it, my dear friend is still ill. I'm praying for her)

I might have gone to work a bit too soon, cause I had an asthma attack after trying to unload a single cart in the span of six hours.

My boss lectured that my speed was unacceptable, and even though I explained the covid situation and breathing problems many times, she threatened that I'd be fired if I'm that slow again.

Que the next few days of work where they put me on register.

Instantly I was sent into a panic remembering the last time I was on the register and how that panic attack caused me to quit.

I even asked if I could go back to stocking, since my breathing had improved. My boss assured me that I was put on the register cause they needed help and nothing to do with my covid thing.

Then as December concluded and the new year began, my boss said that this was the last shift for me cause my position was seasonal and they were letting a lot of people go.

I then asked why I was on the schedule for Sunday, and he told me to ignore it and I'm free to reapply for full-time.

I mean.... They can act smart about it...

But putting your general merchandise stocker onto register after she had an asthma attack and missed working the first two weeks of December due to covid.....

Not a good look.

So once again, I'm jobless once more.

Will probably continue to live with my sister for awhile.

But I do not feel as if it's a bad thing....

I met so many good people this year....

My friend's family even gave me 500 usd to cover my rent since I couldn't work for a majority of December.

I've seen evil and good from humanity this year. I've seen acts of god, good friends and what my real family means to me as well as friends I consider family.

This year really made me look back at the person in the mirror and say,

"I deserve better."

And actually worked for it this time.

Oh and after Christmas I got a horrible yeast infection that burns over most of my body currently.

Very accurate doodle to the pain I'm in right now.

(seriously my body is a fungus.)

But hey, good news, I respected myself enough to go to the doctor about it!!

So that's progress.

I really hope 2021 holds good things for me.

Thank you to the mooping 10 server for always being there and keeping me sane,

Thank you tumblr for liking my au and everything.

AND A SUPER SPECIAL THANK YOU TO @evartandadam and her family for housing me and my dumb diseased ass. Everyone, she is an angel and I can't express how much she means to me. Please check out her art and buy her stuff on redbubble.

Anyways... Byebye 2020.

I look forward to what I can accomplish for myself this year.