#and then I'd want to do the others by proxy and my hand just wouldn't be able to handle it

[ahyesthesufferingoftvteens]

Ooooh yeah I forgot to reblog this. Welp. Yeah. Here this is on my main blog.

Also a fun fact: In the Kai&Co system every alter gets assigned a Sanrio character (if they're not already a fictive or fictionkin one).

Coco, Koda, and Blaze love Chococat. They prefer the ones with blue, purple, and red collars respectively.

Alter Adam was assigned Badtz-Maru. The only reason he wears the necklace is because he can't say no to a Kai-aligned alter.

Kitty OBVIOUSLY loves Hello Kitty herself. Her entire outfit is lowkey themed after her. She has a red ribbon purse and Hello Kitty tights, even some Hello Kitty themed mary janes.

Alter Reeve was assigned Pochacco. Actually thinks the little dog is cute and doesn't mind wearing the occasional themed accessory (the earrings).

Kai Part 2 was assigned Keroppi. He has a Keroppi bracelet that's not shown here.

Cinnamon is literally Cinnamoroll.

The Hollow: Backrooms

The Kai&Co System

This has been something that has been casually mentioned in the past, but Backrooms!Kai becomes a System and splits and forms a few alters!

I (@ahyesthesufferingoftvteens) may talk about some of these goobers in the future. Some basic things to note: Blaze, Coco, Alter Adam, and Kitty form in The Backrooms. Alter Reeve forms right before Kai&Co escape The Backrooms, and Kai (Part 2) and Cinnamon form after The Backrooms. All of the special designs for these headmates are how they dress a year or two after The Backrooms story.

Slightly more detailed information about each of the members of the Kai&Co system are listed under the cut:

Blaze: One of the alters that split from Kai. A host of the system. Bi Aboy, He/They. Trauma Holder; Anger, Fear, and Depression holder; BPD holder; and Emotional Protector. Formed as a persecutor; used to be extremely explosive and had really destructive mental breakdowns. Heals with therapy. Likes to set things on fire and shop at Hot Topic. Is the reason the body is taking Abilify.

Coco: The other alter that split from Kai. A host of the system. Pan Nyan-binary Boy, He/They. Inner Child and Trauma Holder; Age-slides. Had really bad Stockholm Syndrome; found it very difficult to make decisions for themselves due to conditioning. Heals with Therapy. Loves Chococat so much that they kin the character and sometimes assumes Chococat’s form in headspace.

Koda: Kai rejoined after a year of being split apart. Now goes by a different name. Eventually, Coco and Blaze permanently fuse into Koda. A host of the system. Omni Demiboy, He/They. Trauma Holder. A bit more cheeky and dark-humored than he used to be, but it’s still the Kai you know and love. Shops at Spencers. Manic pixie dream boy energy. Can’t stop dating the emotionally unavailable and volitile Latinos in his area (He has nine exes). FINALLY found a good boyfriend (He’s a Wolf Therian, his name is Cillas).

Adam: The first alter to form after the “big split”. An introject of Adam. Gay Man, He/Him. Physical Protector. Formed as a persecutor; used to enforce the paranoid thinking patterns and distrust that the original Adam instilled. Heals with therapy. Likes to go fishing and thrives in a Bass Pro Shop.

Kitty: The second alter to form after the “big split”. An introject of Kitty, an entity from The Backrooms. Demi-Aroace Kenogirl, She/It. Caretaker, Soother, and System Overseer. Nonverbal: texts using emojis. The only way she can best communicate is with cards and drawings. Doesn’t front much; she’s more of a background alter. When she does front though the entire day is usually dedicated to her for her hard work. Loves Hello Kitty and dressing up in frilly dresses.

Reeve: Formed right before the system escaped The Backrooms. An introject of Reeve. Gay Trans Man, He/Him. Physical and Emotional Protector, and a Caretaker. Formed to do Adam’s job but better. Really happy about being in a body that was born male (his euphoria is through the roof). The only alter in the system that is religious.

Kai (Act 2): Formed after the system escaped The Backrooms. A host of the system. Bi Man, He/Him. Social Protector. Is exactly like Kai before the split, and is very detached from the memories of the Backrooms. The “Singlet-sona”. He identifies with the body’s known identity and fronts to interact with family members and pre-Backrooms friends, and when talking to strangers. He also primarily fronts while live-streaming video game play-throughs, but other alters pitch in as well.

Cinnamon: Formed after the system escaped The Backrooms. Aroace Boygirl, They/Them. The only perma-little. A fictive of Cinnomoroll. Excitable and annoying in a little sibling sort of way. Really likes gifts and eating food. No one knows why they formed, they just showed up one day. They exist now.

[kiame-sama]

I can't remember if I already requested this or not, so I'm sorry if you've already received this.

It's a but dark, but I'd like to request Munchausen's syndrome by proxy with yandere Miguel. Like he finds out reader is thinking of breaking up with him, so he purposely makes her sick so she'll have to depend on him and can't leave. Maybe including a caretaker kink with it?

Thank you!

Love Sick- (Yandere!Miguel x Reader)

Warnings; Munchausen's syndrome by proxy (Miguel to Reader), unhealthy dependency, yandere behavior, yandere tendencies, caretaker kink, possessive Miguel,

~~~~~~~~

"Just rest, Querida."

Miguel cooed gently to you, petting your cheek in an affectionate manner as he used the back of his hand to test your temperature. He seemed to grimace in response to how warm you must have felt to him, though you didn't feel particularly warm in any way. The way he turned to the medicine on the side table made you wonder just when this mysterious illness was going to finally fade away.

You had been thinking about returning to your timeline and universe, despite the unusual way you wound up in Miguel's universe. One of the anomalies dragged you to Miguel's universe where he came to your aid and caught you up to speed on the work he did. Apparently the way back to your universe had closed up in such a way that you wouldn't be able to return for quite some time. While you waited to return to your reality, Miguel managed to charm you and he clearly wanted to pursue a relationship with you.

The two of you were good together and all of the Spider people spoke of how good you were for Miguel. One day Jess offhandedly mentioned your universe showing back up and you had to excitedly bother Miguel about it. He acted happy but unbeknownst to you, he was thinking of how to keep you with him in a more permanent manner.

The day you were planning on returning to your own timeline, you fell suddenly ill. At first you tried to convince Miguel that you could still go, but he insisted that you remain in bed and get 'much needed' rest. Since then, you had been stuck with your ever adoring boyfriend taking care of you.

Some days you seemed to improve and could do things yourself, other days you were so weak you could barely get out of bed. There were days you felt well enough to ask Miguel to take you to your original timeline, but he would always insist you wait a day to see if you truly did feel better, and your illness would come back with full force before the next twenty-four hours.

"But... I feel like I'm being a burden."

"Not to me, you're not. I want you to be healthy and I'm not going to just abandon you because you have been ill. In sickness and in health, sí?"

"That's marriage, Miguel. We're dating."

"Ay, close enough. The point still stands, taking care of you is not a burden to me."

You smiled at this, holding his hand and lightly kissing his palm with a happy hum. Even though he risked getting ill as well, he always comforted and held you at night. Anything he could do to make your life easier seemed to be taken up in stride.

"I am so lucky you found me, Miguel."

"I'm the lucky one, (Y/n). And I consider myself lucky every day you are by my side."

You smiled when he kissed your forehead, feeling his gentle lips against your skin. You let him hold you close as he slid into the bed next to you, holding you to his chest.

"I am so lucky to have you, and I'll never let go..."

[yumeka-sxf]

I would have included this scan with my recent miscellaneous collab scans post, but I decided it deserves its own post, not just because it's one of the loveliest official Twiyor illustrations I've seen, but also because the story of how I got it is...interesting 😅

This image is from the chara fine graph (which is basically a framed picture) that was included as a preorder bonus for buying the complete season 2 blu-ray set from a shop called Rakuten Books (together with badge pins of the same designs). I briefly mentioned it back in October of last year when season 2 was airing, along with preoder bonuses from other shops like Animate and Amazon. I only wanted to get this one though, so as per my usual process of trying to secure rare SxF goods, I made a note to myself to keep an eye out for when it released. Rakuten, which I believe is the main company for Rakuten Books, has their own proxy buying service, and as the season 2 blu-rays were released, I saw them appearing there. But as noted on their main site, the condition for them to send you the chara fine graph is that you must preorder all of the three season 2 blu-ray discs from them. Once you buy the third one, if they know that you've already bought the others, then they'll send you the preorder bonuses along with it.

I was concerned that if I bought the discs via proxy, they wouldn't know that I bought all three and would cancel my order at the end! I would be devastated if that happened after waiting months and spending all that money on the complete set. I knew people would sell the chara fine graph second-hand as soon as it released, so I decided to wait until then and try to find it on Mercari.

So the months went by and eventually I found out that the final blu-ray volume of season 2 would release on April 17th, 2024. I made a mental note to check Mercari for it then, but unfortunately something else released around that same time...CODE: White in the US, which had its first screening on April 18th. Admittingly, I got distracted by the CODE: White release and had seen it twice by the following weekend. I did do some preliminary searching for the chara fine graph, but not with my usual refined search terms. It wasn't until the 21st that I finally sat down and really started searching for it. And while I did find a few listings, they had already been sold.

I was hopeful that more people would sell it, since it had only been less than a week since release. But I guess I underestimated how popular this chara fine graph was because, after the initial five listings I saw that were sold within the span of a few days, none appeared after. I had, like, ten Mercari tabs open on my browser with different search terms that I refreshed many times a day, but nothing was showing up. I would groan whenever I'd see the preorder bonuses for the other shops like Animate and Amazon pop up, but not Rakuten Books. I did finally see one new listing of someone selling just the badge pins, but that was sold within a few minutes, which made me even more nervous. I would also be nervous getting up in the morning since I didn't want to see that a new listing was posted and sold while I was sleeping! Thankfully I work from home so it wasn't too much of an inconvenience for me to refresh the Mercari tabs on my personal computer whenever I had a minute. But as the days went by and I didn't see any new listings, I started getting mad at myself that if I had only started seriously searching for it right on release day, I would have had at least five chances to get it and could have saved myself this hassle. I even sent a message to Rakuten Books via their online form, asking (in Japanese) if they could somehow sell it to me and ship internationally, etc. But their response was pretty much what I expected...a polite "no."

But then, on the evening of May 4th, I found a new listing and immediately bought it! What should have been a red flag though is that the person was selling it for $30 (with the badge pins included), while everyone else had been selling it from around $80-$100. The title they gave to the item was weird too; they simply called it "Spy Family" instead of "Spy Family Chara Fine Graph" or "Spy Family Rakuten Books Bonus" or something descriptive like that. But the seller had a decent rating so I didn't think there was a problem. After I got the email from Buyee (my proxy service) that they successfully bought the item, I thought I was all set. I closed out all my search tabs and went to bed feeling satisfied.

However, when I got up the next morning, my heart sank when I saw that about an hour after I had gone to bed, Buyee sent me another email saying that they refunded and cancelled my order! The reason they gave was "due to the convenience of the seller" 😫

But what was most frustrating about this is that, when I checked the searches again, I saw that the same seller had relisted the item, with a higher price and more descriptive title, and it had been sold already. What probably happened is that the seller realized they made a mistake with the title and price of the listing and wanted to change it, which Mercari apparently allows them to do even after it had already been sold and paid for!

I was furious with Mercari for allowing this. The least they could do in a situation like this is give the original buyer, like, one day to buy the item again with the increased price before the seller is allowed to relist it again. I wanted to write to the seller and/or Mercari, but I wasn't able to make a Mercari account since it's restricted to Japan. I was also internally yelling at myself that if I had just started searching for it within a day or two of release instead of procrastinating, I could have avoided all this. So it was back to square one, but I wasn't going to give up! I opened up more search tabs with even more refined search terms. I also expanded to other proxy-supported shops like Surugaya and Yahoo Japan Auction. I even got my mom to help me, since she's often up in the middle of the night and can check in case anything is listed during that time while I'm asleep. I downloaded the Buyee app too so I could check listings even if I was away from my computer. With all this, I was hopeful I'd be able to buy it again, though it was more of a question of "when" than "if." With second-hand collectibles, you never know when they could pop up...I could find a new listing the next day, or not for a year or two. But I just kept up the searching, and finally, after another month went by, on June 3rd (June 4th in Japan, so technically Twiyor day 😁) I finally found it again...on Yahoo Japan Auction of all places!

I had never bought via auction before so I was a bit nervous I'd get outbid or something. But I immediately clicked the "pay buyout price option" (which was only a few dollars more than the original price) and, thankfully, a short while later Buyee informed me that I successfully won the auction! But after what happened before, I was still paranoid that it could get canceled for whatever reason. But that didn't happen, and after waiting for shipping, it finally came~

I always like to add a "lessons learned" in these situations, so I'd say the lesson here is don't be blasé or procrastinate when it comes to something you really want. And of course, being persistent pays off more than not!

[im-not-batman]

For the ask WIP game

Spideypool falling please 😊

Oh I LOVE this one!

It's a 5+1 of spideypool falling for eachother and then Falling For Eachother. Featuring Dadpool because I'm a big fan of his work (Ellie).

"It really creeps me out when you do that, Webs." Wade said, sinking deeper into Peter's beat-up couch and kicking his fluffy-sock-clad feet up onto the other half of it that Peter was perched above. "I like sitting up here, sends all the blood to my brain so that I can beat you quicker," Peter reasoned and as if on queue the tinny TV speaker announced yet another victory. "You're such an asshole, Baby Boy," Wade smirked up at him, sounding more proud than annoyed. He threw a couple of M&Ms up for Peter to catch in his mouth, "do the other heros know how much of an asshole their comrade is?" Around his mouthful of chocolate and peanuts, he grinned, "I save all my worst bits for you, Wade." It was true too. He always felt like he needed to pose and posture around his fellow superheroes. Even though he'd come into his own as Spider-man over the last ten years, he still yearned for their approval and strived for their respect. Around Wade though, there was no need to pretend he was any better than he actually was. He didnt feel the need to constantly be on his best behaviour. Peter let his sass and sarcasm, disdain and irritation, good moods, bad moods and everything inbetween run rampant around Deadpool. And he never felt like he was being judged or evaluated. Just admired. Ecouraged even. "I'm touched," he said, throwing up another handful of M&Ms. This time Peter didn't react quick enough, lost in thought, and missed them.

Instead Wade caught the chocolates in his own mouth. Which shouldn't have been a thing but Peter's brain was making it a thing. He couldn't figure out if it was the ease with which he caught them – Peter's attraction to competency rearing it's ugly head – or the fact that the M&Ms were intended for his mouth and were now in Deadpool's. Either way, Peter's brain was doing some sort of horny gymnastics to rationalise it as tonsil tennis by-proxy. He watched Wade's throat bob as he swallowed. Peter's concentration was decidedly broken. He slipped. Usually that wouldn't be an issue; usually he'd have fallen from a much greater height and thus had more time to catch himself. But he was hanging from the ceiling this time. Granted, it was a relatively high ceiling, but not high enough. He let out an indecipherable jumble of a scream/shout/warning and Wade managed to dive out of the crash zone in time to not be knocked out by a 170 pound moron. When Peter didn't feel the heavy, throbbing pain of head trauma, he managed to gather his wits enough to realise that his head hadn't made contact with anything.

After another moment, he realised that Wade had seemingly managed to get his hand between Peter's skull and the floor. He still found himself uncomfortably contorted - half on the couch, half off, in a sort of human pretzel situation - but Wade had reacted in enough time to keep his head from cracking against the ground. And he was still holding him that way.

Peter's brain stopped working again. "Sorry," Wade said, trying to right the hero so that he was no longer lying at a downward 45 degree angle with legs akimbo, "Dad reflexes."

Peter wanted to scream. "You're apologising for saving me from a concussion?" Peter attempted to tease but it fell flat when he saw Wade's face, "Are you okay?" He let out a choked laugh, "Am I okay?" He asked incredulously, "you just fell eight feet." "And yet you're the one looking a bit loopy," Peter half laughed but wasn't able to keep the worry from seeping into his tone. "You scared the shit outta me, thought you were gonna go splat!" Deadpool justified. "From that height? Child's play. If I'd splatted, I'd have deserved it." It was a joke but Wade didn't seem to find it funny. "You should look after yourself better, Petey," he looked like he realised he was being too serious then, and his demeanor visibly shifted, "you don't regenerate, so you gotta look after that sinfully gorgeous meat suit of yours."

Ty ty for the ask! I really wanna get back into writing these two, I love them so much 🥲

Send me an ask with which of my WIPs from This Post you wanna hear about!

[rey-jake-therapist]

I came across a post where some people said that we ship haladriel because we see Gal as a self insert. I really don't see it? Because Galadriel's personality is sharply defined, and she's definitely not a passive character to project personal traits on. I used to play a certain genre of Japanese games called otome, where it's a reverse harem and you play as a nameable female character with generic personality traits like kind, friendly, and gentle. This is so the player can project themselves in the heroine's place as she picks one of many guys to date. And in order to create a sense of immersion, the developers of those types of games purposely make the proxy protagonist as bland as possible.

This is why I can't fathom the argument that some people have about using Gal as a proxy because she's the furthest thing from someone without a personality. This is why Sauron and Galadriel's dynamic is so fascinating. She a personality.

If anything, if we're going to talk about characters that are born to serve as proxies to project onto, it's those who don't have a defined personality. Like one of my multishipper friends (bless her heart) told me one of the reasons she likes Cel is because he's such a blank slate that it's easy to project onto his character.

So yeah, other characters with Gal may be about proxy but I really don't see the evidence it for Galadriel and Sauron.

Antis accusing shippers of using the female character in a ship they don't like is very usual. Each time a m/f ship becomes popular, especially an ETL ship, you can be sure that you'll have people claiming that shippers care only about the male character, that they just want to fu*k the male actor, that they don't care about the female character and that's why they support 'literal abuse', yada yada.

Pay no mind, cause it's just one of the tools they use to dismiss a ship and those who like it.

By the way, I'd like to take advantage of this post to make a small announcement regarding my current position. It also follows certain complains regarding the fact that I blocked certain persons I used to interact with...

I don't block people because they have a different opinion on a ship, on a theory or a meta, mind you. I just don't. As long as you express your disagreement respectfully, we're FINE. Right now, this is about the Elrond/Sauron theory, but it could be anything else I write. I know many of you don't believe in this theory and don't want it to be true, for various reasons: you told me, and/or told others, and yet see? I haven't blocked you. And I'm damn sure I haven't insulted/bullied you either because otherwise we wouldn't be mutuals anymore.

The persons I blocked, I did because:

they shook hands with antis who posted deranged, heinous anti Haladriel pamphlets where they accused Haladriel shippers of literal crimes such as sending death threats, of throwing insults at those who disagree with their takes, and of harassment and bullying. And by "shook hand", I mean reblogging their anti Haladriel rants saying they approved and encouraged them to keep being 'brave', or leaving notes in the same spirit. These are the people who accuse Haladriel shippers of making the fandom a toxic environment but they're the ones doing exactly that, by throwing baseless accusations they saw written on an anti blog.

if it wasn't that, they accused me and the few people who developed the Elrond/Sauron theory of being 'mean', 'disrespectful', 'bullying', 'calling names', etc., without providing any receipts since, lol, they have none. We never did that. They also accused us of 'making everything about the ship' even though I and the other persons who defend this theory always specified that it was NOT about the ship at all, and we took a quite long time EXPLAINING the theory and why it made sense to us, from a non shipping POV.

So basically, I blocked people who argued in my back that I was just a stupid shipper who don't care about the show at all, and that I was a terrible, evil person who harass, insult and bully anyone who disagrees with me.

All that to say: if you only disagree with my posts but I never see you badmouthing me or shippers in general because you want to show how different and better you are, we're cool, really. But if tomorrow you log in to Tumblr and find out I blocked you, it's probably because you got caught doing just that. And the fact that we exchanged jokes and agreed on Saurondriel in the past isn't going to change it. I don't need hypocrites in my life.

You encouraged hate spreading on my person and on people I like not just as shippers but as persons, you never, ever reached out to me to tell me you didn't like my tone, or that I made you uncomfortable for some reason, and I should just ignore it, pretend I didn't catch that? Really? I'm just a delusional shipper who makes everything about her ship and doesn't understand what she's watching, anyway, so why would you even care? Seriously, if I block you I'm doing you a favor... You won't see my shitty takes anymore, huzzah!

I have to say I live by the sentence: "A friend of my enemy is my enemy but an enemy of my enemy is my friend". Especially the first part.

I of course won't tag the ship or the show for this post, so I doubt that many people will see it, and it's not the point really. The point is, regarding antis I think there's only one way to go: block, and move on. We're feeding them by giving them attention. They live for it.

Enjoy your things, ignore them and you'll be the ones having fun while they'll be the ones crying because they're screaming in the void :)

[skinwalker-bratz]

My experiences from shifting to a realistic creepypasta reality.

i'm gonna tell you guys about my shifting experience to a REALISTIC creepypasta reality. Remember that you have to at least be 14 or 16 to read this because there are very messed up and disgusting stuff in this post, and most things look like it came from a the boys episode so DON'T READ IT if you're too sensitive to this stuff.

And a reminder that english is not my first language

One day me and smile dog made a bet about something i don't remember much, but he lost and i made him dress like paw patrol for a week.

once I had a mission in an abandoned factory and I hadn't to kill anyone just rob an item there, but there was criminals in there and an innocent man, so I decided to save him, which was extremely hard for me but he ended running from me frightened because of me... and he ran to a avenue where a truck ran over him.

one day masky made me mad, so I sneaked into Toby's room and extracted his cum on the floor and put it in masky's coffee.

I had a crush on Dr smiley once so I decided to write him a letter confessing to him. but the letter ended up in Slenderman's hands and later he told me he felt the same.

During a phase of my childhood when I was 7 years old, I had a kitten, and one day my cat had disappeared and I had been very sad, so my mother had prepared a meat soup to cheer me up, and when I had finished eating she showed me a piece of my cat's head and said: "was it good?". And then she laughed.

When i was a normal human in my 14s i had an encounter with a zalgo's prophet on Omegle's and they said that they were coming to me, so i thought that if i acted weird in my webcam they wouldn't come. So i started to do wild animal noises and pissed myself.

The prophet or zalgo's proxy, didn't came to get me so it worked.

one day I was in my real form, when I saw a girl with black hair wearing a white sweatshirt that I thought was Jeff, so I started following her, until she turned to me and screamed: "WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?" and threw pepper spray on my face.

I've already eaten a piece of Jack when he had an accident and was on the operating table, so they removed a piece of meat from his ribs that was very damaged and hanging and left it on a tray next to him. I was passing in the corridor and when I looked inside the operating room I saw the piece of meat on the tray and that Dr. smiley had gone out to get something, I sneaked in, took the piece and ate it and left the room.

I don't know what came over me, but at least it was good.

I found out that he regenerates, so this accident was no big deal.

One day I'd been bullied by everyone in the mansion, so i "accidentally" dropped some drug in the soup i was making and the people there ended up eating it, and everyone, except the ghosts, went high. And i got punished for it.

One day I made pasta (not a Creepypasta) as dinner and everyone who ate got sick and almost shit themselves. And again I've got punished and gone to the mansion's dungeon.

One day the proxy trio humiliated me in front of everyone, and i wanted revenge so i posted anonymously a hentai of them three in the mansion's web, and everyone who had phones saw it.

I dated Jack for a while there, and he started to like me to the point where he revealed his face to me. When he did that I realized he was so ugly that I almost cried when I kissed him. After about two weeks I broke up with him.

during my first Christmas in the mansion I saw offenderman using the Christmas turkey to do things u know what... but I was too shy to tell anyone, so during the dinner everyone ate the turkey, except me.

During a mission me and some proxies were discussing a plan and soon we got to a part that involved opening degrees, so I made a joke telling masky to open my legs 180 degrees and I got punished for it.

Note: proxies have a higher ranking than other creepys or lone rangers as they're called there, so you can't disrespect them at all

I already made at least 3 people go to a mental institution.

One day i got to knew about Jeff's and Liu's parents, so while Liu was very drunk i called him on a caller ID and i did my best mom impression voice to say: "it's me Liu, your mother, and I'm coming back for you." While playing hell background noises.

when i was 8 i hated clowns with all my forces but one day i had the bad luck to laughing jack find me. i hated him too much but i was good in not showing it, so one day I've set fire on him and Lucky that my mother found out about my "friend" and got rid of him.

my mother was a witch in that reality.

One say i fell out of my bedroom's window and broke a few bones, and i was brought to the medical office of the mansion and explained what happened to me to nurse and and she just said: "skill issue".

Of course, these are the funniest and light stuff that happened to me. Going to this reality just messed with me, and I'm still scared of some things, but my mental state is fine there's nothing to worry about me.

[randomwriteronline]

"Still snowing?"

"Still snowing."

"Hm."

Ingo watched from where he laid on the floor, cheeks warm from a glass of liquor, as Melli stoked the fire a bit more.

"You know," he said suddenly, "On evenings like this Gaeric goes out and grabs a handful of snow, and puts it in the water."

"Well, I'm not Gaeric." Melli replied bitterly.

"Neither am I," Ingo just responded, missing the animosity completely in his tipsy state: "I haven't got the faintest idea as to why he would do such a thing. Making the water cold when it's already cold outside. I should ask him, but it keeps evading my mind."

"You should go to sleep."

"I'd like to talk to you, though."

"About what?"

"In general. I like talking. I like talking to you. We can talk about Gliscors if you want. I know you think they're nice. Did you know that they rip the fur off of where they're biting with their tongue and spit it out so it doesn't get in their mouth? I saw it on a Swinub. It was a lot of fur."

A hum that was more like a grunt came to his ear.

The younger warden tapped his foot impatiently while looking into the flames. He stood, walking barefoot up to his lover, and laid face down next to him with his mouth buried between his arms.

Ah, the foreigner thought lazily.

He's angry.

He waited in silence, without complaining, because the hut was warm and his mind pleasantly fuzzy, and he could smell the faintest flowery scent come from his beloved's tangled hair. Oh, he must have been seriously angry, if he wasn't even quietly asking to be preened.

Lilac blue eyes refused to meet his gaze and pointedly stared right ahead. Then he huffed, hid his face completely, pulled it back out in the open.

"I don't like this."

"This being?"

"This. You and me and him."

"Ah. The... Arrangement, that we have?"

He nodded.

With a whine, he shoved his eyes back down against his arms: "I can't stand hearing about him," he whimpered. "Even when it's only you and me and he's miles away he still manages to snivel into any conversation we have like a damn Ghastly slipping through the cracks of a wall. It makes me want to scream. I detest him. It feels like even when it's my turn I'm just the lamer option. Second best as usual. I can't get a damn victory for myself even when my opponent agreed on a tie by proxy."

A stout white arm reached beneath his stomach and pulled him as if to invite him a little closer. He didn't resist it, down in the dumps and filled with an uneasy anger as he was feeling; he allowed himself to be pulled onto Ingo's chest and rested his head between his lover's clavicles. Somewhat humid lips pressed gently kiss after kiss on his head, accompanied by a slow hand carefully smoothing the long hair falling all over his back, and allowed a sniffle to escape him.

"I like talking about you two, you know," Ingo murmured. "You're great and I adore you. I have to share that with someone. But the only people I can talk about you two with... It's always just you two again. And it seems like... It's really that neither of you enjoy that."

"So he told you first?"

"Hm, no, no. He's an open book, but he doesn't say those things plainly..."

He combed through a lilac blue knot and felt his darling curl up a little more on him, wrapping slender arms around his shoulders.

"You should meet up more often."

"I'd rather die," Melli immediately hissed.

"That might be a bit drastic."

"I don't want anything to do with him."

A scarred finger curled one of his locks around itself and gently pulled until it all fell off once more: "You're both lovely men," the older warden argued softly, "Lovely men to be around, lovely to get to know. You would see that, if you met more often. You wouldn't even have to talk if you don't want to."

"And what do you think we should do, then? Just stand around each other like laundry poles?"

"Yes!"

"You're drunk."

"Not at all. It's called... I don't know how it's called. Socializing, I think. It's when you - hold on, it's when you take... Two, uh... Hm..."

"Take your time."

"Yes, with time -"

"No, I meant you take your time."

"Ah! No, no, I've got it. It's... Not a Glameow, but close."

"Purugly."

"Not a Purugly either."

"Stunky."

"No, not - Umbreon? I think it might be Umbreons. Are Umbreons canine or feline? Anyways. Socializing. It's when you get, you get two Umbreons, and you teach them to get along. And you put them somewhere together and don't do anything."

"And how would that help?"

"Because they get used to each other. If they try to attack each other you stop them of course, but the trick is to leave them be, so they each go around minding their business around the house, or around wherever it is you put them to be, and that's how they get used to each other and learn to get along."

Melli huffed, thoroughly unconvinced: "He'd start growling at me after five minutes. No way a guy like him could get socialized."

"Yes, I figure you'd know. Your clan didn't do that well with you either."

Ingo allowed himself a couple somewhat raucous laughs when a slender hand hit his cheeks with little force and his darling shoved his angry face deeper into his sternum, obviously wanting to sulk alone in a corner all piqued as he was, yet at the same time unwilling to leave the comfortable warm human mattress in favor of sitting on the cold pavement all by himself.

He interrupted his chuckling to sink his nose into the smooth silky hair, giving a gentle sigh. His arms tightened a little more around the lean body in his hold as he hummed, his tone a mixture of feelings being stirred slowly in a pan.

"I love you so very terribly," he murmured.

"Well, I don't see that," the younger man replied maybe a tad too harsh.

His annoyance melted when a hand cupped his nape with all the fondness in the world, and he regretted lashing out.

The foreigner leaned his jaw against the other's head: "I love you so, so much and I don't want you to be miserable because of me," he continued ever so softly: "You've already done so much - both of you, you've done so much to adapt for me and it still feels bad and it breaks my heart. I was so happy when you said you'd- when you told me you talked and figured it out. It surprised me a lot. I was really, really happy. It means a lot that you did, it really does. But if you aren't happy with this, I can't be happy if you two aren't, I can't... I don't want you to be miserable because of - because I can't choose."

Him not managing to choose was the only reason Melli even got the chance to be like this, warmed up on a cold night held by and holding the man he had fallen for despite his stupid superiority charade, or at least that was how he saw it; so he tightened his embrace a little and thought twice before complaining about that.

For a short while the hut was only filled by the soft crackling of fire and silent kisses on lilac hair.

"I can stop talking about him if you want me to," Ingo spoke up again very softly. "I can catch myself doing that and stop it."

"... You'd do that?"

Maybe it wasn't the right thing to say in such a hopeful tone at that moment.

"Sure," the other still replied earnestly.

Melli deflated with a sigh: "Thank you."

The chest he was laying on reverberated with a low sleepy hum, buzzing against his cheek without a real melody but soothing him all the same.

With his eyes closed he felt his beloved first gently tug at his long locks as he wrapped tham around his fingers, then play the back of his ribs like a drum with gentle pats, evidently unable to keep his hands idle now that conversation topics were languishing.

The younger warden's mind wandered for a short while instead; it rotated the words within his skull with a mixture of guilt and some kind of pouting emotion he didn't manage to put a name to it, something that whined and lamented a lot on several things like a spoiled Eevee. He shoved it away with his foot half-heartedly, only for it to start whimpering louder into his ear and stomping its paws on his face with an insistence that grated his nerves into fine dust in no time at all.

Sinnoh bless him! Was this how it felt to be nagged so much by something so bothersome? It almost convinced him to give up on his haughty mask out of pity for humanity as a whole.

It shrieked and threw another tantrum, and he swatted at it so angrily that it was launched right out the window.

"The other side of the mountain would be closer to him," he finally settled on mumbling, still half hoping he wouldn't be heard out of scornful pride.

"Him who?"

"Him. For meeting."

His human mattress had a jolt, white eyes opening wide in a flash to look at him in utter surprise: "You'd do that?" he asked with a voice that despite the alcohol's dizziness was terribly excited.

"Only to try," Melli replied as fast as he could. "And if nothing changes after three times I'll give up on it completely."

Fine by Ingo, if the way his frowning face lit up was any indication.

His darling managed to reply to his brilliant gaze for a handful of quiet minutes; then, overwhelmed by the blinding enthusiastic joy it was emitting, he pushed slender pale hands over the cheeks and eyes and nose and lips to cover up the entirety of that so loved visage, complaining with a groaning hiss of it being 'too bright!'.

He was squeezed just tightly enough in stouter arms with a guttural, overjoyed laugh.

[rivalsforlife]

if you'rs still up for it i'd love to learn about dadworth epic and/or deep dark secrets 2 ?? also i have to say i loved that excerpt you posted of musical phoenix and how you perfectly made him such an asshole to maya lol

I'm always happy to do these!! (and thank you! why did the musical write him like that. why did they destroy my best friends.)

dadworth epic was SUPPOSED to be a super long (why it's not finished) plotty fic diverging from the end of The Forgotten Turnabout, except Kay doesn't get her memories back. Since she doesn't get her memories back, Edgeworth doesn't investigate the storage room to get the call from de Killer and therefore doesn't get sucked into the Grand Turnabout, and decides to take in Kay until she gets her memories (which doesn't happen for a whiiile). Without Grand Turnabout being resolved a bunch of bad things happen (Justine hands down the not-guilty for Patricia Roland, but subsequently is arrested for the fake president's murder - Ray manages to get her off the hook but the true culprit isn't found, Lang still suspects John but he's never convicted for it - Sebastian is kidnapped and not rescued for days and his faith in himself/others is totally shattered, it takes longer for John to get rescued so though he isn't dead he has some permanent frostbite damage from the freezer plus extra trauma, and of course Simon gets away with everything.) Basically everyone is worse off except the villains for most of this AU.

Also in this AU since Edgeworth doesn't go through his realization of wanting to become a prosecutor, he ends up becoming a defense attorney. This overlaps with disbarment so Phoenix has this weird jealousy thing going on where it's like "yeah I only became a defense attorney to save him and it's great that he's following his childhood dreams now But." Also Franziska and Gumshoe are taking this badly since they see Edgeworth as a defense attorney as a betrayal of his relationships with them (which is a thought I've elaborated on elsewhere).

Either way since Edgeworth still knows Too Much, he eventually gets assassins sent after him and Kay (I don't think I fully decided if this would be Patricia, Blaise, or Simon via Gustavia Proxy) and they go to de Killer, who, still feeling in Edgeworth's debt, refuses the request and warns him. He and Kay go on the run. This includes temporarily tagging along with the circus (to bring Simon into relevancy again), going to Zheng Fa (to introduce everything Lang's got going on and summarize the president's death related parts of Grand Turnabout), joining with Interpol (to handle the Franziska&Miles relationship drama), reuniting with Justine, John, and Sebastian, who are also on the run (dealing with fallout of this AU on their characters), then of course they have to take down Patricia, Blaise, the assassins going after them, and Simon (which is where I got lost because I was struggling to figure out How to do all that). They don't have enough evidence to arrest Simon on in the end, and it gives Edgeworth a career crisis again.

And of course throughout the whole thing is the focus on Edgeworth&Kay where Kay is first amnesiac and scared, then slowly gets more comfortable with Edgeworth and a bit more like her old personality, and at some point she does get her memories back but doesn't say anything because she wants to stay with him.

AS YOU CAN TELL IT WAS GOING TO BE VERY LONG. I HAVE NOT WORKED ON IT SINCE 2020. The outline was pretty detailed though so I miiight be able to pick it up again if I'm in the mood for it but I wouldn't count on it.

Deep Dark Secrets 2 is a much shorter explanation it's pretty much just me rewriting my fic that already exists but fully from Iris's perspective. So it was mostly a writing exercise kind of thing, it's mostly disjointed scenes, lots of them are flashbacks to her relationship with Phoenix and her interactions with Dahlia around that time.

[leefi]

The Flower that Bloomed Nowhere Read-through | Part 7: 90-100

Part 1: 1-14 | Part 2: 14-22 | Part 3: 22-34 | Part 4: 34-64 | Part 5: 64-80 | Part 6: 81-90 | Part 7: 90-100 | Part 8: 100-127 (caught up here)

Bal is soooo funny for choosing to simply sit out and wait the loop. If that were me I’d be acting out. I’d be skipping around the sanctuary acting mischevious and committing hooliganry. Hey does Fang have loop memories

SU NAME REVEAL!!! KUROKA!

raises hand. I have another question. did samium also fuck that old man

Shiko is so sweet oh my goddddd 😭 I wonder if Kuroka fell in love with her...

I hadn't even realized how much of a fan I was. That another me had been growing on those lonely nights, only waiting for someone to draw it out.

Even though it was such a small thing, for the first time, I felt like I was able to be someone other than myself. Someone who shined brightly.

Just like her. AWWWUWYYYYYYUUUUWUWUUUUUUUU!!!!! AWWWWWWWWWWWWWW

"Fang, Su, have you still got enough eris for barriers?"

Fang looked at their scepter, making a thoughtful hum. "Yeah, for a few minutes."

I thought Fang didn’t have their scepter?

Another thing I'd failed to understand at the time was that this was largely by design. Replicating high-quality food was impossibly cheap, and a low-hanging fruit in terms of helping people's quality of life. It was the politics of spite, or 'tough love' if you wanted to be charitable; choosing not to help others for no reason other than them having not earned it, or at least treating it as not worth the infinitesimally minor inconvenience to their betters.

oh i dont like this worldbuilding that much anymore

“Nowadays you can get your nutrition managed with pills anyway. It's not like when we were kids, when it actually mattered what you ate."

"There's still no long-term research into the subject," [Shiko]’s mother replied, frowning. "And besides, it's not simply a matter of health. There are social consequences to having a limited palate."

“social consequences”? lets kill her

"I'm just saying, it wouldn't hurt to be a little more conscientious," Shiko's mother insisted, holding up a hand. "And I know I've only been here for a couple of years now, but I really don't think it's that bad. Some parts in town seem a little deprived, but the theater is nice, and I've never had any trouble finding anything from the shops. It's hardly Altaia or Old Yru, but it's not as though we're eking out a living on the Lower Planes."

KUROKA BABY IM GONNA GET YOU OUT OF THERE. IM GONNA GET YOU OUT

Shiko’s granddad and Samium were conspiring to use her???? “Get the drop on her”???????? I mean this isn’t anything we didn’t already know but hearing them speak so plainly and shamelessly about it IN HER HOUSE is repulsive

I'd done a lot of stuff for a person my age, especially if you counted the stuff from-- Well, you know. I'd traveled by carriage, bus, tram, vacuum tram, boat and airship. I'd been to seven different countries and lived in four. I'd played in an amateur sport team (assuming chess counts as a sport).

it does not

Ophelia had been unspokenly left out as well; she apparently produced such an aura of eternal femininity that our minds had just silently registered it as the correct call after we'd only been able to find three shovels in the greenhouse.

also me if im being completely honest. *the gorillas get released* sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry

Hey while they’re digging I’ve been thinking. using the dying gods as their proxy has me wondering if this really is an integrated pneuma in some person enacting its long thought out (hehe) revenge. But that doesn’t explain multiple culprits especially considering they’ve been referring to death with different gendered pronouns

She looked between us. "Questions?"

Linos looked to the side. "Uh, do you see any problems with the plan, Zeno?"

There was a pause, then an approving thump from the luggage pile.

funniest character

a possible explanation for many of these contradictions was that there wasn't just one 'mastermind', but competing groups.

One calls it 'master'. The other calls it 'Her'...

YES YES YES YES YES YES YES. It's almost like...a battle of wills? A battle of competing ideologies?

"I think I-- I think I have a hernia," I said weakly.

"What you have is a case of the weeny-whinies.” THE WEENY WHINIES!!!!

KAMRANSU SWEEP!!! im doing yuri multiplication in my head rn

hum. "Indeed, you've stumbled upon the fundamental issue. After all, if what we inhabit is not the true reality, but merely the product of a physical process within another, it seems very improbable for our 'creators' to be playing with tools akin to our own. Our very conception of inter-dimensional spacetime - and the associated concepts of entropy, movement, and finite energy - could be nothing more than an amusing fabrication, with no bearing on actual physics."

Kind of like how a two-dimensional creature can only interpret a 3-dimensional world from a 2-dimensional perspective, and a 3-dimensional creature can only interpret a 5th-dimensional world from a 3rd and simplified 4th dimensional perspective…but what defines “actual?“ is any of your universe “actual”, for that matter? You have no confidence that your reality is real beyond the myths you’ve heard of the ironworkers. I don't mean to explicitly suggest this is a simulation by any means, but rather...I'm thinking back to Zeno's question. "Why turn back the self when you can turn back the world?". Well, if you're conflicted on what a "self" constitutes, it only follows to reason that the nature of the world around you too would also fall into question...

Well, that depends, Utsushikome. Do you believe a pawn is destined only to look across at its rival pieces for eternity, by its very nature?" She stabbed her fork into a tomato, spilling its red fluid. "Or, perchance, might it learn to crane its neck towards heaven?"

My eyes drifted from the tower towards the ceiling of the bioenclosure proper. The blackness.

Slowly, I clicked my tongue. OHHHHOHOHOHOGOGOGOGOGOOGOGOGOHOHHOHHOOHHOOHOGOGOGOGOYOYO RHHEEHEHEHHEHEHEHEHEHEHHEHEHEHEHEHHEHEHEHEHEHEHHEHEHE

She nodded several times, like I'd said something profound. "Yes. That's it exactly." She exhaled. "It's cowardice. People are afraid of death, so they try to turn it into something it isn't. Something beautiful and cathartic, something symbiotic with humanity, just like Grandmaster Melanthos was talking about. So they don't have to face the truth that it was all for fucking nothing. That being mortal is an accident of material circumstance, just as much as hunger or, or-- I don't know, going *bald*.” 🦍

"When people think of truly eternal lives, of sticking not just a few more centuries on the pile but outlasting the lifespan of stars, the scope of the proposition is harrowing. What would we become, in trying to achieve true stability as creatures of chaos and change? Could we?" Her voice grew a little quieter; solemn, almost. "What would we do, without that option to simply fade away?" She looked towards me. "What do you think, Su?"

I went for a third round of blinking, just to emphasize the point.

Why does [Kam] always single me out in these conversations?

big ass crush on you

Ohhh Kam is a 60 year old minor! Cool!

Even though she'd dismissed questions on the subject with an affect of far-sightedness back in the transpositioning chamber, the fact of the matter was that people our age getting stressed out about their own mortality was freakishly rare; I'd literally never met another person quite like [Kam].

This trait she and I share. I was having existential breakdowns at the tender age of 5

Ohhh Su is in her early-mid thirties! Okay yeah that checks out with her mental illness

You're only 32, Su," she said, frowning. "It's a little early to making world-weary statements like that, don't you think?

*looks at su* *looks at orv*

*looks back at su*

Of all the years I could live, could thrive, until all those regrets are nothing more than a single drop in a vast lake. I'm sure the same is true for you, too."

This really was out of character for her. I felt a complicated feeling in my chest. "That's, uh... Kam..."

"Is this really the right time for this?" Ran asked flatly. "The philosophy was one thing, but this is getting weirdly romantic."

Kam scoffed, making a gesture of distaste. "Don't be peculiar, Ran."

KAMSU SWEEP WE HAVE LITEREALLY NEVER BEEN MORE BACK THAN WE ARE RIGHT NOW

"Perfect," Kam said, stepping towards it immediately.

"Feels a little weird to be looting the dead," I said, glancing around.

"This is no time for sentiment, Su," Kam replied. She walked up to the cabinet in question and, after unsuccessfully trying the lock, took the butt of her refractor rifle and shattered it, before casting it aside and sliding the larger weapon out.

this actually became a COD lobby im crying

saw Samium lying down in the bed, eyes half-open, staring at the ceiling. Other than the fact that there was a book by the side that seemed to be gone now - fiction, probably, the cover depicting a ship - that felt a little confusing. So he could read a novel, after all? Or maybe someone had left it here?

Ship of Theoseus chan?

Why did the playwright just look at me

"Okay, so. Here's the thing," they said. "The monster might be, uh, real."

SWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEPPPPPPPP

WE HAVE LITERALLY NEVER BEEN MORE BACK THAN THIS MOMENT FOLKS THIS IS IT. THIS IS REAL. IT'S HAPPENING

Okay for all my excitement about the beast is there any way to check if that’s actually the phantasm conjuring arcana they talked about earlier? Could explain the grim reaper but I don’t remember if it could produce sound or not…or how big it could get. Could also just be a really advanced golem since the power was active while this was happening? (And that was the negating factor when they were debating COBD (cause of Bardiyas death before))

I’m pretty sure the beak thing is actually real though, so many people have corroborated it. The beast only showed up while people were panicking

Man I wouldn’t be surprised if this conversation with Samium we’re seeing over the logic thing concluded with Su pushing him out the window. my rationale towards this is would that be fucking crazy or what

So, this sounds like it's coming from way off in the distance-- Like really far down the hall, or behind a wall, or something. Now, I'm getting a really bad vibe at this point,

Have i mentioned yet how much I love fang

Ann says we should just gun it." Anna's eyes narrowed slightly at her name being shortened, but didn't interject.

Have i mentioned yet how much i LOVE fang

I said something stupid about hiding up in the armory, maybe grabbing some of the grenades, so we went all the way up

they are addicted to those grenades

If Ptolema thinks the beast is fake then I believe that it's fake. She’s consistently proven to have the best observational skills of the entire group, picking things up that other people don’t see. As she says, she's got the mind of a surgeon. She knows how a body is meant to be built and interact with its environment. Believe women!!!! Ema sweep!!!!

Can I be honest. Creepy children’s stories scare me so much and I could barely get through that one barn quest in Cyberpunk 2077 and this children's slideshow with the piglet is reminding me of that. I literally couldn’t sleep for a few days after playing that. Anyway. Animal Farm? because there is a farm with animals

no i'm being deadass was that an animal farm redux. it felt like an animal farm redux

It would be so funny if Fang acted the way they do because something was wrong with them. But it would be even funnier if they're just like this

[froshele]

Can we please - I know it's not very pro idiot dilf of me and Tumblr doesn't always like that but can we please take a break from cooing over the clueless infantilized dadness of this man and analyze the situation and the context critically?

He opens the article with a totally unnecessary paragraph fawning about some teenager (as like a lead into "you wouldn't BELIEVE what sorts of people can set records and how humble they are!") and then goes into like a thing about the same guy's juggling record and how much he loves Mario and is the webmaster/referee of some record site

This entire saga begins because the author of the article hears about how important tetris records are to gamers and is immediately like lol you know My Wife really likes that dinky little game, she gets 500 lines easy, she's weirdly good at it (for a woman) i know

and so then the guy is like (awkwardly) wow the record is like 300something you should take her to the tournament

and so he wakes her out of a dead sleep to tell her this, and there's a cut and he does take her there, and she goes along despite playing tetris casually and mostly just to focus on long car trips because she's like fine with being shown off to his friends it's ok, or maybe because she wants to set a record for real, i dont know, he doesnt tell us enough about her to say and i dont think he knows enough about her himself

he barely briefs her about what to expect from all these gamerbros and she gets nervous, and-

Lori and I drIve to Weirs Beach in the middle of rush hour. This is fine. We haven't had much time to talk about the scene, and she wants to know what to expect. She is anxious. I can't say I blame her. After a few months of laughing about this whole idea that she could be a Tetris world record-holder, it is time for her to deliver. Live. In front of some of the world's best video game players.

Oh my gd dude do you even love her. Do you even have any faith in your wife or is she a mere woman to you. What do you mean laughing about it, and do not give me the man of the times argument, when I left home I time traveled out of 1880 and this is a genre of misogyny i actually managed never to experience

Since I'd woken her up that night, the idea had felt comfortably surreal. We'd tell friends the story and have a good laugh. I mean, it's Tetris. Everybody knows Tetris, and most everybody has played Tetris. It's the video game that people who hate video games actually love, probably because it's so simple

Shut UP shut UUUUUP shut UPPP if it's so simple YOU set a record at it then

There are many things that attracted me to my wife, though I can't say an exceeding amount of hand-eye coordination was one of them. She's 31, she works as a nutritionist at UMass, and she's fairly athletic. She can hit a softball and catch a football, but there was nothing about her to suggest she had some innate ability for the split-second decision making required to succeed at Tetris when the pieces are really coming fast. The idea that she could be the best person to ever play the Game Boy version of Tetris seemed beyond crazy.

GOOD LORD what an asshole. We didn't need to know the age, athleticism or weight range of your wife!

Good LORD you guys. Literally he only did any of this to write this piece about it, and nowhere in any of this do we get any sort of statement from her at all except at the very end. It's an article about his wife's achievement, only like 70% of it is him creaming himself about other men and negging her by proxy

There is the line

For the first time, I allow myself to believe that she really is that good.

SWEET BABY RAYMOND, MAN! You must be so much fun at parties! He spends the whole article basically going like heres my gamer cred, i know you guys would never believe a woman had any mental capacity at all and tbh neither would i but listen this museum acknowledged my wife's record and then i was so hyped! I felt like i wanted to hand out cigars because MY woman beat the record

and they're all like ooga booga cheating? wait no actually secret Real record! And the guy's all like

She is not using any cheat codes or banned techniques because, frankly, she doesn't know any.

HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT? i wouldnt cheat at a world record either but the way you talk about Lori good sir I dont think you have any sort of grip on or appreciation of what she knows. Worst way to defend your wife's integrity, 1/10 for even thinking to, although it was for the record and not for her

Anyway she beats the colour category record too and

Billy, I definitely have the record, right?"

"Oh, yeah," I reply. "Now you're just showing off."

?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

The crowd is getting into it. Twice, she makes mistakes and the pieces pile to the top of the screen, but she gets out of it. After an hour of playing, Lori makes one mistake too many and her game ends. She has destroyed the record – her final score is 841 lines. We would later determine this was her second-best game ever.

Almost a guarantee her mistakes wouldnt be covered if she was a he but anyway of course this was only her second best game, very slick use of "we"

Day comes over to shake her hand. Lori is laughing as Day declares her "the greatest Tetris player in the world," then turns to me to add, "And I must say, she's also the prettiest."

eeeEEEEeeeeUoUUUGHHHHH. Who GIVES. A Fuck? Who ASKED? More importantly why was this put in the final article? You couldn't torture me into embarrassing a stranger like that in a piece meant to flatter them, although of course I would also not be in this situation with my wife, who is a person whom I respect and love

The only thing Lori is ever quoted as saying is

"That was one of the most bizarre moments of my life," she says. "The flashes were going off and Walter was talking. It was like Bizarro World."

Which of course is the name of the arcade lounge hahaha

AND THEN

AND THEN this ends on THIS note:

What does it mean to be the best in the world at something? This is what runs through my mind as we lay in bed Sunday morning. We are both struggling to understand what Lori's mastery of a game that Day calls "the embodiment of comprehensive thinking" means in our lives.

As I go to pack the car, I realize that Lori has bought some things on the trip, and fitting them into our Jeep Cherokee is getting tricky. Then I look over at Lori, and it all makes sense. "From now on," I tell the new master of fitting shapes into tight spaces, "you pack the car."

Of course! Of course if she has a skill (which isnt reeeeeally all that) she has to use it to benefit him and this is all cutesy and charming! 87 years after the women's vote in this gentleman's country, ladies and sundry. 87 years.

Please don't harass Billy Baker about this. He is an old man and I'm sure a better person 20 years on. And if not, well, that was not the point, the point is I do not think this is as cute as it seems.

please read this story of a man accidentally discovering his wife is the world's best Tetris player

[luxmaeastra]

Hector watched his world crumble in a night. Their home burned, soldiers forcing themselves into their home. They slaughtered and took whoever they wanted. His sisters and brothers screaming. They were after the archives, his parents had refused to bend - to recognize any outside authority.

He looked to the window, stay here and die or run. He jumped, diving into the water. He called on the air on the darkness of the deep to sheild him.

--------

Lumas screamed but he didn't care, this kingdom was still hers by proxy. Still hers even if her stamp wasn't here.

Her claws were in those girls and it was too late for them. He let them go, let them run. He wouldn't pursue them, wouldn't give them that chance.

He stopped Lumas, too heartbroken and horrified to stop him. He held out the dagger gold and salt licked.

"This belongs to her."

"We never agreed with her Hector -"

"Yes you did. You helped her take a throne, you stoked those flames till she burned even you. Take the mercy, come back when your line is cleansed. Maybe we can talk then."

Lumas took the dagger looking to the bodies hanging behind him. The pyres burnings.

"It won't be a conversation when we return."

He nodded.

"Fair enough. I look forward that battle. Go. Sarai and Amaya are waiting for you."

Lumas eyes blazed, white as he stepped toward him.

"You despise us but you help them?"

"My sister is evil, she is ruined and corrupt. But those children may still have a chance. There are others under her care, Valg and Fae princesses. They can't all be corrupt can they? Cleanse them -"

"My daughters are fine. There is no reason to cleanse them "

"One of them is. The other, she cried, she begged for her. I'd keep on that one."

--------

Hector looked to Andromache, moving to kiss her hard. Two different families slaughtered that night so long ago. Two different orphans finding each other in the wreckage.

"We have a home, a nest love. I can't wait to fill it with our children."

It was strange how things came together, just as much as they fell a part. Maybe she should have felt pity for Lumas and his family, but she had only watched on from a distance. It wasn't her place, it wasn't her time. No, her place and time came when Hector came to her.

Eagerly she returned the kiss, her hand reached up as her fingers gripped around the back of his neck. In these brief moments she could forget the hurt and the pain, those that had been lost and the wreckage they had climbed out of.

"Hmm, we do have a home and a nest. I am just as eager as you are." To make their mark, to cement their legacy and their family. "I love you Hector."

[yourlunarspice]

so many good ones mmm ok. 3, 14, 49 <3 <3

Ahhhh thank you so much for your ask, Llyn! I love getting responses to ask games. It's gives me an opportunity to ramble about the most random things, lol

3. What are some tropes or details that you think are very characteristic of your fics?

Something that I've always tried to do with my fics is about descriptions, and I'm gonna try to explain it properly. There's always a risk of writing too much description. With too much description, you get something akin to Tolkien that is vivid but it drags the storyline/pacing down. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE visualizing a scene and wanting to write down LITERALLY EVERYTHING, but that's not practical.

For me, I try to only put the barest information about setting (if it's important) and focus on the characters and their blocking through the scene. This ensures that the story isn't bogged down with unnecessary descriptions but gets the important parts solidified in the reader's mind.

One example is in my first bnha story Those Damn Flowers, where young Aizawa was walking down a hall as he reflected on recent events. It could have been a hall at UA, his home, or some other place; point is, it wasn't important. It lets every reader have a unique perspective on the scene's setting (and, by proxy, Aizawa's clothes and the people around him) while keeping the important parts (Aizawa's thought process and physical reactions to them) unchanging.

14. Are there any tropes you would only read if written by a trusted friend or writer?

Noticing really comes to mind, tbh. I get most of the fics I read through AO3feed blogs, and I don't really pay attention to the author. If the summary looks good, I check it out, simple as that.

That being said, if I had to give an answer, I don't really read most fantastical AUs (i.e., fantasy/dragon, steampunk, fallout, space/alien, etc.), HOWEVER, if a trusted friend or writer wrote something in one of those more fantastical AUs, I'd give it a shot.

49. What are you currently working on? Share a few lines if you’re up for it!

I've been writing/posting some weird stuff lately, lol. Most recently, it was 'No Cure' (one of my favorites), but before that it was 'You call it 'torturing', I call it 'mercy killing'. Same difference' and 'Do you know how to tell where a corpse is buried?'. Real snappy titles, I know.

The next thing I'm planning on posting is on the 19th, and it's the final chapter of my biggest story yet, Heaven And Earth Between Us. Here are a few paragraphs from Chapter 6: New Beginnings (censored so no spoilers!):

((Also, I knowwww I said I wouldn't read many fantastical AUs, and I don't, but I was inspired to write this, ironically, a fantastical AU. Don't read into it too much))

Toshihiro’Máni met the Death god’s gaze. “I wish for compassion on this soul,” he said. “He did not understand the weight of his actions and died unecessarily.” [Death god] gazed at the corpse before raising an eyebrow at Toshihiro’Máni. “I take it you’re another god?”

“Yes, I control the Moon and the stars. Please, will you help him?”

Hands reached forward and lifted [Victim]’s body out of Toshihiro’Máni’s hands. “Please,” the Moon god found himself begging. “He doesn’t deserve this fate.”

“And you think no one else was undeserving of theirs?” [Color] eyes flashed, pinning Toshihiro’Máni where he stood. “People die all the time, some deserving their fate, others innocent. Your friend is a drop in the bucket.”

Toshihiro’Máni gulped at the sudden anger, but pressed onward: “I just want to save one. And if I can make a difference to one person, that will be enough for me.

“Everyone I know has saved countless lives,” he continued, the faces of Aizawa, Midoriya, Kirishima, …Katsuki flickering in his mind’s eye. “But all I can do is prevent bad dreams. If I can save just one…” tears sprang to his eyes. “...that will be enough for me!”

I'M SO HAPPY WITH HOW HEAVEN HAS TURNED OUT, IT'S THE FIC IM PROUDEST OF

After that, I have something in mind for Shinny boy, but I haven't started writing it yet. It's gonna be another one of those "I need help sleeping, please use your Quirk to help me sleep" stories. I've seen so many of those, but I can't help it. I love the sleepy purple boy.

Thanks again for the asks, Llyn! Sorry my answers got SUPER long

From this ask game

[ineffably-human]

The Gang Watches The Pirate Show Part 2

(it's during season 4 for them probably)

Laszlo: - does a lot of very passionate shouting at the screen to the point that everyone tells him to knock it the fuck off - says the moral of this story is all the English are fucking pricks who should be drawn and quartered - and that one French guy from the one episode, with the wig and the stupid laugh, he still hates him too even if he doesn't know why - ('the complaining scribbling boy doesn't count, I could probably fuck the English out of him.') - he puts Ed's shitty lyrics to a piano melody, it does not improve them but he gets teary anyway

Nadja: - is entertained by the violence more than everyone else but is still whimpering and throat-singing by the end - lots of Very Meaningful Looks and hand-squeezes with Laszlo during the monologue about love - is sad the sexy pirate lady didn't come back, there aren't enough women in this and she liked her, at least there is also a sexy eyepatch lady - 'should we start a service going about and killing women's husbands, my sweet dark prince?' 'I think it's a little different these days, my darling, but we could scout for prospects' Colin: - is too young for this show but sneaks in to watch it anyway and glows really bright when the characters get hurt or are at their most pathetic, the others either pretend they don't see him or are genuinely too invested to notice Nandor: - agrees they really do have to swordfight, all his years campaigning and he did not know that trick about the stabbing. ('I'm not sure they've got the right information, Master.') - watches Guillermo watching what happens a lot. a LOT. (think The Casino, that's his default whenever he's too far up in his own feelings and needs a proxy except the proxy is also about his own feelings.) - 'why do they not fight back? I would simply set FIRE to this Navy and-' - on the reveal of Ed without his beard he murmurs 'oh, he became a human' and everyone just stares at him for 15 seconds wondering where the fuck that came from - once the thing happens at the docks it hits a nerve. yelling about how Stede might be captured or injured and why wouldn't he search for him, does he not believe in him? 'this is very sad D: why did you ask us to watch a sad thing, Guillermo!! that was very rude!!' and he storms off and has to ask Guillermo to play the last episode later when he's feeling calmer. - then it's just the two of them and they don't even hide how they're watching each other a lot.

Guillermo: - 'would I have wanted to be a pirate if I saw this when I was 10?...probably not, pirates still can't fly. and I think they're still around but they're doing some sort of political thing, in countries I don't know a lot about? I think I'd have realized some things sooner, though' - goes full camp and shouts 'oh you did NOT just bury a gay' when Lucius is thrown overboard - he gets why Stede went back. he has to take a second when ep 10 is over to call his mom. - I have talked about the kinning Izzie thing, like he sees himself there more than in Stede or Lucius and he Does Not Like It but also barely has the language to understand what he's feeling about all of it so he just gets that look like he's gonna be sick - he doesn't see the return of the Blackbeard persona coming and it gut punches him. Nandor absolutely did see it coming. they're dead silent for the final bits. - they do eventually have a very long conversation that is very ephemeral in my head but starts with Guillermo saying 'I'm sorry things never felt easy' and Nandor scoffing and saying 'you think you are why things weren't easy?' - it does not cover even half their issues but they agree to play chess together some night and not worry about who or what they are for a little while - they both think that sounds nice

[ifs-pack--empirio]

I just want to do a good job and just... not upset people. At least if that's how I was upsetting people it would be passive though. As it stands, I'm micro-managing and taking far too much charge and initiative, being far too directive in delegating tasks and administering instructions. At least if I just silently did more than my share it wouldn't ~feel~ nearly so invasive to them -- by my (flawed capabilities of) estimation -- and I'd have the plausible deniability of just being on "autopilot" and "not realizing" I was doing too much. The idea to consult my manager about how I can conduct myself more effectively just crossed my mind and I immediately dismissed it with a surge of emotion, of anger perhaps. It's bad enough I all but cried in front of her upon receiving the objectively light feedback that I needed to not be so smothering, overbearing to my colleagues. I think it hurts so much because I know this is a problem I have, a persistent and consistent one that I know needs correction, and I'm just so angry with myself for falling into it yet a-fucking-gain. It hurts that I could already fucking feel it too -- I knew it was coming, I knew it was happening, I knew I'd fucked up -- and yet it was worse than I thought: bad enough for at least one person to bring it up to our manager. Who knows?-- for all I know; every sucker who's ever had to work with me has thought this to themselves, has found me intrusive and pedantic, even if they didn't say anything to someone about it. I need to quiet the fuck down. I need to stay that way even when I perceive that someone is actually looking to me for directive or leadership or guidance or whatever you wanna call this. ... That is a "when" and not an "if"-- I know myself. I know my arrogant, self-righteous ass and inflated ego. I know I'll perceive someone wanting or needing me 9 times of every 10 interactions, and only the 1 will be when someone actually does want/need me. Tops. I need to be unengaging and, when engaged anyway, ready to cordially disengage as promptly as is appropriate. No inquiry, not about the tasks at hand nor the personal details of the people around me. Someone mentions they're considering grad school? "Ah, that could be good." Someone brings up the death of a pet? "My condolences." Someone asks if I've done xyz task? "I am [doing xyz] once I finish [abc task]." Someone makes a funny gay joke or a pun? Just chuckle and move on. Someone asks if we prefer doing abc or xyz? "I'm better at [whichever] than [the other one]"-- neither actually express a preference nor imply any emotion toward either. I just need to do what I do... and be flexible about it. But... As a proxy of my nature as the intellectualizer, I am leaderly in many ways. But I am not the leader; not a leader. It's fine for me to run internal protocols in this way for task completion in the workplace, fine for me to run the internal system like that, but this behavior and influence cannot leak outside of the pack. It's just difficult because what I do is fix (as in "set in stone") particular assignments in a particular order, and if I'm doing that all to myself, being asked to do something else by someone would just wreck all of it, which is why I involve (account for [control for]) others in the first place-- so what I've fixed doesn't get thrown off. I just don't know how to be effective here. I'm dysfunctional as it stands and- I just... don't know... we're tired, and our body hurts, and our head hurts, and we're not well- -hydrated nor -nourished today.

I only wanted to help. I was ashamed, embarrassed, remorseful; defeated. I let the pack down. I let those around me down. Maybe my/our confidence in the workplace should stay down. Maybe our (my?) tendency to speak out and our (my?) meticulous inquiry and task designation needs to just... really not be the presence that it is. Not once has it paid off in the entire 5 weeks we've been working there now. I've risen numerous comments, concerns; halted numerous processes to make sure they're going okay; but... maybe only once have I felt like it was actually worthwhile, like it actually did pay off. And even that instance I knew I was overstepping. I could feel it so bad and so hard. I should've stayed quiet. I shouldn't have said anything. What I need to do is operate in silence save for what is genuinely necessary. Offer nothing to no one. Carry out what's ordered or asked of me promptly and swiftly. Ask questions only to the extent that it's strictly necessary-- nobody has liked the extent of my questioning. I just wanna make sure I get it right. I just wanna make sure I don't screw everything up. I just wanna be thorough and reduce the possibility for error to its elemental. But I can feel the irritation and agitation of my coworkers and superiors. I don't belong here. Not with the people that are here. The job itself is great, honest. I don't not belong doing the job. But I don't belong here, in this workplace. The extent to which I'm an outlier is painful. I can feel it every day: the chasm between me and the others, whoever it is I'm with. Only with the one person have I really connected with naturally and had an affinity toward... and that person is, the circumstances are... It's a situation. Even with that person do I need to lie low and mellow out. "I know when I'm wanted, I'll leave if you ask me to-- mind my own business and speak when I'm spoken to." Those lyrics are how I need to be. I need to mind my own business and speak when I'm spoken to. I need to keep my ears level and my head angled ever-slightly downward, my tail at rest if not lowered somewhat when spoken to. I can only exude my confidence when I'm alone in the rooms with the dogs. I need to exude my confidence there because the person controls the energy of the room with dogs-- I need to be calm, confident, and chill in order to keep the dogs calm, confident, and chill. But when it comes to the other humans? I am smothering; the devouring mother archetype. I need to simply do as I do without consulting someone else unless it pertains to... I don't know. I can't even think of a solid rule of thumb right now. Clearly "at my discretion" is not fucking working but I can't think of a qualifier that would work. The others merely do as they will, and sometimes it results in an inconvenience but that's the worst outcome I've seen from this strategy. My strategy, on the other hand... perhaps it's worse than an inconvenience-- it's an annoyance. A nuisance. A leech, a codependent leech. I need to not be dependent upon my colleagues. I need to not hinge what I'm doing upon what they're doing. I'll just take the list of tasks that need completing for whatever it is and start doing it. Maybe I shouldn't really even keep track of who's doing how much. ... except to ensure that I'm not consistently freeloading and doing less than my associates. I don't know. This part isn't a good strategy admittedly-- it would be the exact same problem if I just went ahead and did everything without telling them: me overstepping the line.

[TBC-- character limit]

[crackinwise]

can you share why you don't like mara jade? personally i was sick of how the fandom worshipped this character and leia was done dirty in the eu to prop her up.

I'm gonna preface this by saying I was in 6th grade when I was first introduced to her via Heir To The Empire and a lot of my memory besides emotions has been involuntarily incinerated by adhd.

I remember being very bored and even skipping later chapters of her story. (Doing that didn't make me miss out on anything at all storywise, which is a big clue how vital she was.) I was invested in characters we knew: Luke, Leia & Han, Chewie, the droids. And the book kept taking me away to have--what seemed like--longer and longer pointless chapters devoted to telling me how great Mara was. The mixture of a 1-dimensional Mary Sue and femme fatale who sucks at her one job of being a fatale. She was supposedly Palpatine's hand, right? Some enforcer of his that adored him? So her last job was to kill Luke for revenge, and you'd think that'd be super suspenseful for any interaction in the book, but nooo. As far as I remember, it was just her failing a bunch before endless talking and the dullest flirting ever put to text. I'd say it was Timothy Zahn's fault as a writer, but I recall being invested in all his other chapters.

I'll also put a biased disclaimer that long before I knew what aroace was, I wanted Luke to be that. Focusing on being a master, training a new gen, keeping his growing family together. Attraction? Romance? Piss right off. Especially with someone this shallow and boring. If you're gonna make me endure that, at least make it worthwhile. The hero of our saga can't have someone just as interesting to join up with??

Leia was force sensitive and being trained while also working/fighting and taking care of her kids. I wanted more of that. I lived for that. (I followed her kids' stories into other book series too for a while.) But Luke kept being pulled away from his family thru the rest of the Thrawn saga to be paired with Mara's bullshit.

Idk if it was in that Heir trilogy or in later stories where Mara is super special enough to be Force sensitive too and Luke trains her. Eventually she becomes a knight then master. Like, I don't remember Leia ever getting Master status in the EU, but a cardboard Mary Sue who was under Palpatine's thumb gets it? What a surprise. I refused to read any other books with her, so by the time I found out they'd married and had a kid, any secondhand mention of Mara gave me gas. My biggest condolence is knowing she's not canon and only fanboys that were turned on by her were her stans. Unless that's changed over the years, but it still wouldn't make me care.

Ya know, typing all this out now is pretty funny because the sequels did sorta the same thing to Crylo, didn't they? He even dragged Rey, Luke's proxy, down with his tiresome life of cringe. Woof.

I'd like to hear your opinions and reasonings for disliking Mara too, if you like.

[moonlight-cp]

Proxy in Command (Creepypasta x Reader) Chapter 26

Series Masterlist

WARNING: This chapter contains sexual assault! Please do not read if you're sensitive to the topic! If you don't want to read the chapter, you can DM me and I can paraphrase what happened without going into much detail. Please be aware that the story may include some dark topics in the future. I don't want to spoil my ideas for the story but if you want to stop reading the book just because of a specific part, I recommend not to. Trust me on this!

Training with the pastas ran pretty smoothly. They all learned a new skill that they need to improve on. Slenderman individually gave them advice before they started working on it. After hours of their training, Slenderman thought it was enough for today. I wasn't expected to train with them seeing as Slenderman knew I'd prefer to individually train.

Before I knew it, dinner was around the corner. While I was on my way to my room, I spotted Sally standing on the top of the staircase. Her eyes lit up once she saw me. She patiently waited for me to go upstairs and then raised her hands signaling me to carry her. She wrapped her arms around my neck as she laid her head on my shoulder. I couldn't help but smile at her action. Seeing as we still had a few more minutes until dinner started, I thought it would be best for me to take her to my room. After all, I haven't spoken to her since the morning.

"You were great out there! I love how you kicked Ben's butt," she laughed as she sat on the edge of my bed.

"You were watching?" I asked as I gently closed the door from behind. 

"It was mostly Splendor and me," she answered. I sat down on my bed and looked at her. She seemed tired since she kept yawning.

"What were you guys doing that made you so exhausted?" I chuckled.

"We held another tea party, played board games, played hide and seek, and watched tv!" she smiled.

I couldn't help but smile a bit as I recalled the times I played the exact games with the Slender brothers. Of course, that all ended after I took my training seriously. I cut out all the fun activities just so I can dedicate my time to training.

"I can't wait to grow up and beat Ben's butt," she exclaimed. "I can't wait to train to become an assassin like you!"

A fake smile formed on my lips upon hearing her say that. I knew she would eventually be trained to become a killer, but I wouldn't want her to become like me. Training sessions were horrific and I wouldn't want her to get trained in handling pain. I wouldn't be able to witness it.

"When can I kill someone?" She asked as she tilted her head.

I got my first kill when I was seven meaning I was younger than her. There wasn't a doubt she would be a proficient killer if she started this young. I was also eager to have my first kill after Slenderman made me watch him kill humans.

"I'll speak to Slenderman about it. We can't have you chase your victim since they'll most likely get away, but maybe I can kidnap a human and have you kill them."

She nodded her head in excitement. She glanced at the door before getting up.

"I'm hungry, I'm going to help Slendy with the table!"

I silently nodded my head as I watched her tiny figure disappear. I let out a deep breath as I stared at the door.  It was obvious that she had the same spark that I once had. The only difference was that she was oblivious to what training would await her. In my case, I already knew what I had to deal with, but it didn't seem to matter. All I cared about was to become stronger and kill Zalgo. That was my motivation throughout these years. 

"She's not that different from you, love. It would be a shame if I broke her just like how I did to you."

I growled as I got up and turned around to glare at Zalgo on the other side of the bed.

"You better not touch her or else I'll personally rip your head off," I threatened him. "You should leave before Slenderman finds you, unless you want to have that battle soon and meet your doom."

He couldn't help but chuckle. He crossed his arms in front of his chest as he walked towards me.

"Trust me, darling, that won't happen until a few weeks or possibly a few months. I do hope you didn't get used to living in this filthy place."

He kept on walking towards me without any sign of stopping. It took me the courage to stand still and not back away. Even if I did, I couldn't escape since the wall was a few inches away from my back and he could easily pin me to the wall.

I kept my head up as I stared at his red eyes with anger. I knew he was trying to intimidate me.

"I do hope your nightmares prepare you for the worst."

I huffed. "So this is your plan? You're just waiting so you could get stronger and then attempt to kill us?"

He rolled his eyes, "It appears you're mistaken, my dear. I'm waiting for the right time and not to mention I enjoy giving you a different nightmare every night. As for the killing part, I don't exactly plan on killing them, unless you make me."

"So the curse returned alongside you?"

He smirked as he stared down at me.

"Of course my petal, it's a shame the curse was lifted due to my absence, but arrangements were made. Now you'll only get nightmares until you start working with me, which will eventually happen."

Ever since I met Zalgo, he would torture me every night by giving me nightmares. He claimed they would help improve my abilities. It did the exact opposite though. I was afraid to sleep knowing what would happen if I did. This resulted in me trying to stay up and eventually sleeping late at night. Sometimes I would wake up from a nightmare but I couldn't fall back asleep. I was too tired to train the next day which made Slenderman annoyed at me. My performance was worsening until Zalgo left. His nightmares left alongside him. 

I growled once again before charging at him with the dagger I had in my hoodie pocket. 

If I kill him right now, I wouldn't have to deal with those nightmares and the pastas wouldn't have to train. It would be all over if he died. All it takes is a stab through the heart.

 My thoughts quickly dissolved though. He immediately grasped onto my throat with his left hand as he pinned me to the wall. My eyes widened in fear. I accidentally dropped the dagger and used my hands to claw into his hand but it didn't work. He wasn't squeezing my throat hard enough to kill me yet I still struggled to breathe.

"I find it humorous how you strive to harm me, but you continuously fail to do so."

"Fuck you!" I choked out as I felt my eyes getting watery. I was still clawing onto his hand but he kept his strong grip. Small ragged gasps were escaping from my throat.

I hated how he always made me feel weak around him. I knew I was a skilled assassin but for some reason, I wasn't able to hurt him. 

He tilted his head as he smirked. "Darling, you won't be saying that until later."

I furrowed my eyebrows. "W-what?"

His smirk got somehow bigger. "Just be patient my love, everything will go downhill for you starting today. I can't wait to break you bit by bit and by the time I defeated Slenderman, you'll be working for me."

"I can't work for you if I'm dead," I choked as I tried to keep my eyes open.

He leaned closer to my ear. I closed my eyes as I panicked at what he would do.

He whispered into my ear, "That's where you're wrong my dear. Have you forgotten who I am? I am the king of the under realm and I have plenty of souls imprisoned. If I were to kill you, your soul becomes mine! I can revive you and mark you just so you can follow my orders. If you don't willingly follow them, I can force you to!"

He raised his arm that held my throat up which caused my body to go up. My feet were no longer touching the ground.

"That sounds like a great idea. That means I wouldn't need to wait for you." His excitement made his grip on my throat tighter.

I was afraid I was going to die here. This whole time I thought Zalgo would have wanted me to live, but now I knew my death would benefit him.

"I wanted to kill you the first time I saw you after a decade, but Zen just had to play the role of the knight in shining armor and save you. Well, guess what princess? No one will save you now!" He squeezed my throat tighter.

I kept thrashing around with my remaining energy. I was losing my strength as I kept trying to escape from his hold. I finally saw black dots forming in my vision and for the second time, I believed I was going to die. The only difference was that I now knew what was expected after my death.

Zalgo would have full control over me and without a doubt, there would be no way to escape from him. Slenderman wouldn't have a head proxy and Sally would be trained to become an assassin to replace me. I would no longer know the origins of my background seeing as I wouldn't be able to see Zen.

My eyes were closing as I weakly looked at Zalgo. I couldn't believe he won. That damn bastard had won.

I finally closed my eyes as I felt my life slipping away. I was already losing consciousness until I felt my body hit the cold hard floor.

I immediately opened my eyes as I gasped for air and held onto my neck. For a few seconds, I thought that Slenderman had arrived to stop him, but I was disappointed when I saw Zalgo smirking at my helpless figure on the ground. I was confused about why he had let me live.

"It's been ten years and you still don't know your origins?" He asked with an amused tone. "I thought by now Slenderman would have told you the only reason he kept you alive."

My heart kept on rapidly beating. I couldn't slow my breath. I was still processing that I was alive.

"The hell are you t-talking about? H-how did you read my mind! "

He shook his head. "That would ruin the fun, love."

"Why did you let me live!" I yelled at him with anger while still trying to catch my breath.

"I'd rather watch you hopelessly struggle to seek answers. Breaking you does seem the best way to go." He crossed his arms before glancing behind him. "If I were you I would keep your voice down. You don't want anyone else to get hurt, now do you?

My breath had finally calmed down. I kept staring at Zalgo with hatred. I hated how I looked so helpless sitting on the floor. All of a sudden, I remembered the pocket knife I had dropped.

" I wouldn't do-"

Before he could finish his sentence, I roundhouse kicked him behind his knee as I grabbed the pocket knife from the floor. He was about to fall in front but I pushed him on his back with my hands. I was already sitting on his stomach with my knife in the air, but then I felt my body freeze. I couldn't move a muscle which made me widen my eyes.

He had a palm facing me meaning he had been using his power to control me. He looked up at me with a grin.

"I think we got our positions mixed up my dear." He gently pushed my body back so that I was laying on the floor. My hand still had the pocket knife above my head but he grabbed it and threw it behind him. I kept staring into his eyes as if I was stuck in a trance. He gripped my other wrist and pinned both of my wrists above my head. He straddled my waist as he leaned closer to my ear.

"I love it when you're this submissive," he whispered before nuzzling his nose on my neck.

I felt tears dropping on the sides of my cheeks. I couldn't yell nor move.  I wanted him to get off since he made me remember what happened on my mission with Derek. I wanted to forget it but now it seemed impossible. Without a doubt, he was going to torture me like this.

 Zalgo took notice of my tears since he kept kissing them away.

"It's not as bad it seems love, you just gotta enjoy it."

I kept telling myself this was only a nightmare and it wasn't real but I knew it was real. I couldn't control my fear.

A knock on my door made Zalgo growl as he turned around. I felt relieved and silently hoped they would open the door.

"Y/N, dinner is ready!" I heard Splendor announce.

Zalgo turned around to look at me before covering my mouth with his hand. With his other, he touched my forehead and I finally regained control of my body except for my wrists.

"If you make it obvious that I'm here, I won't hesitate to kill him." He threatened.

"Y/N? Are you there?"

Zalgo uncovered my mouth to allow me to talk. I could either obey Zalgo or yell out for help. 

"I'll join in a few minutes!" I raised my voice as I tried to keep it steady. I couldn't risk his life or the others. I had to protect them from Zalgo. Zen would also be in danger seeing as Zalgo is capable of informing Slenderman that I've been meeting up with him.

"Alright, we're just waiting for you and E.J."

Zalgo and I stood frozen for a few seconds waiting to see if he would walk away. After a while, we both figured he had teleported away. Zalgo covered my mouth again as he smirked.

"Good girl. I can't wait to make you mine soon. I can just imagine how submissive you'll be to protect them." I felt his other hand raise my hoodie as I felt his cold hands touching my stomach.

I tried kicking him away but he was too heavy. Although he wasn't pinning my arms, I still couldn't move them. Desperation took over as I realized what he wanted to do. I couldn't scream to get help or do anything to get away from him. I kept on thrashing around until he said something to make my blood run cold.

"Is this giving you flashbacks from your mission with Derek?" He laughed.

I widen my eyes after he said that. I still didn't know how he knew about Derek.

"I enjoy going through your memories to find your weak spots, little one. But perhaps this is the best one of them all."

I felt him pull the waistband of my sweatpants down. More tears began to fall. Instead of him looking down, he kept his gaze at me. He was more interested in my reaction. I immediately kept thrashing around. It seemed to work since he seemed to get annoyed. He rolled his eyes before putting them back up. 

"It seems men touching you is your weakness especially after Derek's incident ." He chuckled. "Heck, you flinched when that elf boy grabbed your wrist." 

Zalgo moved his hand to caress my face while the other still covered my mouth.

"Or maybe you remember that special night you woke up and disobeyed my orders. Do you remember when you woke up the Slender brothers and told them about your nightmares? Do you remember your punishment?" He whispered the last sentence.

I moved my head to the side as I closed my eyes and remembered. 

Offenderman was stubborn to find out if I was alright or not after I screamed in my sleep back when I was seven. I had confessed to him I had a nightmare but obviously, I lied about the details. Zalgo was in the room listening and when Offenderman finally left my room, Zalgo revealed his presence. All I remember was him getting closer and eventually, he pulled the waistband of my pants down. I couldn't remember what happened next but it wasn't hard to figure out what he had done.

He grabbed my chin to look at him. "I saw glimpses of the future, Y/N and you're in mine. After the battle, that ends wrong for the pastas might I add. You become mine. I saw you following my commands and guess what? We even die together." 

I shook my head in denial. I couldn't be his nor could I die alongside him. I wanted to believe that he was lying.

"Darling, I can assure you that I'm speaking facts. It's your choice whether you believe me or not but time will prove me right." He kissed my forehead before uncovering my mouth. I quickly sat up and brought my legs closer to me. I couldn't look at him or else I knew I would start crying.

"I barely did anything and now you're crying? Wait until what I do in the battle." He chuckled. "Oh and Y/N, you know the rules."

I knew what he meant by that. I couldn't tell the others about what had happened or else Zalgo would murder them. I wasn't exactly planning on telling them either way.

"Next time you see me, we will have the battle the following day. I hope you're ready to become my proxy soon.

He smirked at me for a few seconds before finally teleporting away. I slowly gulped as I blinked my tears away. I didn't want to admit that I was afraid but I was terrified if everything he had said was true.

 I knew I couldn't stay in my room since the others were waiting for me, but I had to pretend everything was alright. I blinked my tears away and controlled my breath before slowly going up to open my door. To my surprise, E.J had just passed by. 

"E.J, can you tell the others I'm going to skip dinner. I don't feel well at the moment," I informed him. I feared I'll break down in front of the others and Slenderman would force me to have him access my mind.

He turned around to look at me. "Do you want me to check up on you, I can-"

"I'm fine E.J. It's probably something that I ate. I should be fine in the morning."

"Are you sure? What if it's something else?" He took a step forward.

I raised my hand to signal him to stop.

"I'll be fine," I insisted. "Just tell the others that I'm sorry that I couldn't join them."

Before he could reply, I went back inside my room and locked the door. I felt the need to wash myself. To wash Zalgo's touch. 

I ran the showerhead before slowly taking off my clothes. Once I got inside the shower, I sat on the cold titles as I hugged my legs. I stared at the shower doors fogging up. I wanted to let out a cry, but that would prove to Zalgo that he had won.

I closed my eyes as I leaned my head on the wall. With one of my hands, I grabbed my throat as I finally let my cries out. 

(...)

I was still in the shower as I sat down in the hot, flowing water. I didn't move a muscle as I stared at the water droplets on my knees. I fully lost myself as I recalled what just happened. I lost track of time and spent over half an hour there. 

Zalgo knew my weak spot and without a doubt, he would use it against me. Now more than ever I started to doubt myself. I wouldn't be able to kill Zalgo if I kept this up. I was afraid if what Zalgo said was right. That I would become his.

I let out a sigh as I closed my eyes and leaned back against the shower wall. Never in my life have I ever felt this weak. I felt worse than when I had the mission to kill Derek. I worried if I wasn't able to kill Zalgo. He's the greatest threat against us and I couldn't rely on the pastas to kill him.

After a few minutes, I finally convinced myself to get out of the shower. I slowly put on my new clothes seeing as my old ones would make me recall what just happened. 

I turned off the lights before I lazily walked to my bed. I covered myself with the sheets as I numbly stared at the floor where the scene took place. I knew it was best to look away. 

A couple of minutes passed before I heard steps coming from the hallway. I heard the door open before Sally spoke out. 

"I don't care if I get sick, I want to sleep with her," she insisted before closing the door and locking it

I couldn't help but smile at her childish behavior. 

I felt her get on my bed and move around to get into a comfortable position. She curled into a ball with her facing me. A few seconds later she snuggled into me. It was a chilly night so she wanted to seek warmth.

I used one of my hands to run my fingers through her hair. She didn't seem to mind seeing as she did not move. 

"Do you feel better?" She broke the silence.

"Yeah, now that you're here," I whispered.

I stared at the darkness before finally closing my eyes. I couldn't enjoy it seeing as I knew I would be tortured with nightmares from now on.

Series Masterlist---Next Chapter -> (Chapter 27)