#and then the dinosaurs do not react instantly and i cannot get used to that

[atwas-gaming]

Wow. I have got to figure out how to run old games on my shiny, modern gaming PC, because the new Carnivores remake. SUCKS.

[bluefirewrites]

I'm sorry about your presentation, idk if your still doing hcs but can you do one where Reggie is julies older brother by 1 or 2 years and Julie in love with Luke and Luke likes her as well but neither will do anything because of Reggie. If not its ok. ☺

I brought up an idea similar to this a while back! But let’s rework it. 

In this scenario, let’s say that the Molinas and the Peters' have known each other for a long while, ever since Julie and Reggie were kids. They’ve pretty much grown up together. 

And then they get older and a lot of shit happens. Julie’s mom dies. And Reggie’s parents finally get a divorce. 

As the two families are healing and trying to move on, eventually Ray and Reggie’s mom sorta just clicked. 

And years later, they ended up getting married- officially making Reggie Julie’s brother. 

They move into the Molina’s house and they transition to one big family so seamlessly that Julie often forgets that Reggie isn’t her brother in the biological sense. He’s always been an older figure to her, always looking out for her and Carlos. 

She’s so used to having him around. And even used to having Reggie’s friends around growing up. 

They all met when they were in middle school, but Julie hasn’t seen them much over the years, only seeing them during special occasions or whenever she would go to the Peters’ from time to time. 

She remembers Alex, the shy blonde one who does his best to keep the peace when everyone got too rowdy. 

And then Bobby, who is just hitting his stride in his sullen, moody teenager phase. Still nice though. 

And Luke, the wild one. The guy was all long haired, energetic, and sporting some gnarly braces the last time she saw him. 

She hears a knock at the door the night Reggie and his mom had moved in. Julie opens it and it’s the boys: Alex, Bobby, and- woah. 

“Julie?” Luke smiles, his long hair cut to a still shaggy ‘do, braces gone, and now ripped, telling by how he’s proudly wearing his Nirvana cutoffs, “No way! Long time no see,” 

“Y-yeah,” Julie instantly wishes that she wasn’t wearing her dinosaur slippers at the moment. She leads them all inside, telling them to make themselves at home while they wait for Reggie to come down. 

Julie hurries off to her room, red in the face, internally freaking out about the idea of a cute guy coming over to her house on a regular basis. 

A cute guy she cannot get involved with... imagine how Reggie would react... 

The guys note the dreamlike expression on Luke’s face as he watched Julie go up the stairs. Once she’s gone, Luke whirls around, “Has she always been like that?” 

“Squirrely?” 

“No...” Luke drops his voice down to a whisper, “I mean, has she always been that cute?” 

Alex and Bobby shoots this idea down real quick, “Woah! No no no! Off-limits! She's off-limits, Luke!” 

“How come?” 

“She’s Reggie’s sister,” 

“Step-sister,” 

“Still,” Bobby cuts in, “You know Reggie. He takes the brother role very seriously. He won’t let you stand a foot away from her if he heard what you just said.” 

“If who heard what?” Reggie says, coming down the stairs. 

“Nothing!” They all exclaim, and Luke silently thanks the boys for not ratting him out and invoking Reggie’s wrath. 

He does know how Reggie can get when it comes to Julie. He’s already so protective of her. So he’s not going to try and do anything to piss him off. 

And besides, he just finds her cute. It’s not like anything’s gonna come from it. 

Wrong. 

Luke and Julie are hardcore pining for each other the more time the boys spend over at the house. 

And they’re over a lot. 

Julie would come into the garage, now a studio space for the boys’ band, and watches them practice. 

Somehow Luke finds a way to gravitate towards her. Always standing beside her, ready to show a song he’s been working on or just ask how she’s doing. 

And Julie would find an excuse to hang around the boys, whether offering to help with songwriting or help clean up the equipment. One time, she hands Luke his guitar and their hands met. They both blush but quickly part before Reggie could see what transpired. 

They sneak little casual touches here and there, both to gauge if the other person reciprocates their feelings and to hide whatever was going on between them from Reggie. 

This all coming from the fear of Reggie flipping out on them. 

Apparently when the boys bring up Nick from Julie’s class, joking about the way he was starry-eyed when dancing with Julie (secretly trying to get a rise out of Luke), Reggie immediately asks Julie about a thousand questions: 

“Who is he? What does he do?” 

“Do? He’s a student. In my grade...” 

“Oh. No job? So he’s a deadbeat, huh? Doesn’t sound like a suitable match,” 

“What are you going on about?”

“Does he like the Star Wars Prequels? Yes or No? There is a right answer” 

“What does this have to do with anything, Reggie?”

“I need to know if he’s good enough for you!” 

Reggie starts watching Nick like a hawk at school, going out of his way to intimidate the junior (well as much as he could. he’s still pretty much a puppy and super non-threatening). 

It’s getting ridiculous. 

So Julie goes to talk to Luke, to try and nip this in the bud before Reggie notices their weird behavior. She manages to play off needing help to get something in the laundry room to get him alone without suspicion. 

“Look, we can’t do this anymore... whatever this is,” 

Luke nods, “Agreed. Reggie’s my best friend.” 

“And he’s my brother,” 

“I don’t want to do something that would upset him,” 

“Me neither. Glad we’re on the same page,” 

“Right. Same page. So just friends. Deal?” she sticks her hand out. 

He shakes it, “Deal,” 

They lock eyes, appreciating how the other one looks under the warm dimmed light. 

It takes only about .5 seconds for them to crash their lips onto each other’s, igniting a full on make out session. And by the time they finished, they realize their mistake. 

Uh oh. 

They can’t go back after this. 

Now they really have something to hide from Reggie. 

They sneak around the house, whenever they could. 

Luke would make up an excuse to grab water or go to the bathroom in the middle of rehearsal, just to sneak up to Julie’s room to grab a quick kiss and maybe a small tickle fight just so he could hear that laugh he loves so much. 

And Julie would join the boys at the dinner table, sitting next to him and discreetly slipping cue love notes into his pocket that she knows would make him blush and smile all goofily later (and if they turn into potential song lyrics? Well that's for them to know).

Alex warns Luke the next day, “I think he’s catching on. Be more careful,” 

They spend more time together now that Julie starts writing songs for the band. Her and Luke would huddle over the piano, scribbling the night away, always sitting dangerously close to each other.

Once, Reggie observes them quietly from the couch with an unreadable expression on bis face.

“We are careful,” 

Bobby raises an eyebrow at him, “Really? You tried to pass off the hickeys on Julie’s neck as rashes.” 

“And Reggie bought it, remember? He went out and got ointment for her and everything,” 

“He’s not stupid, Luke. You better do something about this. Fast,” 

Luke sighs, “You’re right.” 

Later that night, Luke pulls Julie into the upstairs bathroom, the one between her room and Reggie’s, to talk. 

“Jules, as much I want to keep doing this... I can’t stand lying to Reggie,” 

“Me too,” she says, “So, let’s just tell him. I don’t like hiding you.” 

“But we need to plan it out. We can’t just spring it on him,” 

“Catch him in a good mood hopefully, and we’ll tell him together,” 

“Sounds like a plan, boss,” 

“Love it when you call me boss,” Julie smiles, angling her head up to kiss him. 

Just then, the door connecting to Reggie’s room bursts open and the said bassist enters in his bathrobe. His eyes grow wide at the sight of them tangled up in each other. 

“What is going on here?” 

The couple breaks apart. Julie and Luke jump to opposite sides of the bathroom, hands up in surrender. 

“You didn’t lock the doors?” Julie hisses at Luke

“Was not my main priority!” Then Luke steps forward in an attempt to calm Reggie down, “Hey, Reg, pal, um, what you just saw-” 

“You guys were kissing in here?” he yells. 

Julie and Luke lower their heads, “...yeah,” 

Reggie sighs, throwing his hands up in the air, “Unbelievable!”

“Reggie, we’re sorry-” 

“In the bathroom, really? Can’t you guys do this in the laundry room like you usually do? My toothbrush is here, come on!”  

Wait. What?

Did they hear him correctly? 

“You knew?!” Julie all but screamed at her brother. 

“Duh. You’re not really subtle,” 

Luke splutters, “B-But Nick-” 

“Found out real quick that he’s not the one I should be worried about,”

“And the... the, well..?”  Julie gestures lamely at her neck, “Why did you get me ointment?” 

Reggie smirks, “Just to mess with you.” 

“So... you’re not mad?”

“Nah. Like I said. I need to make sure whatever guy you end up with, Jules, is good enough for you. And, well, I’ve known Luke almost all my life. And I trust him. Honestly, there’s no other guy I could think of that could be a better match for you.” 

Luke’s hand rests on his shoulder, “You mean that, Reg?” 

“Of course. I’m happy for you guys. But uh...” he sticks his thumb towards the door, “Could you like skip on out of here. I did come to the bathroom for a reason.” 

“Oh, right,” 

“Your Tia’s chicken went right through me-” 

“Ok, Reggie! We’re leaving!” 

“But one more thing,” 

Luke and Julie stop in the doorway leading to the hallway. 

“If you think I’m bad,” Reggie shakes his head, “Try breaking the news to Carlos,” 

Luke pales, “Oh no,”

“’Oh no’ is right,” 

The couple spins around to find Carlos in the hallway, arms crossed, staring them down, “Care to explain why you two were in the bathroom?”

“Well, uh, um, we were-” Luke turns to Julie, but the girl is nowhere to be found, having already yeeted to her room to escape an overprotective Carlos. 

Luke throws a pleading look at Reggie, “A little help here, buddy?”  

Meanwhile, Carlos is unamused, carrying so much tension in his small body that it has Luke gulping nervously. 

“Nope you’re on your own,” he winks, “Make sure to tell him about the ‘rash’ while you’re at it.”

And with a laugh, the bathroom door closes. 

“I can explain...” 

[jeaneybean]

@raptorsquadblue

Here yo update on the Vera

We’ll go back to when she had the baby, which was back in the in world equivalant of November. I had a chart to roll on for how she’d act when she saw the baby, and when I rolled it was the awful ‘She loves him, but is terrified she’ll ruin him’ so the poor baby, who still doesn’t have a proper name, gets a bit neglected from mommy as she pulls into herself and tries to push him on everyone else. Havilah eventually gets some awful backstory when he tries to get her to hold the baby because it needs her and learns her dad threw her down a flight of stairs at one point and broke her arm. She doesn’t deal well with early motherhood, even less so when Bip detect thoughts on the baby to read his baby thoughts and he’s wanting her heartbeat because that’s the sound he’s heard his entire life.

Vera’s still struggling a month later when she gets a letter from home, from her father, disowning her. This is the first thing to really get her mind clear from how rageful she is. She lets Havilah read the letter (and he rips off the name portion, as does Amy to the prop Sam gave me) before going off to write a letter of her own back to him. She tells him that he can’t disown her, basically, and that ‘I have the echoes of your adoring parenting etched into my bones’ and ‘There is no power on this earth, not arcane nor divine, that can change that I’m your daughter’. and at this point is all on the ‘okay let’s go back to langly and beat the shit out of my dad’ route.

However it’s heavy winter in the country they’re in, and they get snowed in. No one is happy about this. Bip hibernates. Havliah’s like ‘aaaaaa’ Oz is like ‘why is the snow sticking around’ Vera is like ‘oh dear sweet redeemer NO’ and eventually talks her way into a werewolf run with her and bear to get out of the castle walls.

Once the weather’s good the caravan packs up and finishes our last business in the country (killin vampires) before getting out of dodge. WE have some more usual adventures and Vera crams the new law book her husband sent her (not at all looking at the law named for her family that lays out in writing laws against child abuse. Her twin brother had always been braver than she is, after all). They have some adventures with hags and meet another adventuring party, and they roll up to the grand town of Dragonport which is the biggest city in the world.

We have like a two month tournement arc, with a sidequest of a group of investors wanna meet with us and have us talk to the queen for them. They’re trying to get a postal service started. Turns out, they’re a group of Brass dragons that realized (unbeknownst to us) that they can get that sweet sweet goss from letters (that they magically re-seal after reading) AND people pay them to deliver. The party goes before high court and argues before the child queen and her advisors and the dragon post is started. Meanwhile the group fights in a tournement honoring the gods Mayana and Shepard. Havilah’s appendix ruptures and the enitre group is like a what is an appendex aaaah.

Jasna wins the tourney, and we also gain a new party member named Desert Glass, she’s a half blue dragon (and the entire party was INSTANTLY horny on main when she came out. Magnolia’s player is back and playing a different character.) and we head on ship to Langly. We have to make a pit stop in Spea, because despite paying insurance and having a contract, we’re attacked by Spea pirates. (It’s like. A government job.) We go to Spea, meet Oz’s mom, go to Oz’s college and yell at his headmaster, and we get on a boat and go to Langly. Vera’s baby Mishka says his first word, which is fuck. Vera: Oh right these learn to talk.

On the way to Langly we’re again attacked, this time by a plesiosaur from Dinosaur island that’s being followed by Sahaugin. There was a notable moment where Vera called over and asked these Sahaguin if they worked for Spea (because a lot do, in tandem with the pirates) and they were like FUCK SPEA GIVE US THE (thing that was riding on the plesiosaur). I beleive I narrowed my eyes and Taylor started snorting, because Vera does not like to be told what to do.

Oz turne his familiar Veli into an 11 headed hydra and sent her down to murder sahaguain. This was terrifying and amazing and it deserves it’s own damn paragraph.

A day before we land in Langly, Bip bips off to mainland and finds Vera’s husband and is basically like ‘hey getinto this bag of holding I’ll take you to your wife’ and Vera’s beautiufl idiot husband is like ‘oh okay’ and climbs in and wakes Vera up the next morning. 

When they land Mishti takes them around on tour, but eventually the baby (Mishka, as Vera’s been calling him. Her little teddy bear) starts fussing and Vera puts him into Bear’s saddle bag because baby is comofted by bear. Of course, Bear has never been to this city before and gets lost. With the baby. So they have to start tracking the baby down and go to the watch headquarters- which is in Vera’s house that she grew up in. (Grandmama, who controls all the deeds in the family, evicted Vera’s father and gave the building to the watch) So Vera’s gotta go up the stairs and greet Allahandra, a paladin in her order and the former queen, and get her dam baby back. THe baby swears at Allahandra delightedly. Vera is beyond mortified.

The next day Vera gets a summons from Grandmama asking her and her friends over for tea. Vera’s like ‘hey guys, here’s a rule: have fun where you can because no one has fun with Grandmama.’ Beofre they leave Oz stops MIshti and asks him if there’s any new developments that the family could use against Vera. Msithi admits a big one: Vera’s brother was also disowned. However, he’s ran away to join the Von Rothrine family. Y’know. The vampires we’ve been fighting in MOntesylvania. Vera reacts appropriately bad.

 When they go in to Vera Medvedeva the first’s tea room she has cakes and treats set out for everyone. They’re customized. Treats from vera’s favorate bakery, she makes traveler’s coffee when she sits down for Havilah, there’s citrus cakes from Spea for Oz, Mamoul and date candies for Desert Glass, sugary treats for Bip. Grandmama comes in and throws her weight around when she can, drops that Desert Glass is apparently a princess from the country of Dasadan, but she seems mostly interested in creeping out Havliah and Oz and also telling everyone about Vera’s past. Poor Girl. She wasn’t allowed to have friends, you know. Her father insisted. And did you know she couldn’t read until she was eight? I had to step in and get her a tutor. Vera SMASHES a sense motive and is like ‘We’re not killing dad for you, Grandmama’. Grandmama, for her part, seems amused by everyone.

They head out, Vera getting the butler to call her father down to talk to her. He’s still big like she remembers, and he tries to blame her for her brother being taken by vampires. (SHe brought this on the family. IF she hadn’t used their name it never would’ve come. they had to offer him up like a lamb to slaughter) and vera has a good moment where she’s basically like: stop blaming me for all of your problems, you’re a grown ass man and I know if you had a chance to grab any power you’d let them drain you dry.

It’s good she has that one moment, because that’s the last one she has for a while.

She gets the party together and is basically like: I wanna get my dad legally. I want to catch him breaking the law, I want him tried, and for once I want the lawt o work for me. So Bip and Oz start a mini crime gang (Because vera also is like ‘I have otaths i cannot crime) and Bip sets the house attached to Grandmama’s on fire because he’d followed Sieger in there through a hidden passage. Meanwhile, having a perfect alabi across town is Vera drinking in the watch’s favored bar. OUr entire party had a perfect alabai.

Vera gets a few more mental blows to go with the ‘my twin brother is going to be a vampire and when I scried on him he looked happy for the first time in years’ one she’s got going in the form of actually going to church and thinking the new pope hates her as well as a second tea with Grandmama. Meanwhile, Bip steals letters from the post box to find out Sieger’s been in contact with Anton Bellek, a vampire from Durmond that tried to get the party to work with him. Also: The first person Vera introduced herself to as Vera Medvedeva, because she didn’t want to use her marrie dname. Her father hadn’t been lying: she did bring the vampires to his door. Though, he’s been working with them. And he plans on leaving the city soon.

So the group takes this all to Vera, who takes the ‘you did in fact lead the undead to your family’s door and now your brother is going to be a shell of who he used to be’ B A D. She makes a decision that she refuses to let him leave the city  and get out into the world. She’ll feel responsible for everything else she does. If she falls, she falls.

The party: but you said specifically you didn’t wanan do that though.

So Vera leaves to go find her mentor, who’s over the moon because the pope, after meeting with Vera, approved him getting funding for his pet project inspired by Vera, which is a research division to help questing paladins. Vera’s like ‘I’ll unpack ths later’ and drags him into a room to ask him if he’s ever fallen. He had, twice. He tells her about both and she asks the question: Was it worth it. Hesitantly, he says it was, and all but begs her to be careful. She promises him everything will be okay.

Meanwhile, the party comes up with the only plan they can: The easiest thing they can get him to jail for is assault. Desert GLass had asked Vera if she’d be fine being bait earlier and she’d said yes, so the plan is to send Vera to talk to him and get him to punch her. They break apart like ‘go team’ and go to find Vera and Havilah, who’d pulled her into a talk where vera is like ‘I am totally cool with murder’ and he’s like ‘please let us help you not fall’.

SO back over to the family house and Vera’s like HEY HEAD BUTLER LET’S GO TALK TO MY DAD and gets let into his room where she basically acts like she owns the place. They argue, Vera being a vicious as she can, and eventually he grabs her by the arm and pulls her to her feet and throws her a bit, and when she refuses to retaliate he lunges. Before Havilah can get into the door he manages to do like 20 points of damage to her, all his unarmed strikes do a good ammount (and he beat all of her grapple checks, and one of hers was a 28. Curious) Havliah knocks him into unconciousness with one head crack into the floor (also curious) and they call the guard.

Oz points out something to desert glass because he feels terrible: their grand plan was sending an abused woman back alone to incite the man who abused her. This marks the point where vera stops sleeping, btw.

Bip has a horrifying encounter with sieger when he goes to fuck with him in jail where Siger snatches him out of the air twice and pulls him against the cold iron bars purpousley to hurt him.

Allahandra comes by the next day and poses the idea of Vera going to get her older brother Genya to testify and Ver’s like ‘yeah I should do that’ and the party goes up there. Vera is very, very not interested in talking to Genya and doesn’t look to him, and the party notes both of their very defensive posture. Vera stays behind in the wagon while the rest of the party goes intside, but with some force from the party Genya goes out to give Vera dinner and to offer her to come inside.

Vera finally lets loose on him, which is basically like “I lost Volya, Genny. I lost my brother”. And Genya asks her if she thinks the law will actually kill their dad, and she laughs and tells him that if it doesn’t she will. She comes int he house when he offers again, though her postiure is very defensive and she doesn’t really interact. She also doesn’t sleep that night.

The party heads back to Langly and as soon as they get back to the caravan, everyone but Vera (who at this point has a -6 to all her rolls from being exhausted) hear the news: Vera’s Grandmama was found dead that morning. Oz and havilah take her to her husband for him to break the news. Anya tells Genya, who’s basically like ‘good riddance, if they iill dad too this’ll be a great week’.

Vera does not take the news well. She walks off to the first room with a lock she can find and breaks down sobbing. Grandmama’s a terrible person, she’s a legitimate monster, but Vera still loved her.

Through some magical intervention she’s forced to sleep that night and wakes up and goes to church grumbinglyly, getting her prayers out ofr the first time in like three or four days so she’ll actually have magic and her bear. This is also the point where her 12th level that she put into Dragon Rider pops in, because she gets her dragon. He’s red. He’s pretty much instantly attacked by mercinaries. His name means Smart Ash. Vera loves him already.

More stuff happened, and Vera’s still in a horrible god awful mood, and as she’s gonnat ell the dragon she’s still 50-50 on if she just burns the rest of the Medvedevs down at the funeral because the only ones she cared about are daed. But we’ll see!